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SpinOff=Songs for low levels

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:57 pm
by MELI
Hi everyone.
I teach young adults in Mexico, mostly lower elementary level of English.
I'm currently complinging a list of clear easy to understand songs for them. I'm trying to get songs from as many different genres as possible to allow for different tastes. (I currently have a class of 32 and only 5 claimed to liking the Beatles! :shock: )

This is what I have so far.

Hello Goodbye, The Beatles
Yesterday, The Beatles
What a Wonderful World, Sam Cooke
What a Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong
You Are So Beautiful, Joe *beep*
Eternal Flame, The Bangles
Imagine, John Lennon
Love, John Lennon

As you can see, not a wide variety of genres.
Anyone else have any ideas?

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 3:20 am
by bradwelljackson
How about:

Alley Oop Hollywood Argyles
I´m a train Albert Hammond
It hurts to be in Love Gene Pitney
Fish Heads Barnes and Barnes
Mr. Custer Larry Verne
Neanderthal Man Hot Legs
The Game of Love Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders
I'm not in Love 10cc
Something's in the Bag (Forgot the group, very obscure)

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 6:51 pm
by Brian
Hi Meli

With lower levels I've used...

Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head (in every line I give the studnets a choice of two words. They have to listen and circle the correct word)

Tom's Diner - Suzanne Vega (great for present continuous)

Only You - Yazoo / The Flying Pickets (I do it as a gapfill and use both versions of the song. The students listen twice and hear each version once)

She's The One - Robbie Williams (pronouns gapfill)

Downtown - Petula Clark (vocabulary worksheet ... matching words to definitions ... followed by a gapfill)

Don't Know Why - Norah Jones (past simple)

I Can See Clearly (good for weather vocabulary)

But there are hundreds of songs you can use. When I decided to make a bank of song activities for various levels, I just looked through my own music collection and chose songs based on two things:

1. songs I thought my students would enjoy

2. songs with lyrics that were easy for lower levels to follow and which I felt I could exploit for some language learning.

From there, I got the lyrics from the internet ... then tried to think of as many ways as possible to turn the songs into listening activities, vocabulary exercises, games, puzzles or whatever.

It's certainly worth doing, since some of the songs I've made over the last 3 or 4 years, I've used more than 30 or 40 times (others didn't work quite so well as I'd hoped, so I abandoned them ... but I now have about 20 song activites that I can use as fillers or warmers at the drop of a hat).

I hope this helps.

Cheers

Brian


Grammar COMICS for your students: www.grammarmancomic.com



.

Easy to Understand Songs

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 12:38 am
by titansrst
Hole in the World - The Eagles
My Girl - The Temptations

Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 4:25 pm
by trubadour
My No.1 music hit has been Green day - Basket Case
the more immature will enjoy it because it has the word 'sex' in it.. :roll: