Using songs and music in the classroom

Levels: Upper Intermediate

Aimed at: Young learners/young adults/adults

Aims: To enhance students´ knowledge in the lexical field of adjectives of quality/To practise listening skills/To encourage pair work and autonomous learning

Time: +/- 60 minutes

Materials: Handouts 1,2&3/video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGUmXBgPvrg

1. Have 11 dashes, one for each letter of a name Meryl Streep (hangman)

Once the name is completed, ask students to work in pairs and brainstorm different facts from Meryl´s life, have following questions displayed on the board:Where is she from? Do you think she is a good actress? Has she ever won an Oscar? How many films has she made? Do you remember any? Have you particularly liked any?

Open class feedback: students share their ideas. Elicit correction of language collected during monitoring. +/- 10 minutes

2. Put following words on the board:

Bra/dungarees/blanket

Tell students that they are going to watch a video and these will be some of the objects they will have to describe

Provide students with oral definition of one and ask them to match it to the corresponding word. Continue until all definitions are matched:

A piece of underwear that a woman wears to support her breasts.

Loose trousers that have a square piece of cloth that covers your chest

A cover for a bed, usually made of wool +/- 5 minutes

3. Give out Handout 2 for each student.

Explain that they are going to watch a short clip from Mama Mia.

Show students the image of Meryl`s hair (Handout 1) and elicit different adjectives of quality we can use to describe it:

Long/blond/ curly/thin/thick/beautiful/gorgeous;

Have students watch a video. Students work individually and write two or more adjectives to describe each item on the handout.

Have students brainstorm ideas in pairs before watching the video again.+/- 20 minutes

4. Ask the students to work in pairs and discuss which category the adjectives belong to (Handout 3) and describe the objects according to the rule:

(opinion/size/age/colour/origin/material) +/- 15 minutes

Handout 1

Handout 2

Watch the video. How would you describe the following:

1. Donna’s hair: _________________________.
2. Donna´s hat: __________________________.
3. Donna´s dungarees: ____________________.
4. Donna´s blanket: _______________________.
5. Donna´s room: _________________________.
6. Tanya´s personality: _____________________.
7. Rosie´s personality: ______________________.
8. Rosie´s bra: ____________________________.
9. People at the table: _______________________.
10. Streets of the island: ______________________.
11. The bridge: _____________________________.
12. The sea: _______________________________.
13. The video: ______________________________.

Handout 3

Katarzyna Piotrowska