Song Activity: The Lumineers "Ho Hey"

This nice song starts with the verse entirely in Present Perfect Continuous so I used it as an extension activity with my Intermediate students following the revision lesson on PPC.

1. Start with a song dictoglos activity. Tell the Ss that they are going to listen to the song and the first part consists of 5 sentences in PPC. Then play the verse a couple of times, allowing students to write and compare their results .(They are fairly easy to grasp since they have the same beginning). Do a whole-class check and write up the sentences on the board. Here you can focus on the language a little bit more and draw your Ss attention to the fact that there is no usual time indicator like for or since. Or ask them to listen to pronunciation changes that occur in fast speech (dropping of "v" sound).

2. Prediction. Now it's time to look at the meaning of the lines. Ask Ss to predict what's the song about based on the beginning. Depending on how much time you have the descriptions can be more or less detailed.

3. Listen to the song and check the predictions. If the Ss can't get much from listening you can elicit general idea: is it a happy or a sad story?

4. Listening more closely. Give out the lyrics of the song. Ask Ss to listen again and cross out an extra word in every line. Compare in pairs, then do a whole-class check.

5. Now it's time to look at some possibly new words and phrases. I found that the text of the song doesn't have many difficult or unknown words for Intermediate students. However, their combination can cause some problems. So we discussed some of the questions related to expressions in the text

When do people bleed? Can you bleed from non-physical causes?
If I bleed out for somebody how do I feel about the person? It's quite a tricky question, you can refer Ss to the urban dictionary definition that gives an insight into this line.
What can make a person think that he/she doesn't belong? Have you ever felt this way?
What can go wrong in the relationship?
China Town, Canal and Bowery are the places in the city. Can you guess which city it is? (answer: New York)

6. If you think your Ss understood the lyrics ask them to reconstruct the story of the couple working in pairs/groups.
What happened? Are they together or not? How do they feel? What was the reason for their break up? Why is he regretting about her not taking the bus? What would have happened if she had taken it? 
Hopefully, Ss got some ideas in the previous stage and can imagine the rest. If they are having a block, you can prompt them with more questions. Help with any vocabulary or grammar questions.

7. Ss write up their stories on the pieces on papers (I don't think they should be too long, 5-7 sentences should be enough) and display them around the room. Allow everyone to read each other's stories.

8. Within the same pair/ group Ss choose the story they liked the most (it shouldn't be theirs) and write up a dialogue between the main character and the girl based on the story. Ask them to imagine their meeting on the Canal a month later and come up with a short conversation.

9. Ss role-play the dialogues. For homework, they can write a letter to the main character from the point of view of a girl.

"Martha" by Tom Waits. SONG ACTIVITY

For this St. Valentines day I prepared a song activity for my two teenage groups. It is based on a beutiful song by Tom Waits and includes predicting exercise, correcting the lyrics and discussion.
I used this song after watching the short animated film Paperman and using lesson ideas from Kieran Donaghy website. I also asked my class to write two narratives describing the story from the point of view of the man and the woman. After listening to their stories I asked them whether they think these people are still together, which led us to a discussion of not so happy love stories.
Before listening to the song, I put 5 lines from it on the board and asked students to predict what kind of love story it is (happy, sad), what happened and whether the couple is still together. Here are the lines I chose: 
a) I love you , can't you see?
b) We were so young and foolish
c) Meet me out for coffee
d) You know that I got maried, too?
e) It's been so many years.
Students suggest their ideas and then listen to the song without lyrics and put the lines in the order they hear it. The correct order is: e, c, d, b, a

While listening. I distributed the lyrics of the song with one word in every line in italics. Students have to listen again and decide whether highlighted word is correct or not. In the latter case students have to correct it.
Worksheet
Answers: days-years
thirty-forty
speak - talk
better-older
boyfriend-husband
sensible-impulsive
think - guess
feel-see

After listening. I find this song perfect for discussion. First of all, the language is relatively easy, and then it has a clear setting, story and characters. There are many opportunities for discussion. I went over each verse with my class and asked following questions

Verse 1

Who is the main character? What's his name? (Tom Frost)

What is he doing? How does he feel? (He is calling on the phone, nervous, sad)

Who is he calling? (Martha) 

What is he afraid of? Why? (that she won't remember him, it's been 40 years)

What does he suggest? (meet for coffee)

Verse 2

Where are they? (probably, at a cofee place)

What do we find out about the characters? (they are both married, Martha has kids)

How does he feel about her? (happy for her)

Verse 3
What do we find out about the character's past? (He was impulsive, they split up)

How does Tom Feel about Martha now? (He still loves her)

Chorus
When is it set? (In the past as opposed to all the verses)

What do we know about their life in the past? (They were very happy, they had romantic relationships)

Can you guess what happened between the characters? Why did they split up? (Here students can speculate based on what they found out in the verses. For example, it might have to do something with his impulsive character, the fact that he needed to assert himself as a man. Also the fact that they lived "like there is no tomorrow" can contribute to the fact that their romance was short-lived.)

Students will need to speculate using the lyrics of the song.

In the end, we listened to song one more time.  I allowed them to sing and many of them happily agreed!

Homework options: 1) Write a dialogue that could have happend between Matha and Tom in the cafe. 

2) Choose an English song about love, find lyrics to the song and compose an exercise (similar to one we did in a class or just a cloze text). On the next lesson, distribute the exercises among students and ask them to listen to the song at home and complete the lyrics.

I hope you enjoy this song and activity too!