Have you realized how poignant that old favorite, sung by Abba way back when, is?
Ideal for taking into class with you at the beginning of term.
Here's a quick little exercise that you can print off and drag in as an ice-breaker or warmer.
Instructions
- distribute sheet
- tell class to fill in as much of the blanks as they can, then
- play song, first time straight through without stopping
- get them to check with each other and compare answers
- play song, second time stopping after each sentence
- compare answers
- discuss key vocabulary
- discuss meaning of the song and 'the time' it was sung in
- the gap fill basically works on a 'lexical chunk' system in order for you (your students) to pay particular attention to the way words group together. If you're working with a group of fairly fluent and motivated students you can also use this activity as a philosophical discussion tool. ABBA sung this pre-internet, pre-a lot of other things and older students who were around when this was a hit will have much to add to the pot.
Video of this song
The official ABBA site has a gorgeous video with lyrics on screen. That's here.
More songs related to the new year on youtube here.
Useful links related to this posting:
- Song meanings here, Song facts here.
- Download video on to your laptop, blog about that here.
- Netbooks, blog about that here.
Do you have any suggestions or comments? Don't hesitate to add your thoughts below.
Best,
Karenne
Posts
Another possibility would be to do the following:
· find several "pairs" of rhyming words in the song (in this case, you/blue, grey/say, then/friend, arrives/lives, before/floor, find/line)
· write these in a jumbled order on the board
· ask students to find the rhyming pairs of words
· then give the lyrics out and ask them to complete before listening
Actually, if you DON'T tell them it's a song (let them think it's a poem) then the motivation is much higher when you say "Okay, let's check answers... this is a song, we're going to listen to it".
To paraphrase another Abba song: Thank you for the music Karenne, the blogs you're giving...
Thanks Lindsay,
Great tip! I love the idea of surprising students (especially the business types) with a song.
BTW - do you know (or anyone else) of a semi-recently published methodology book on using songs in ELT?
Wanted to make a book recommendation at the end of this posting, dug out an old workshop I used to give but I hadn't referenced it ;-(.