Song lyrics are often difficult to comprehend, even for native speakers of English. You’ll notice that the activities below don’t require students to understand every word of a song; instead, each activity homes in on one aspect of a song that is accessible to English language learners–an easy-to-sing chorus, for example. The activity is built around that feature.

The activities are:

1. The Targeted Cloze
2. Summarizing the Song’s Story (and making the summary“disappear”)
3. Class Discussion on a Song’s Theme
4. Building a Lesson Around a Repeated Phrase
5. Writing New Song Lyrics
6. Singing or Speaking the Chorus
7. Walking Lyrics-Dictation
8. A Minimal-Prep Lesson
9. One-Question Interview on Music

You can also find tips for Matching a Song with an Activity and general Tips for making your song-based lesson a success.