Music and EFL

Nerina Pallot

Lesson plan

1 Ask students to bring a song on their mobile phone, mp3 player, cd, cassette etc to the next lesson which has a message, i.e. a song that is trying to tell us something. That message can be personal, political religious etc. Also ask the students to find the lyrics as well. The easiest way is to put thetitle of the song in quotation marks with the word, "lyrics" in Google.

2 Students give each other the lyics and the song to listen to (using headphones, of course) and ask their partner to say what they think the message is.

3 Give out the lyrics to the song first (I think this exercise works best with songs that the students are unlikely to know).

4 Students discuss;

a - possible meaning of the lyrics
b - type of music that accompanies them
c - when and by what kind of musician/group the song was performed
d - possible commercial sucess of the song

5 Students work together in groups to swop opinions.

6 Play the song and ask students to see if their guesses in (4) were correct.

7 Students write about the message of the song they brought with them and why it is so important to them on their blog .

Everybody's Gone to War Lyrics
Artist(Band):Nerina Pallot

Everybody's Gone to War Lyrics
But we don't know what we're fighting for,
Don't tell me it's a worthy cause,
No cause could be so worthy.

If love is a drug, I guess we're all sober,
If hope is a song, I guess it's all over,
How to have faith, when faith is a crime?
I don't want to die...
If God's on our side, then God is a joker,
Asleep on the job, his children fall over,
Running out through the door, and straight to the sky,
I don't want to die...
I-I-I-I
I-I-I-I
don't want to die,
I-I don't want to die...

so...
Everybody's going to war,
But we don't know what we're fighting for,
Don't tell me it's a worthy cause,
No cause could be so worthy.

If love is a drug, I guess we're all sober,
If hope is a song, I guess it's all over,
How to have faith, when faith is a crime?
I don't want to die...
If God's on our side, then God is a joker,
Asleep on the job, his children fall over,
Running out through the door, and straight to the sky,
I don't want to die...
I-I-I-I
I-I-I-I
don't want to die,
I-I don't want to die...

I've got a friend, he's a pure-bred killing machine,
I think he might be dead by Christmas...