When we were young

Based on Adele's song from her third album 25, this activity can be used with Intermediate level and up. The main focus is listening to chunks, followed by discussion of the song and reviewing the use of like/as.

UPDATE (23.7.2019): After consulting Adele's official website it does seem that the bridge of the song goes It's hard to admit that... and not "It's had to win me back" as previously believed - thank you to my wonderful teacher trainees for pointing it out. The handout and the teacher's notes have been updated accordingly.






It's been a while since I posted a song-based activity, so here's one for one of my favourite songs this year.

Handout

Procedure

Activity A (Pre-listening)

Play just the second chorus - from 2.58 to 3.51 in the video embedded above.

Activity B (Listening)

Play the whole song (from 0.42). Students listen and tick the chunks they hear. Allow 1 min to compare the answers in pairs before taking feedback. The answer key can be found in the Teacher's Notes below.

Activity C (Post-listening)

Encourage discussion about the meaning of the song. Most of it, of course, is open to interpretation; however, some possible answers are suggested in the Teacher's Notes.

Activity D (Language focus)

This can be assigned as homework and done using netspeak.org. See how this online tool can be used to teach common lexical chunks HERE

Activity E is adapted from LeanEnglish website, which also has a brief explanation of the rules.

Teachers' Notes

Let me know how it goes. For other song activities, click HERE

If you have used other songs for listening to chunks, do share in the comments below.