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Does anyone know any good songs for teaching collocations to Intermediate adults?
matt_matt's picture
I am about to teach a Delta assessed lesson on collocation and thought a listening lesson would be nice. Unfortunately I can't think of any suitable songs. Any ideas out there?

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Submitted on 9 October, 2008 - 04:09

Hello teachers, 

Let me introduce myself. My name is Murali Nair. I am from India. I am working in Karnataka state. I am working in a Muslim dominated area and the parents approach to learning is indifferent. In order to improve the listening and pronunciation skill I am using Boney M's Songs. Songs like "We are damn with crazy books" and "Don't kill the world"

I found this very effective and children are enjoying the sessions. I am preparing the lessons as a power point presentation and first I am playing one or two lines of the song and asking the children to write whatever the words they can catch. Initially it was very difficult for them to understand the words but slowly they improved. I am very happy to share my lessons with any teacher, if they are interested.

With warm rgds

Murali Nair

Submitted on 9 October, 2008 - 10:29
Hi Matt   Any particular groups of collocations you are after? Collocations are so ever present in the English language, it's hard to find a song with out them!   Here's a few sources of places you can find songs with music and lyrics and even get students to sing along!!!   http://www.karaokeparty.com/en http://beta.luckyvoice.com/ http://en.yappr.com/welcome/VideoList.action   Hope these are useful Best
  Nik Peachey | Learning Technology Consultant, Writer, Trainer http://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/ http://quickshout.blogspot.com/

Submitted on 9 October, 2008 - 12:37

Hi there! 

The song I use to teach collocations 'for the first time' is "Every Breath You Take" by The Police.

Is it suitable for you or do you need collocations on a particular topic?

Cheers,

Rogerio Paes Costa

rogeriopaescosta@gmail.com

Submitted on 15 October, 2008 - 00:22

Rogerio thank you for your tip. I am teaching a BULATS Upper-Intermediate course and was doing some work on gap filling in sentences. Part of the tips was to look at collocations when completing the exercise. After explaining collocations and giving some examples, I finished with the song you suggested, and the words on PowerPoint. I believe this really hit home with the course attendees and they understood a little more about the difficulties with collocations.

Best regards

Bruce.

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