Music

Language level: Intermediate (B1) – Upper Intermediate (B2) Learner type: Teens and adults Time: 60 minutes Activity: Revision of vocabulary, watching a short video, and speaking Topic: Music Language: Adjectives to describe emotions and genres of music Materials: Short video

www.film-english.com by Kieran Donaghy 2

Music

Overview

This EFL lesson plan is designed around a video commissioned by the Barbican arts centre, London and the theme of music. Students practise the adjectives to describe emotions, watch a short video, talk about music and discuss quotations about music.

Step 1

Ask your students to come up with as many adjectives to describe emotions as they can in two minutes.

Step 2

Elicit the adjectives and write them on the board.

Step 3

Tell your students they are going to watch a video in which they will see some emotions expressed. As they watch they should note down the emotions they think are being expressed.

Step 4

Show the video without sound and pause at 01:15.

Link: https://vimeo.com/75013716

Step 5

Pair students and ask them to compare the adjectives they noted down.

www.film-english.com by Kieran Donaghy 3

Music

Step 6

Ask the learners for the emotions they think the people were feeling and write them on the board.

Step 7

Ask the learners what was happening when the people were feeling these emotions.

Step 8

Now show the video with sound and ask the learners to answer the question:

Why are they feeling these emotions?

Step 9

Students will almost certainly answer that the people are listening to classical music. Explain to them that the video is an advertisement for the classical music season at the Barbican arts centre in London.

Step 10

Brainstorm different types of music and write them on the board.

Step 11

Dictate or write up the following questions:

• What kind of music do you like listening to?

• Where do you listen to music?

www.film-english.com by Kieran Donaghy 4

Music

• What emotions do you feel when you listen to your favourite music?

• Is there any type of music you listen to when you feel blue/happy/anxious?

Step 12

Get students to compare their questions and then elicit the correct ones.

Step 13

Ask the learners to discuss the questions in pairs.

Step 14

Hold a plenary session based on the questions.

Step 15

Divide the class into groups of three or four. Show the students these quotations from musicians about music and ask them to discuss them and choose their favourite quotation.

www.film-english.com by Kieran Donaghy 5

Music

www.film-english.com by Kieran Donaghy 6

Music

I hope you enjoy the lesson.

Film English is a labour of love, it takes hundreds of hours and thousands of euros a year to sustain and provide free English language lesson plans. Keeping it a free, clean, ad-free experience — which is important to me and, I hope, to you — means it’s subsidised by the generous support of readers like you through donations. So if you find any inspiration, joy and stimulation in these English language lessons or if they help you teaching English, please consider a modest donation — however much you can afford.

http://bit.ly/1eaF4vl