Songs and Translation

Just a quicky today as classes start in 13 minutes.

I've been doing this activity with my classes for a little while and I've found it really develops understanding and paraphrasing.

What I do is play the first few lines of a song. Get students to write what they hear. Listen again, compare what they have to make sure it's ok then I ask them to translate what they have both literally and adapting whatever idiomatic language might be contained within the first 4 lines of the song.

After they've translated it I ask them to translate it back into English but they have to avoid using the same vocabulary, as far as possible, to the original.

I then go through the entire song, using some kind of gap fill. when we're done with that I translate another section of the song. then back again. In doing this it makes the students think about exactly what message the singer is trying to convey.

The most recent two songs I've done this with are. Ed Sheeran's hit Thinking Out Loud and the Kooks early naughties classic Naive and of course my favourite all time song Everlong by the Foo Fighters.

You can do it with any song you desire and there are a plethora of options out there on the internet if you're looking for ready made materials. If you look in my materials folder at the top you'll find two or three songs already done. Help yourself.