Chanson de Thomas Fersen « Deux Pieds » :
_« Fill the blanks »
_“Imagine the video.
_“Give advice to the character.”

How did you pick this theme or topic?

I love listening to music and usually, so do the students. It’s a good way to discover French culture (even if this song is old), and it’s a very good exercise to listen to the language.
You can also create follow up activities to have the students be active, and speak.
I chose a slow song in order to “test” the oral comprehension of the students.

How did you present the material? (Handouts, group work, general discussion, student presentations, etc.)
General discussion
Group discussion.

How did students react?
They found the song a little hard to understand because of the use of idiomatic expressions, and the fact that the singers skipped some sound ( usual way to speak)
They really liked the song though, and they had fun trying to imagine how the video would be.
Did they engage with each other and you?

Yes. All of them tried to guess, both the lyrics, and how the video would be.

What materials or media did you use? (articles, satellite tv, digital projector, etc.)
Computer (youtube), handout

Please attach a copy.
Below are the lyrics of the song, and the plan I had with me in class.

Would you recommend this activity for a future class?
Yes, because they liked it, it’s a good exercise of which you can modify the difficulty level according to the song.

1) warm up : 5-10mn. « quoi de neuf… ? »
2) Introduction of the topic: « Do you know some French singers? Groups?…)
3) Introduction of the song and the singer.
4) Song without the text and without the video
5) I give them the lyrics with the blank, they read it and ask for what they don’t understand.
6) Song again, they have to fill the blanks
7) Correction and explanation. (expressions)
8) Try to imagine how you would create the video for this song
9) Discussion and then comparison with the video
10) Everyday life: The character doesn’t do anything right. Give him advice ( work on expression to give advice and orders “ il faut que”, imperative mode…
11) Picture of the singer