Hollywood is dead or is it?

This is my contribution to the 33rd ELT Blog Carnival titled Songs in ELT Classroom.

I made this worksheet quite a while ago and had forgotten about it until I read the theme of the current blog carnival. I thought it would be a good opportunity for my worksheet to have a second life.

This is one of my favourite Michael Bublé's songs Hollywood. The great Canadian singer himself has described the song as "being about his "tongue-in-cheek statement on the culture of celebrity". Notice his impersonation of Justin Bieber, it is amazing!




You may download the worksheet below with the traditional task - while listening, students have to write the missing words which they hear or insert the given verbs or nouns. The pictures serve as prompts.
The song lyrics are included in the worksheet, as well as the link to the video on YouTube. The second page need not be given to the students.

After listening, you may discuss with your students the idea of the song and ask the students if / how they understood the phrases "Hollywood is dead", "you sold yourself for this...", "love what is true...". Discuss the notion of celebrity culture, its illusions and false values. Ask why Hollywood represents a magic place where all dreams come true and if they always become reality.

What can you do with MentorMob?

MentorMob is a fresh web service for creating a series of related websites on any topic one may fancy. It is a form of content curation done by assembling a list of web links on one topic. They are arranged in a playlist which can be viewed step by step or by going straight to the chosen website. It is easy to use and available for free.

MentorMob is a very convenient tool to the teachers who want to compile a list of useful links for their students. It may be a collection of tutorials, grammar quizzes, reading or video resources, blog articles - practically anything that can be found on the web. MentorMob can be effortlessly used by students for putting together a list of their favourite game or video sites or collecting useful webpages for doing the research paper.

To illustrate what the playlist looks like, you can see my compilation of websites with audio files and listening tasks - The Best Websites for Developing Listening Skills.

Create your own Playlist on MentorMob!

Here are two more playlists by me:
The Best Websites for Teaching Writing
The Best Websites for Grammar Activities

Last but not least is the colour of the website which is my favourite - green. Lettuce-green, lime-green, lawn-green, olive-green, mint-green, spring-green, sea-green? I love them all and it was inevitable that I'd be attracted to MentorMob!

Homework sent in as an audio file

I have a group of very bright students who love trying out new things. This time it was homework recorded online and sent in for me to evaluate.

For recording the speech, I chose the simplest tool on the web - Vocaroo. It is seldom mentioned when different audio recording programs are discussed but it is absolutely perfect for beginners or young students. There are no buttons, no frills, no nothing, just a box which you click to record. And yes, the only thing you need is a mike. The tool does everything itself and at the end you just send the file to an e-mail address. (In this case, students sent their files to me.) The file can also be downloaded and it can be embedded which I am going to do here. Awesome!

For this homework my 16-year-old students had to write and record the story My first date because we are studying the theme Relationships. They were allowed to tell the truth or invent the story, and here is one of the stories told by a boy who is an avid gamer.


Updated on December 1, 2011. Just learned that Vocaroo does not keep the recorded files for long (my guess is half a year), this and many other files recorded by my students have been removed. I was not smart enough to download them or save in some other way. Disappointed.........

Singing with The Wiggles

Had I taught little kids, I may have discovered these fantastic singers - The Wiggles, children's musical group from Sydney, Australia - a couple of years ago. But I did it only now, and like a kid myself, I kept listening to their songs and crooning along until I thought I had heard enough.

It is a must for those who work with little children! Check The Wiggles on YouTube or search Google or Yahoo videos. Even adults might love listening to these cheerful, catchy and relaxing songs!

Listen and relax!

Here is my little gift to you - a lovely song that will go perfectly well together with thoughts about why people celebrate Valentine's Day (those who do). Because they feel unloved or, on the contrary, they are bursting with love? Because they are open to any fun that passes by or they are in need of brushing up their lives? What if there is nothing behind?

Just enjoy being alive!

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

Ladies and gentlemen, Leonard Cohen! 

DANCE ME TO THE END OF LOVE

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love

Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love

Another online task

Here is another task which I made for teaching Present Continuous. It contains a video (a popular song by Fool's Garden) so you will need loudspeakers. Enjoy!
TASK 2