EdPuzzle_Space Oddity

These days, we have been talking and learning about a topic my students really love: music! They enjoy sharing their preferences (interestingly, not all of them are reggaeton fans!) as well as discovering new instruments and styles. I use any chance I have to introduce culture-related topics, and I think it is important that English learners are aware of the enormous influence of some English-speaking artists and songwriters. Therefore, I decided to use a beautiful video by Andrew Kolb, which illustrates the lyrics of David Bowie’s Space Oddity.

The objectives of this session are:

• Learn new vocabulary related to space and space travelling.
• Revise stative verbs, present simple and present continuous.
• Listen to Bristish music and get to know David Bowie.
• Read and understand a story (with visual aid).
• Sing a song focusing on pronunciation.

I included the video in the following sequence of activities:

• First, students got to know David Bowie by reading their biography (a group of students had created a TimeToast timeline about him)
• Then, I asked them to revise stative verbs at home, and after that, in class, they watched the music video and answered the questions.
• In class, we watched the video together and read the lyrics. They had to summarize the story.
• Finally, we listened to the song and sang together. That was the best part!

·       Although I did not really flip the classroom, I asked my students to revise some concepts before watching the video. Stative verbs are not totally new to them, but they learnt about them a couple of weeks ago, so they still need to consolidate some ideas… Still, it was a nice way to revise them without consuming extra class time.

Students enjoyed the activity, despite the fact that some of them were reluctant because they claim they do not like “old-fashioned” music… In the end, they found the activity interesting and liked the EdPuzzle format, because they had never used it before. Besides, I’m happy we could re-use material created by the students to introduce the task.

Next time, I’ll try to include other type of questions –not only grammar exercises-, because what students enjoyed the most was discovering the story of Major Tom.