For this assignment you are going to write a skills lesson plan for a pre-intermediate listening lesson using the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin.

To find the song lyrics, go to page 22 in the following link: (Methodology Resources booklet). You can also find this booklet in the Resources unit at the end of the course.

Remember that we use a skills lesson structure to practise listening, so make sure you have all of the headings and activities below in your lesson plan. See below to find out more about what should be included.

1. Lead-in

Here we introduce the theme of the lesson – you don’t need to focus on listening yet.

2. Pre-teach vocabulary

Choose a few words from the song that are crucial to the understanding of the song or that can’t be figured out from context and teach them here. Please list the words you would pre-teach and explain how you would teach meaning.

3. Predictive skills

Set a predictive task for the students to do before they listen to the song. They should predict something they think they will hear in the song. You can use the title or the theme here to generate ideas about vocabulary, or set some questions and get the students to predict the answers. Don’t forget to follow up on this after the main listening tasks to see if their predictions were correct.

4. Listening for gist

Here you want to check students have a general understanding of the song. Set students a task that focuses on the mood, the theme or the general feelings. (This is the first time you play the song). NOTE: provide students with only about 2 mins to do this, so you force them to listen for gist and not detail.

5. Feedback

Elicit answers and/or get pairs to share answers then elicit.

6. Listening for specific information

Now check students understand things more explicitly. Set students a task to listen for specific pieces of language within the song and detailed meaning of the song. (This is the second time you play the song – you may need to play the song twice here, as the detailed listening is more difficult). NOTE: provide students with more time here as they need to listen for detail, say about 10 mins.

7. Feedback

Now check the students’ answers to the listening tasks you set. They could compare their answers first to increase STT, or get them discussing why they chose their answers or give alternatives.

8. Follow-on activity

Now sets a speaking or writing activity that continues the theme of the lesson.