Question
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