Reprinted by permission. Some peple have asked me for some of the acivities I do with Music in class. They listen to song once, at the second time they fill in the blanks - as much as possible. Finally, they listen to it another time to check if they got the balnks filled in correctly. This activity takes up to 20 mins.
Blanks can be very helpful when teaching subjects like Simple Past.
Pick up a song that has may verbs in the past tense, blank them out and give in parenthesis the verbs in their base form. Have the students complete the song rewriting the past tense of each verb. This will help them memorize the past form of regular and irregular verbs. Teaching ESL in a non-English speaking country is a challenge. Even advanced students sometimes tend to go their mother-tongue in the classroom.