A solution to the scarcity of effective materials is the implementation of creative classroom activities that move beyond reliance on textbooks. These activities can enliven instruction, and can be developed using realia or other authentic materials from the target culture. Some activities introduce students to cultural information or characteristics, while other activities can make up the backbone of the language component of an EFL program. The following activities have been used successfully to teach English as a foreign language to students in Czecho-Slovakia and could easily be adapted to EFL teaching situations in other countries. Selected key words are removed from the text of the song and are placed in a word list that precedes the song lyrics.
Students fill in the missing words as they listen to the song.
Individually or in small groups, students then mark off the words as they hear them in the song. The first student or group to check off all the words is the winner. Students must number the phrases in the order that they appear in the song. An alternative activity is to write the song phrases on sentence strips. Students must then organize the strips in the proper order.