Norwegian Wood

Level: False Beginners/Elementary

Timing: Approx 30-40 mins

Mats: Version of the song; something to play it on; X copies of the gap fill lyrics.

Aim: Practising identifying the type of word that is missing (eg verb, noun etc); practising subject & object pronouns.

Notes: Full text available here.

Haven't finished this section yet but hope to do so soon.Click here to hear an MP3 version of the song. You will need Realplayer which can be downloaded from www.real.com .
If you play the guitar your students will be most impressed if you play them the song live. Click tab for, naturally enough, a tabbed out version of the song. 

If you don't play obviously you can obtain the song from the usual sources or indeed download it as an MP3 file from Audiogalaxy. Go to my songs page for instructions on how to do so.

Stage One

Give the students the hand outs. Point out that each gap represents only ONE missing word. Tell them that when presented with an exercise of this nature the 1st thing they should do is identify what type of word is missing eg. noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, preposition etc. Ask them to attempt to do this for each gap in the song & ask them how they are doing so.

You may need to help them 

eg. an article before a one word gap means that this MUST be a noun - gaps 1, 7, & 10.
The SVO (Subject Verb Object) word order of English sentences tells us that the the third gap must be an object and therefore stongly indicates an object pronoun.
Same for the 6th gap.
The only possibilities for the 4th & 8th gaps are determiners eg. articles, possessive adjectives or ________

Even beginner level students have the ability to process this information & it's a good idea to get them used to the idea from the an early stage.

Stage Two

In pairs the students think of possible words to go in the gaps. 

Stage Three

Play the song. Ss listen to see if they are correct.

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