Lyric Lineup is a fun game for young learners. It’s useful to practice listening‏‎ in TEFL.

Preparation

First choose a song suitable for the class. This means it needs to be the correct level‏‎ in terms of vocabulary and grammar and also suitable subject matter. For younger learners you can use simple nursery rhymes even.

Print out the lyrics in a large font and then cut them into strips, one line per student.

Note that if you want to demonstrate the activity, you can prepare a very short song for the class. For the actual activity you can prepare something slightly longer.

Demonstrating the Activity

You can explain the activity to the class by demonstrating it. Have 4 students come up to the front and give each one a line of lyrics:

1. Yes sir, yes sir,
2. Baa, baa, black sheep,
3. Three bags full;
4. Have you any wool?

Now get them to read out their line. They then stand all together in a group.

Play the song and as each student hears their lyrics they must get into the correct order. You can help with this for the first few times and also ask the rest of the class to call out and help.

Running the Activity

Once the class have understood the idea, hand out randomly one line of lyrics to each student. Get them to read the line out loud and check for any unknown words and understanding. It doesn’t matter if a line is repeated!

Optionally – if the class is quite advanced – you can have them try to organize themselves into the correct sequence before they hear the song, but in most cases you’ll have them listen once to the song and as they hear their line they rush to the front of the class and get into the right order.

When they’ve done this, play the song again so they can check their order.