A Way to Teach Songs

Yesterday, to wrap up Unit 9 "A Memorable Event," I taught Class 209 a very inspiring song "Smile," which was written by Charlie Chaplin. This is a good song to teach the students rhyming.

Instead of having students listen to the song and fill in the blanks in the meantime, as I sometimes do, I asked them to figure out what the missing words were, with the help of the rhyming scheme. The whole class worked together and got all the blanks right. When Chen, Le (陳樂) gave the word "sorrow," and Wu, Yi-kuan (吳易寬) the word "sadness," which rhymed with "tomorrow" and "gladness" respectively, their classmates were quite amazed.

The following is the lyrics of the song presented to the students yesterday, followed by a video from YouTube. While the song I played yesterday was sung by Lisa Ono, this version was sung by Michael Jackson, with some clips from Chaplin's films.

Smile

Charlie Chaplin

Smile though your heart is aching.
Smile even though it's ¹_____________.
When there are clouds in the ²___________,

 

You'll get by,
If you smile through your fear and ³______.
Smile, and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through

For ⁴________.

Light up your face with gladness.
Hide every trace of ⁵_________________.
Although a tear may be ever so near,
That's the time you must keep on ⁶________.
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just ⁷__________________.