Frosty the Snowman

 Frosty the Snowman

Syntax through Lyrics

                              Final Project     ⇌     Kristina Johnson

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OVERVIEW

Lesson Plan: Create and write new lyrics to the song, Frosty the Snowman

Level: 6º

Subject: English and Culture

Materials Needed: SMART Board, sufficient enough copies of "Frosty the Snowman" Cloze exercises for students, student writing utensils, corncob pipe, button nose, two coal eyes, and sufficient enough copies of the original "Frosty the Snowman" lyrics

Digital Tools and Sources: Frosty the Snowman Slideshow and Frosty the Snowman Video

Time: 45 minutes (one-two class sessions)

FINAL PROJECT

This story is a classic and well known by the typical American. Many cultural references are made to this story, which my colleagues and I wanted to expand upon for the students. Many students were familiar with the song but were not aware of the fact that a story existed. We decided to enlighten the students and encourage their musical creativity. This particular group of students had an upper-intermediate-level of English, which meant they could experiment with the language and not get confused by the new sentences. Students were fluent enough to independently apply the established grammar rules to the new assignment. 

RATIONALE

CLOZE exercises assess whether or not students can fully apply the gramatical rules and vocabulary to complete the sentence(s). This is a high-level assessment to evaluate if students comprehend the lesson or not (Seifert, 2023). Students worked in groups in order for the teachers to manage and assist all students during this exercise.

OBJECTIVES

Fill in the blank with a grammatically correct word or phrase that is different than what appears in the original lyrics.

MATERIALS NEEDED

• SMART Board
• Corncob pipe
• Button nose
• Coal eyes (black sunglasses)
• Student writing utensils (pens, pencils, rubbers, etc.)
• Sufficient enough copies of the original "Frosty the Snowman" lyrics for students
• Sufficient enough copies of "Frosty the Snowman" Cloze exercises for students
• Five copies of "Frosty the Snowman" script
• Frosty the Snowman Slideshow 
• Frosty the Snowman Video

ACTIVITY

This lesson will occur over the span of one class session, two class sessions are permitted if students do not complete the writing portion of the activity. Students are asked to tell you what they know about Frosty the Snowman. Allow for students to discuss what they know with you before showing vocabulary slides to review with them. Next, show the video of the "Frosty the Snowman" song. Once the video is shown, explain that the three English language teacher assistants will present the story and need two student volunteers to assist them. The English classroom teacher (Spanish teacher) assists in managing the seated students and provides support as needed (makes additional copies, directly interprets instructions/confusing English words into Spanish, assists in small groups, etc.).

The students and the language assistants read the scripts and act out the story. Once the story is complete, the students and the teachers show the song video again before receiving instructions on what to do next. Students are instructed to complete the CLOZE exercise. An original copy of the lyrics is provided to the students in order for them to refer back to as a reminder of what the English sentence's syntax is like. Students are NOT to fill in the blanks of their CLOZE exercises with the same lyrics from the original song, but rather to create their own lyrics. Students will work in groups with one of the language teachers or the classroom teacher. Language assistants serve to answer grammar related questions, guide students on correct pronunciation, and assist in filling in the words. The classroom teacher manages his/her group and answers students' Spanish language related questions or explains vocabulary using the English words the students already know.

Students are given a limited time frame of when to work in their groups. Once the time is up, each group will present their songs to the other classmates. The groups will sing their versions of the song. Teachers can modify the materials by creating longer or shorter CLOZE exercises to meet their students' needs. These exercises are great for portfolios. Our students enjoyed the activity and wanted to complete the entire song, which is why this assignment may take longer than one class period. 

All student needs are met through these variety of exercises used to tell the story. All learning styles (kinesthetic, linguistic, verbal, artistic, etc.) are met through these activities and encourages students to interact with each other in English. Time management is essential when implementing this lesson. Students with special needs could sit at a different table if they were overstimulated by the noise volume level of the activities. 

SOURCES

Christmas Songs – Frosty The Snowman. (n.d.). Genius. https://genius.com/Christmas-songs-frosty-the-snowman-lyrics

frosty the snowman gap fill. (n.d.). iSL Collective. https://en.islcollective.com/english-esl-worksheets/listening-comprehension/song-and-nursery-rhyme-activity/past-simple-tense/frosty-the-snowman-gap-fill/38810

Seifert, S. (2023, July 25). 10 ESL Cloze Activities to Fill in the Blanks on Missing Vocabulary. FluentU English Educator Blog. https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/esl-cloze/

Frosty the Snowman © 2023 by Kristina Johnson is licensed under CC BY 4.0