Looking for songs to teach tenses!

Hello!

Why don't you use Avril Lavigne? The song "Don't Tell me" has lots of verbs in the Past Tense, including questions with did. It's not a new song, but it works for teens

Good Luck!
Cintya Maria

Yes! Since last week I've been reading Avril's songs, and that was one of the lyrics I was thinking about. Thanks for your idea 🙂

Another song to teach past tense is Summer Nights - Grease .. there are many regular and iregular verbs.

I have successfully taught the song "the Rose" in a lot of classes. I would print out the lyrics with 20 words missing.
The students would listen and try and fill in the missing words. Lots of past tense.
I would also ask the students which words rythme, the metaphors.
Other questions to see if the students understand the meaning such as, Do you think that the writer believes that people should be careful about love.
I have also taught REM, Everbody Hurts. It led onto some interesting discussion.
I chose this song after learning about some alarming suicide statistics in China.
I did this lesson plan at an English corner in Hubei and to be honest, it was incredibly emotional, people told me their stories and I was moved to tears.
I don't teach songs much, perhaps only one per course and use the song to enhance their vocab, listening and language structure.
To play a song and have them just listen and sing along, for me, is a waste of time.

This is for younger audiences but might be good to just have in your favorites for reference
Free ABC Songs: Your favorite kids song mp3 downloads for free, lyrics, and sheet music

You can use the song Because you loved me by Celine Dion, it has a lot of verbs in past tense and students love it! 🙂

There's another song to teach present simple continuous: "Lemon tree" by Fool's Garden. It's quite old but I love it!!

'bang bang' by nancy sinatra is also a good song to teach simple past

You can try to use "Who Knew" by Pink is a really good song with many verbs I used it and my Ss loved it

If you need tons of free songs to teach many different concepts, then go to Kids Music, Children's Music - Free MP3 Downloads of Kids Songs. Here you will find many fun mp3 songs listed in alphabetical order. You just have to choose what you want.

I used "whatever will be will be (Que Sera Sera)"... it's very popular here in Thailand anyway and the kids really enjoyed it, even my 18 year olds!

Hi guys! Amy Winehouse is a nice and popular singer and her song "Back to Black" can be worked in different ways in class. Good luck to you all!

By the way, Pink's song Who knew is great

Although most young people would not think this is for them, Johnny Cash - If I Were a Carpenter is good for conditionals. The vocab is a little difficult in places though.

JOHNNY CASH - IF I WERE A CARPENTER LYRICS

I usually use the songs La Isla Bonita by Madonna(works well as I teach in Spain) or Yesterday by the Beatles for the past simple tenses. Although they are not recent songs the students recognise them and the Beatles song is quite slow so good for lower levels/weaker students!

alexander rybak with fairytale the eourovision winner.My students loved it

Thanks for the tip. 🙂

humpty dumpty

it has a catchy tune, is well known with students and easy to act out in class. also covers normal action verbs 'sat' and verbs of state 'had' etc

hope this helped!
julie

Hi there!!! I was also looking for a "modern" song for my students to practice simple past -specially with irregular verbs. I found out "He wasn't there" by Lily Allen. It's a really nice song and they liked it a lot!

Hello, The song "Another day in the paradise" by philip collins is very useful to teach final "s" pronunciation