This is a listening exercise – fill in the blanks with the gerunds you hear. The exercise uses the song “That’s Important to Me” by Joey and Rory who sing about the values and related norms important to them.
This activity follows a reading entitled “The Influence of Culture” in Chapter 2, The Power of the Group in Academic Encounters 3, Reading/Writing 2nd ed. by Jessica Williams, Kristine Brown and Susan Hood. It extends the topic of values and norms by hearing the values representative of many Americans as well as allows the instructor to add a grammar focus of gerunds which are predominate in the song, and the words students are asked to listen for.
The handout is attached. << Values – Listening Exercise >>
- Distribute the handout and ask students to listen to the song for the gerunds they hear then write in the blank.
- Since the video is not captioned, I have provided a handout with lyrics filled in to assist students who are hearing challenged. They can search for the gerunds on the lyrics sheet to write in the blanks. I have not underlined on the lyrics sheet to make this exercise require locating the gerunds to fill in the blank.
- The URL to the video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzHpYyB_F3U
Hi, I’ve been a professor of ESL at Yuba College since 2003. In that capacity, I teach our advanced writing courses and VESL-related courses; i.e., Computer Skills for ESL and English for Employment. Prior to Yuba College, I have lived and taught in The Czech Republic, Turkey, Kuwait, and England. My interests are sports such as skiing, hiking, biking, and traveling for long periods to anywhere I have not been.