A wee treat for Ed Sheeran fans ↓

This quick activity is based on Ed Sheeran's "Shape of you". My teenage students are absolutely crazy about this song and have been nagging me to work on it for ages.

Apart from completing a typical gap fill task, students write a short story using some words and phrases from the song.

To begin with, students work on the first exercise in order to get familiarised with some vocabulary from the song.

Then, they listen to the song and complete the gaps in the lyrics with the words from the first activity.

 After discussing the song and the lyrics (make sure you explain the underlined words/phrases and any words your students don't know), students draw a piece of paper with a character's description written on it. They need to work individually or in pairs and write a short story about the character. They need to use at least 6 words or/and phrases from the song.I always encourage my students to use the words that are new to them. 

In the end students swap their stories and looking at the list of all the characters they try to guess who's described in the text. Encourage them to justify their choices and ask authors of the text to confirm/reveal their true characters. 

I came up with this activity with my intermediate students in mind but it can be easily adapted to higher levels by not giving them the first activity and asking them to fill in the gaps without help. 

Downloadable worksheet  → Ed Sheeran "Shape of you" activity


For other ideas how to use songs in teaching and more downloadable worksheets click here