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What do you want to be?

Target Language: I want to be ....
Target Grade: All ages
This song is in the Teacher's Set
And in the new curriculum Level.




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What do you want to be?
======================
by Richard Graham

What do you want to be?
What do you want to be?

I want to be a rockstar.
I want to be a baker
I want to be an artist
I want to be a vet

I want to be a rockstar.
I want to be a baker
I want to be a artist
I want to be a vet

What do you want to be?
What do you want to be?

I want to be a dancer
I want to be a florist
I want to be a baseball player
I want to be a superhero.

I want to be a dancer
I want to be a florist
I want to be a baseball player
I want to be a superhero.

From a careers education perspective it's much better to teach "I'm a doctor/farmer etc," rather than "I want to be" which can be more vague than a definite "'I'm a ...".

But most English courses use "What do you want to be?" so here's a new song to make it fun. It's a full on rock song so is ideal for older kids as well!







How to teach ....

This sentence can be a big of a mouthful. But it becomes quite easy if you teach "What do you want to do?" first and simply change the "do" to "be" for this lesson.

There are hundreds of possible answers to the question. There are 11 in the "What do you do?" song and I've chosen 8 more here. But the main point isn't the vocab as much as the actual question and answer

The easiest way to teach the song is to ask the kids what they think you, the teacher, want to be when you grow up! Cue lots of comments from the kids.

When they happen to guess any of the jobs from the song, pop the picture card (coming soon!) on the board. Keep going till they've got all 8. The kids love guessing, plus it gives you a great list of extra jobs that the kids want to say in English which you can teach in the following lessons. The tension really increases when there is only one left!

You will need to either speak the kids' own language to do this or have a team teacher there to help you.

Once you have all 8 (or you cheat and give them hints if you are running out of time!) teach the song without the music. Once the kids have got the hang of it kick in the heavy guitars on the mp3 and watch them rock out as they sing along! Of course gestures for the jobs make the vocab stick in the kids heads, especially "rockstar" is a killer with anyone who has played "guitar hero" - which I think is everyone on the planet isn't it?

The final "superhero" of course links in with the "I'm a superhero" song.



And just like Kamila's fantastic kids here, you can have lots of fun making skits and videos with this topic!



Game 1: Name Card Game



The name card game is always popular for jobs.


This is a great game from Nigel based on the Pink Fish game that perfectly links "What do you do?"with "What do you want to be?"

1. Put several jobs picture cards, face down, at one side of the room.
2. Put another set of cards on the other side of the room, again face down.
3. Put the kids in teams.
4. The front person from each team races to the first pile of cards.
5. They choose a card and say "I'm a ...." plus whatever is on the card.
6. Then they rush over to the other pile of cards pick another and say "I'm a ...." + the first card, then "I want to be a..." plus whatever is on the second card.
7. Two points for saying both phrases, an extra point for being the fastest team to do it and an extra bonus point if both of the jobs match!




It's a great way of getting kids used to joining sentences together and is also very useful for introducing other tenses in a simpler way.

Evaluation Worksheet (What's this?)



This song is in the Teacher's Set.



Enjoy!




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