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Theme: The British music industry awards
Lexical area: Music and prizes
Instructions for language assistants in Italics
Classroom materials
Introduction
The Brit Awards are to the British music industry what Oscars are to the international film industry. The Brit awards started in 1977. Many young people in the UK take a great interest in the awards and they have opportunities to vote for the winners of some of the categories. This year the Brit Awards are going to be held in London on February 20th. If you use the lesson after this date, simply adapt task four by giving the students the results of the winners of each category at the end. You can find these on the internet, see the links below. This year the award ceremony is going to be hosted by Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne.
In Task 1students listen to clips of different types of music and give their opinion of it. Alternatively you could introduce the lesson with an activity using a song by one of the Brit Award nominees. Task 2 is a mingle speaking activity for students to find out who the music fans in their class are. Task 3 is a reading task to introduce students to the Brit Awards and Task 4 looks at the nominees for this year’s awards. Task 5 asks students to select their own nominees imagining a similar award ceremony is going to be held in their country. This should give plently of speaking opportunities as students compare and discuss their music preferences. The Task 6 asks students to write short speeches as if they were accepting an award in a ceremony.
1. Music clips
For this task you need to have a selection of clips of different types of music. Record some clips from radio stations if you don’t have a big selection yourself, or borrow from the students or colleagues. Play about 30 seconds of the clips and ask students to fill in the table, then discuss as a group. Try and choose some very different music styles.
Task 1 Music clips
Listen to these short music clips and complete the graph
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Type of music |
What do you know about the group / singer / type of music? |
Do you like it? Why / why not? |
| Clip 1 |
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| Clip 2 |
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| Clip 3 |
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| Clip 4 |
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| Clip 5 |
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- Compare your table with your classmates.
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2. Who’s a music fan?
This is a find somebody who mingle activity to get students asking each other about their musical tastes and habits. As always, make sure students can form the questions before they start the activity. You can join in the task too as you monitor the task.
Task 2 Who’s a music fan?
Talk to your classmates to find out who are biggest music fans in your group. Don’t forget to ask for some extra information when you get a positive response.
| Find somebody who |
Name |
Extra information |
| … has been to a concert recently |
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| … has an mp3/ CD player with them now |
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| … has a big music collection |
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| … has met a pop star / famous musician |
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| … would like to be a pop star / musician |
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| … has bought a CD/ downloaded a CD recently |
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- Who are the biggest music fans in your class?
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3. Introduction to the Brit Awards
This reading text is to introduce the students to the Brit Awards. If there is a similar event in the country you’re in, use it to compare with the British event. Put students into groups to read the text and discuss the questions. Depending on the level, pre-teach vocabulary before they start.
The answer to the second question about why they don’t show the ceremony live is because of some real disasters in the past when everything went wrong – see the Wikipedia site for more information.
Task 3 Introduction to the Brit Awards
Read the text and discuss the questions with your group.
- Are there any similar music awards in your country?
- Why do you think they don’t show the ceremony live on TV?
- Would you like to go to a school like the The Brit School?
- Would you like to go and watch The Brit Awards ceremony in London?
The Brit Awards The Brit Awards are held every year in the UK. ‘Brit’ is short for Brittania and it is also an acronym for British Record Industry Trust which is an organisation that supports young people who want to work in the performing arts. The Brit Awards were created in 1977 to give credit to people who work in the music industry; in a similar way to the Oscar awards in the film industry. Every year a Brit Award ceremony is held and it is shown on national television. In the past it was shown on live TV but now they record it and show it on the television the following day. The money that is made from the Brit Awards ceremony goes to a charity, The Brit Trust, which was founded in 1989 to support young people who want to develop their musical talents. The Brit Trust has opened its own school called The Brit School for Performing Arts and Technology. It is in a town called Croydon, near London. It’s the only school in the UK which is specialised in the performing arts that is totally free of charge. The school has 750 students aged between 14 and 19 and they can learn music, dance, drama, musical theatre, production, media, art and design. |
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4. The Brit Awards 2008
Before the students look at the lists of nominees, make sure they know the vocabulary involved in the different categories. An easy way to do this is to get them to think of one example of each. It doesn’t matter where the artist is from.
Split the class into 3 groups. Cut up the tables and give each member of the group a copy of their table to look at. They should talk about the questions below. Then re-group the students so each new group has one student from group A, one from group B and one from group C. Ask them to tell each other about their nominees and what their group had discussed.
Task 4 The Brit Awards 2008
Before you look at the lists of nominees write one example of the following:
- A breakthrough act:
- A male solo artist:
- A female solo artist:
- An album:
- A single:
Group A
The Nominees for Best British Group: Arctic Monkeys
Editors
Girls Aloud
Kaiser Chiefs
Take That |
The Nominees for Best Breakthrough Act: (Voted for by Radio 1 listeners) Bat for Lashes
Kate Nash
Klaxons
Leona Lewis
Mika |
- How many of the nominees do you know?
- Do you like any of them?
- Who do you think should win?
Group B
The Nominees for Best British Male Solo Artist: Jamie T
Mark Ronson
Mika
Newton Faulkner
Richard Hawley |
The Nominees for Best British Female Solo Artist: Bat for Lashes
Kate Nash
KT Tunstall
Leona Lewis
PJ Harvey |
- How many of the nominees do you know?
- Do you like any of them?
- Who do you think should win?
Group C
The Nominees for Best British Album: Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
Leona Lewis - Spirit
Mark Ronson - Version
Mika - Life in Cartoon Motion
Take That - Beautiful World |
The Nominees for Best International Group: Arcade Fire
Foo Fighters
The Eagles
Kings of Leon
White Stripes |
- How many of the nominees do you know?
- Do you like any of them?
- Who do you think should win?
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5. Your Music Awards
This task follows on from task 4 and gets the students to think about who they would nominate if a similar award ceremony was going to take place in their country. Put students into groups to discuss the possible nominees then hold a class vote to decide
Task 5 Your Music Awards
You are responsible for deciding who is nominated for the music awards in your country. Work in groups and decide which 5 groups or singers you want to nominate for the awards. Complete the gaps with your nationality.
The Nominees for Best _________ Group: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) |
The Nominees for Best Breakthrough Act: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) |
The Nominees for Best _________ Male Solo Artist: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) |
The Nominees for Best __________ Female Solo Artist: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) |
Nominees for the best international group: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) |
Nominees for the best international solo artist: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) |
- Compare the answers with your classmates and vote on who you think should win the award in each category.
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6. And the winner is…
This task gets students thinking about what winners say in their acceptance speeches. If you could manage to get a clip on video of someone accepting an award – from the Oscars or any other ceremony that would be great as a lead-in. If not, act out the scene (!) so they get the idea. Emotional voice - “I can’t believe this is happening, it’s like a dream! First I’d like to thank my Mum and Dad….”
When students have written their speeches hold a little ceremony in the class and get them to come out and receive their award and give their acceptance speech. Students could invent their own categories for the prizes, either from the world of film or music or school based – the best English student in the class etc.
Task 6 And the winner is…
When winners are announced in award ceremonies they have to give a short speech to accept the prize.
Imagine you have won a Brit Award, an Oscar or a similar award. What award would you like to win? Write the award at the top. What would you say when you accept the prize? Work in pairs and write your speech here.
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Internet links
http://brits.co.uk/ This is the official website of the Brit Awards.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7187992.stm Information about this year’s nominees.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/brits/ This BBC site has information about the Brit Awards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_Awards This site has some background information about the awards.
http://www.itv.com/Entertainment/Music/brits/default.html Information about the Brits from ITV
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