Music-Themed Jigsaw Activity

To teach is to learn twice. ~ Joseph Joubert

EnglishClub has a new reading and vocabulary resource all about Music. In this section, you will find in-depth articles and glossaries about many different music genres. If you’ve never tried using a jigsaw activity in the ELL classroom, now is a great chance to give it a try.

What is a Jigsaw Activity?

Jigsaw activities promote interdependency and expertise in the classroom. Students focus on texts or parts of a text that they find most interesting. For the first stage of learning, students can work alone or in groups with other students that share their interests. After an in-depth reading on a certain topic, they can move to a different group to share what they’ve learned. During the second stage of learning, the “experts” practice paraphrasing, or putting what they’ve learned into their own words. They also teach new vocabulary. In a jigsaw activity, each student gets a chance to be the teacher.

How To Use EnglishClub’s Music Resource

Follow these steps to use EnglishClub’s Music resources for a jigsaw activity lesson.

Warm Up

Use our Let’s Learn About Music video to introduce this topic. Show the video in class and sing along to the song.

Find out which music genres your students are familiar with. If they don’t know the words in English, ask them to talk about their favourite singers and bands.

Stage 1

Divide your class into five or six groups (based on their musical interests, if possible). Assign each group one genre of music.

• Pop Music
• Rock Music
• Country Music
• Hip Hop Music
• Soul Music
• Dance Music

Have students read the articles in small groups. They can practice the vocabulary by writing their own example sentences.

Stage 2

Mix up the groups so that there is at least one representative from each music genre in each group. Then ask students to take turns teaching each other a few things about the music genre they studied. In addition to some interesting facts, each students should teach at least three new words to the new group members.

Follow Up

At a later time, quiz your students about what they have learned during the jigsaw activity. Quiz them on content related to music genres as well as on new vocabulary. Finally, listen to some music from the singers and bands that are mentioned in the readings. You can make a Music Genre Playlist on YouTube with a popular song from each genre. Play the music and see if your students can identify the genres.