A Message to You Rudy – The Specials

A bit of ska this week, for Intermediate learners and above, with great little tune by Coventry-based ska revival band The Specials. This could be used for the end of the year to talk about future plans, when lessons are coming to a close and your students are moving on to bigger and brighter things, …

Don’t Look Back In Anger – Oasis

This post is a tribute to those affected by the Manchester attack at the Ariane Grande concert last week, now an anthem from one of the biggest bands to come from this fantastic city. Use it for its range of vocabulary, mixed grammar structures and pronunciation practice as you see fit and follow it up with a …

Fire (Under My Feet) – Leona Lewis

Tune #2! This is a catchy one by the 2006 X Factor winner Leona Lewis from Islington, London. I used this as a musical lead-in to a lesson about the body with a class of intermediate 15 year olds, creating a gap fill and lyrics mix-up for them to do, followed by a brief discussion about their opinion …

Common People – Pulp

Hello and welcome to another ELTune! Apologies for the lack of posts in recent weeks. To make up for it, you're getting a trio of tunes to play with! First off, I'm going to tell you about a great little number by the 90s Britpop band Pulp that I recently used with a class of 18 year …

22 Grand Job – The Rakes

Happy May Day/Labor Day! Here's a great little tune from indie band The Rakes to use in a lesson about work. They sing about a situation that may ring true for many Brits, poking fun at leaving university then going to work in the city on an average salary (London, in this case), always talking about that girl …

Don’t Panic – Coldplay

Hello everyone! I'm back and I hope you all had a lovely Easter. This week, I'd like to tell you about how you can use one of Coldplay's fantastic earlier tunes, and the opener to one of the greatest albums ever made, "Parachutes". Most of my students like their new stuff more, but I'll always prefer the old …

Paper Planes – M.I.A.

A terrific tune from English/Tamil rapper M.I.A. to discuss the refugee crisis and immigration in the ELT classroom. M.I.A. (a play on her own name and reference to the acronym "Missing In Action") and her family had to flee conflict in Jaffna during the Sri Lankan Civil War and go into hiding from the Sri …

Enjoy the Silence – Depeche Mode

As I sit on the train writing this post, I'm very much enjoying the silence, noticing, however, that the majority of passengers are concentrating on their screens (me included) while a select few read a book or newspaper. Bliss nonetheless. Until someone's phone starts ringing, then I have to listen to the entire conversation. Good …

Waterloo Sunset – The Kinks

Another Kinks tune in this special post paying tribute to London. It essentially talks about isolation, but there are some positive aspects to the track, and it is simply sublime. Dirty old river, must you keep rolling Flowing into the night People so busy, makes me feel dizzy Taxi light shines so bright But I …

The A Team – Ed Sheeran

I'm a huge fan of this talented man and have heard nothing but great feedback from his concert in Zürich last night, which calls for another post! This is his first released tune, full of vocabulary about the body, describing people (including a great simile using pastries!) clothing, past simple and past participle verbs, expressions such as "the upper …