how-deep-is-the-ocean-lesson-plan-and-worksheet.pdf

Written by Irving Berlin in 1932, How deep is the ocean? is a great song for English teachers. It consists of 10 questions, each of which contains one of the following structures:

• How + much … ?
• How + many … ?
• How + adjective … ?

(Please note that this video has changed. Since the Ella Fitzgerald version has been removed from YouTube, I have replaced it with the Billie Holiday version of the song. You will have to amend the lesson plan accordingly)

How much do I love you?
I’ll tell you no lie
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?

How many times a day do I think of you?
How many roses are sprinkled with dew?

How far would I travel
To be where you are?
How far is the journey
From here to a star?

And if I ever lost you
How much would I cry?
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?

Lesson plan

1. Show your students the picture of Ella Fitzgerald (see note above underneath the video screen) and find out if they know anything about her.
2. Tell your students that they are going to hear her sing a song. Tell them that the song consists of a number of questions. Their task is to count the questions.
3. Play the song (on YouTube) and get your students to count the questions. Let them compare their answers with each other.
4. Give out copies of the How deep is the ocean? worksheet (download this on the pdf file above). Your students should now be able to identify the 10 questions (in the case of any disputes, get them to count the questions marks).
5. Go over any unknown language. For “sprinkled with dew”, show the picture below.
6. Ask your students to predict the missing words (they can do this in pairs if they like).
7. Play the song and let your students check their answers.
8. During feedback, drill pronunciation of the questions as much as possible.
9. Get your students to turn over their worksheets.
10. Play the song again and make use of the pause button while you get your students to write down the lyrics (NB This is effectively a dictation but the voice comes from the singer rather than the teacher).
11. Let your students turn their worksheets back over so that they can check that they have taken down the lyrics correctly.

A rose sprinkled with dew (photo by PrashanthK). This is a great demonstration of the effectiveness of image search sites (such as Picsearch) or image sharing sites (such as Flickr). Such sites can be thought of as huge versatile picture dictionaries. Instead of explaining terms such as “sprinkled with dew” to your learners, show them a picture and get them to explain the language to you.

This lesson would be a good follow up to the Blue Whale lesson plans here and here.

Posted by admin on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 10:53 am.