Songs in the Spanish Classroom. A Suggestion: AGUA by Jarabe de Palo<

Songs in the Spanish Classroom. A Suggestion: AGUA by Jarabe de Palo

At Instituto Hemingway we would like to suggest this activity that was given to us by one of the students on our Spanish Teachers Course at Instituto Hemingway.

It is a sequence of activities that help to integrate music into the classroom which, as you may well know, is a learning resource that has shown good results and favours the learning of language through motivating the students and attracting their attention.

I have chosen this song because it seems simple to understand and because the singer seems to have a clear voice that can be understood quite well. These exercises should be aimed towards an A2 advanced level group or even a B1 group.

Lyrics of the song: AGUA (Jarabe de Palo)
Como quieres ser mi amiga
si por ti daría la vida,
si confundo tu sonrisa
por camelo si me miras.
Razón y piel, difícil mezcla,
agua y sed, serio problema.
Cómo quieres ser mi amiga
si por ti me perdería,
si confundo tus caricias
por camelo si me mimas.
Pasión y ley, difícil mezcla,
agua y sed, serio problema…
Cuando uno tiene sed
pero el agua no está cerca,
cuando uno quiere beber
pero el agua no está cerca.

Que hacer, tú lo sabes,
conservar la distancia,
renunciar a lo natural,
y dejar que el agua corra.

Como vas a ser mi amiga
cuando esta carta recibas,
un mensaje hay entre líneas,
como quieres ser mi amiga.
Cuando uno tiene sed
pero el agua no está cerca,
cuando uno quiere beber
pero el agua no está cerca.

1. Activity:
The first activitity would be filling the blanks in a worksheet with some of the song lyrics missing whilst they listen to the song. Repeat the song two or three times. After, talk in general with the class about the different results they have – given that the exercise is individual, they will not have all understood the same words.

In this case, you can present the activity in the following way: “A boy has written this song for his friend that he is in love with, but when writing it, he got rid of some of the words as he wanted to change them. The poor boy was so nervous that he has forgotten to fill these gaps, can you help him?

Lyrics of the song: AGUA (Jarabe de Palo) Uncompleted version

Como quieres ser mi amiga
si por ti daría la vida,
si ______ tu sonrisa
por camelo si me miras.
Razón y piel, difícil mezcla,
agua y ___, serio problema.
Cómo quieres ser mi amiga
si por ti me_____,
si confundo tus caricias
por camelo si me mimas.
Pasión y___, difícil mezcla,
agua y sed, serio problema…
Cuando uno tiene sed
pero el ____no está cerca,
cuando uno quiere beber
pero el ____no está____.

Que hacer, tú lo sabes,
______la distancia,
renunciar a lo natural,
y dejar que el agua____.

Como vas a ser mi amiga
cuando esta _____recibas,
un mensaje hay entre____,
como quieres ser mi amiga.
Cuando uno tiene sed
pero el agua no está cerca,
cuando uno _____beber
pero el agua no está cerca.

Let the students give their point of view, reflect and debate about the meaning of the text and talk about their own experiences.

2. Activity:
The students can work with antonyms, collecting some examples from the text and finding their antonyms (in pairs).
When they have finished, talk about it as a class and explain the meanings of the words that they do not understand. For example, find antonyms for: sed, cerca, recibir, dificil … etc.

This exercise can be presented in the following way:
The teacher should make two groups, write words on varying bits of paper (words from the text) and give them to each member of one group. Give the members of the other group bits of paper with the antonyms written on them and then they have to find the person with the word to match up with (with the opposed word).

At the end, talk about it as a class and debate why they chose this word and not another … etc.

An alternative for this exercise, to do it more abstractly, could be that instead of writing down the words and their antonyms, give them images of things or actions and their corresponding antonyms. The students have to match the pairs.

3. Activity:

This final activity could be aimed towards the formation and the composition of the conditional. You would present it in the following way: I was walking by the waterline on the beach and I found a strange object that seemed like a lamp half burried in the sand. When I rubbed it to get rid of the sand, a genie emerged from the lamp and gave me three wishes. But, seeing as the number of wishes is limited, I have to think about what I am going to ask for. Help me to think of three wishes to ask the genie.

This exercise can be done by directly asking the students one by one what they would ask for or it can be done in pairs.

Example: Si yo le pidiera un deseo…me gustaría tener (querría) una isla.
Si+ imperfecto del subjuntivo…+ condicional simple

Every student should say what they would ask the genie for and at the end the class should decide on the 3 wishes they would like the most and why.