The most popular Latin pop song in the country has NOVICE written all over it. The song is called “Voy a vivir” by Marc Anthony. The chorus is a catchy, feel-good, novice-level message:
Voy a reír, voy a bailar
Vivir mi vida lalalalá
Voy a reír, voy a gozar
Vivir mi vida lalalalá
This song begs to be part of any work on talking about what you’re going to do. Stuff like this makes me long to be back teaching level one. Here’s what I would do (and might do with my AP students just for fun!):
- Play the song with the lyrics showing. Students have to read.
- Play the song again with lyrics showing. Students have to sing (or at least mouth the words).
- Students sketch out what activities they’re going to do, say, this afternoon, tomorrow, this weekend, or on a vacation.
- Individuals (volunteers? everyone?) compete for the title “Spanish Class Idol” by singing just the chorus and replacing Marc’s words with their own verbs.
- Students interview each other to find out what others are doing. Students group themselves in groups of 2 or 3 by who’s going to do the same things – need 4 verbs in common.
- Groups sing just the chorus with “vamos a (verb)” instead of “voy a.”
Get singing!
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Thank you for this post! I have been using the song with my 5th-7th graders. We have done the Spanish class idol & my students love it!
It has also been a great culture springboard. Your post led me to an interview with Marc Anthony (and a live performance of the song) on the Today Show, which in turn led to a discussion about what it means to be American.
Also, we talked about the origins and different types of salsa and watched this video.
Thank you so much for this blog & for sharing your wonderful ideas!
Interview/live performance with Marc Anthony
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdfrw-5-euc
Raymond & Jenalyn Salsa Kids
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAuw6FDa5kI
You are welcome and thanks so much for sharing your resources!
This may be a dumb question, but how do you get it to play with the lyrics for kids to read? I love this idea.
Not a dumb question at all! You can usually find a song’s video with lyrics by entering in YouTube the search [song title] letra. Here’s one for Voy a vivir.
[…] last year was how to use Marc Anthony’s Latin Grammy-winning song Vivir mi vida to stage Spanish Class Idol in a novice class. A few people have asked me directly, and the topic has been brought up enough […]
Love this post and I too am using it with my middle and high school students! There are additional excellent resources available on TPT
[…] Using students’ answers in the conversation, we freestyle-sang the chorus of Vivir mi vida with their own […]