Piledriver Waltz by Arctic Monkeys – an ESL lesson plan

A worksheet for B1+/ B2 / C1 levels

Scroll down to get the Worksheet and the Teacher’s Notes

I’ve always been a big advocate of learning from songs. Especially, if they’re good songs – written well, without cheesy metaphors and poor language. The fact that I’m such a big fan of Arctic Monkeys, the band, must have something to do with it- now when I think about this. Of course, they’re great music-wise, but the lyrical value is there too.

I’m not the only one who acknowledges that phenomenon and it’s good to know I’m following in the footsteps of some big names in journalism who appreciate the band too.
Here’s an almost 10-year-old article from the Guardian that talks about what a great lyricist Alex Turner (the frontman of the band) is.

And here’s my summary and comments of that article on YouTube:

If you’re on the same team and need no introduction to the band nor to Alex’s writing skills, jump straight to the lesson plan itslef. 😉

As I’m saying in the Teacher’s Notes, if at any point you have problems understanding the lyrics or would be glad to check a different perspective on their interpretation – here is my mini-lesson and the lyrics break-down on YT:

And here’s the worksheet. If you want to get it in the PDF format click the link to Facebook Marketplace below.
If you need a different format, please let me know in a dm/pm on social media.

CLICK TO PURCHASE

Enjoy!

Some extra activities you can use to practise grammar structures from the worksheet

For more practise on ’You look like you’ve been for breakfast at the Heartbreak Hotel’ you can use:

1. Iga Grabowska’s exercices pack – Grammar Tidbits 2 which offers a segment on verbs of senses and comparisons,
2. Another exercise you can use is a pairwork activity like this one:
   Put your students in pairs and provide them with a set of pictures like this one. Their job is to come up with mini-dialogues using structures:
   You look as if…
   You look as though…
   You look like…
   The other person needs to react to what’s being said to them. This way, we not only drill grammatical structures, but also bring some language functions and fixed exppressions to the table 🙂
   LINK TO THE PICTURES
3. The 'Piledriver Waltz’ worksheet brings up another set of grammatical structures used for comparing which are: and so do you…. / and so will he…. / and so have they… etc.
   Here’s how you can practise this further.
   It’s a variation on the game of POSITIVE/ NEGATIVE/ CRAZY.
   (If you’re not familiar with the rules, check out this description.)
   In this variation, students work in pairs yet again and they’re given a set of cards with topics to make statements on.
   The trick is each statement is determined ahead as positive, negative or crazy. Once the students have their statements, they swap them with another group whose task now is to create responses or reactions to these statement using and so does he…. etc.
   The game can be extended to 'neither’ sentences (then students wouldn’t have to limit themselves to affirmatives only.)
   Here’s a link to the 'wheel of fortune’ that can predetermine the vibe of the sentence (positive/ negative / crazy): LINK
   And here are sample topics students can comment on: LINK

I hope this is going to be helpful and will make your lessons on the song even more engaging and worthwhile.

I’d be glad for any comments or suggestions. Reach out to me on social media.

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