The Ebay Song

 

Based on the song "I want it that way" by the Back Street Boys the American comedian Al Jankovic has written a song about a person addicted to buying from the online auctioneer Ebay.

The song is full of references to American culture as expressed in various objects. The lyrics of Jankovic's song contain vocabulary that many advanced students would not know.

1) Hand out the lyrics to the song.

2) Ask students to underline the words they don't know and help them with them or let the students look up the words in a dictionary.

3) Then play the video. Various versions can be found on the web.

The activity could stop here but you can take it further. Many of the items mentioned and shown will be alien to your students' culture (e.g. the Smurf TV tray or a Dukes of Hazzard ashtray). Ask them to replace by items from their own culture. This could be especially stimulating in an international classroom.

WHY

Although the website YouTube is full of irrelevant and questionable videos good teaching material can be found there. This activity is based on one such video.

Internet access, a computer with sound, and a video projector for showing the videos.

Signing up on YouTube allows you to create a playlist of videos that are useful for the classroom.

ON THE WEB

The best version of the video can be found here. Another one here. And a third one here.

The original version of "I want it that way" performed in a lip sync version by two Chinese boys could be played at the end

You could also compare the songs "Ridin Dirty" by Chamillionaire with Al Yankovic's "White & Nerdy"