Jim Diamond
Teacher's notes
1. Give students the worksheet and ask them to come up with translations in groups of
three or pairs.
2. Once they’ve finished, tell them that they're all lines from an 80s rock ballad. Get
them to watch the video. Tell them that they will hear all of the phrases and that on
this first listening, they just have to order them (1 to 7) according to when they
appear in the song.
3. Students listen again and try to get the exact version for each phrase. Give time for
the group to discuss and come to an agreement before writing up the answers on
the board. Now ask them to give themselves points for their original suggestions in
(1) above based on the following criteria:
a. 3 points if they got the original phrase
b. 2 points if they feel their phrase was equally valid
c. 1 point if they feel their phrase was grammatically correct but had a slightly
different meaning
d. 0 for anything else!
4. Tell students to read the lyrics. You can get them here:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gary.hart/lyricsd/diamond.html
5. Play the song one more time and tell students not to look at the lyrics. Tell them that
when it finishes, you'd like their opinion of the video, both aesthetically and how it
links to the lyrics. Get some feedback and discussion. The haircuts often get a
mention!
6. Notice the song title. Write down how it is said phonetically (i.e. A schwa for the
“have”, which is tagged on to the “should” ).
7. Agree on the precise meaning of the phrase in the context of the song.
8. Now tell them to look at the list of other “regrettable” phrases and ask them to agree
on the how the chunk would sound in flowing speech.
9. Compare/check (see notes below) and ask them to come up with a plausible
context for each one.
10. Check again to make sure everyone's got it and ask each person in each group to
choose one phrase (everyone in each group must have a different one) and
remember a personal anecdote where it would have been appropriate. (Play some
music while each person comes up with their story and go round helping with
vocabulary).
11. Now get them to tell each other their stories.
12. Finally ask them to vote for the best story in their group and get that person to tell it
to the class.
How the phrases should sound:
It coulda bin worse.
I coulda killed him/her!
Who’d’ve thought? or Who’da thought?
Nobody woulda bin any the wiser or Nobody’da bin any the wiser.
I shoulda kept my big mouth shut!