New Year's Resolutions with Bob Dylan

You are going to

• discuss new year's resolutions
• listen to some popular new year's resolutions and do a gap-fill
• listen to a radio clip about the history of new year's resolutions and do a comprehension quiz

1) Discuss

• Do you make new year resolutions?
• Do you promise yourself to learn some something new, do something better or stop doing something bad in the next 12 months?
• What do you think are the best kind of resolutions to make?
• What are your resolutions for the new year?
• Will you keep them or will you break them?
• What do you think are the most common resolutions that people make?
• Why do we make new year resolutions?

2) Listen
Listen to Bob Dylan on the Theme Time Radio Hour read the most popular new year's resolutions.

• What are they?

Listen again
Fill in the gaps with the right word

3) Discuss

• What do you think of the resolutions in the list?
• Which ones would be good for you?
• Which ones are the least selfish?

4) Listen
Making New Year's Resolutions dates back to medieval times ( = from the 5th to the 15th centuries AD)

• What sorts of resolutions do you think people were making in medieval times?

Listen to the clip below from BBC Radio 4's Today program and find out.

listen to ‘Resolutions used to 'predict future'’ on Audioboo

Listen again and do the quiz below

Printable worksheets here


5) Discuss

• Do you think making a resolution can predict the future?
• Do you think making a resolution can change the future?
• Do you think making a resolution can change the world?

Who is Bob Dylan?
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, poet and artist. He has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for more than five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s. A number of Dylan's early songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan



Here is one of Bob Dylan's most famous songs. It's called "The Times They Are a-Changin'"
Watch the clip and read the lyrics below

The times they are a-changin from Tony Fox on Vimeo.

You can double click on any word to see a definition

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth saving
Then you better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changing

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no telling who that it’s naming
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changing

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is raging
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changing

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changing

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fading
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changing

Copyright © 1963, 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1992 by Special Rider Music http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/times-they-are-changin#ixzz2GfiA5vMU

6) Discuss
He sings "If your time to you is worth saving, then you better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone"

• What do you think he means? 
• How much do you think changing the world depends on changing ourselves (ie changing our own decisions, actions and resolutions)?
  
• So what are you going to change this year?

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Even More

The Times They are A-Changing gap fill exercise
http://www.lyricstraining.com/play/7790/bob_dylan/the_times_they_are_achangin


New Year's Resolutions
http://messages.365greetings.com/holiday/new-year/new-years-resolutions.html

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/01/four-famous-new-years-resolution-lists-jonathan-swift-susan-sontag-marilyn-monroe-woody-guthrie/


More Bob