Be True to Your School

I taught my last day on Friday. Since it was my last day of lessons, the head teacher suggested we do something fun, like a song.

After scanning my iTunes to try to find something catchy and not too complicated, I thought of the Beach Boys. Since they mostly sing 2 minute songs about California, I thought it would be the perfect way to say goodbye to my students.

This is when I learned that none of my students had ever heard of the Beach Boys! Although they thought they were too cool for the Beach Boys at first (and enjoyed laughing at my dance moves), after a while they discovered that they actually liked the song.

We all had a lot of fun singing along to Surfin’ Safari. They especially enjoyed learning key vocabulary words such as: surf board, woody, honeys, and walking the nose.

I know it’s not really fair to think French children should have heard of the Beach Boys given that I don’t know any French musicians from the 60s, but I was surprised when they hadn’t. I can remember being around 8 years old at an Indian Princesses meeting, making arrowhead necklaces and dancing to the Beach Boys while waiting for the glue to dry.

In any event, I hope teaching the French about the Beach Boys makes me a true California Girl. My favorite part was hearing my students say they wanted to download the song once they got home!


The worksheet I gave to the 3e(15-16 year olds)
Yes, I did shamelessly brag about how close I live to Doheny Beach.