An activity for teaching the present simple questions.

For those who love to teach English through songs, here's an activity that you may use to drill the wh-question structure for the present simple at the end of your lesson.

This activity is based on the song titled "The End of The World" by Skeeter Davis. For this activity, I would begin with the following worksheet:


Order the words to make questions.


1. on / does / why / sun / the/ shining / go ? _________________________________________________________


2. the / shore / why / sea / to / does / rush ? _________________________________________________________


3. they / it's / the / don’t / end / of / world / know / the ?
_________________________________________________________


4. birds / go / do / the / singing / on / why ? _________________________________________________________


5. do / why / glow / stars / above / the?
_________________________________________________________


6. why / beating / my / does / heart / go / on ? _________________________________________________________


7. of / why / these / do / eyes / cry / mine ? _________________________________________________________


Let the students work on it individually or in pairs for about 10-15 minutes. Then let them listen to the song to check on their arrangement of the words, whether they've got it correct or not. You may want to discover what they still don't understand from their mistakes. After that, let them have the full lyrics - and enjoy singing the song together with them!


End Of The World
Skeeter Davis


Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don't they know it's the end of the world
'cause you don't love me any more?

Why do the birds go on singing?
Why do the stars glow above?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when I lost your love.

I wake up in the morning and I wonder
why everything's the same as it was.
I can't understand! No, I can't understand
how life goes on the way it does!

Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when you said goodbye.

Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when you said goodbye.

For an extended activity to practise the ending punctuation, you may replace all the three punctuation marks in the lyric (full stops, question marks and exclamation points) with a box, and let the students work on it.