Tom’s Diner

A listening exercise where students listen to the song Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega and fill in missing verbs in the Present Continuous. Then students discuss the song and why the Present Continuous tense is used instead of the traditional past simple so it’s great for reviewing verb tenses. I also like the mood of the song and the way it sets a scene. You can find the song on iTunes or almost any music download site.

Materials

• Tom’s Diner Teacher Sheet [PDF]
• Tom’s Diner Student Sheet [PDF]

Warm Up

Go through any vocabulary in the song that you think students may not be familiar with. I find many students don’t know: diner, umbrella, horoscope, funnies, reflection, hitching, stockings, cathedral or picnic.
Note: A diner is a unique informal American style of restaurant which is usually open 24 hours a day and serves simple food like hamburgers and omelettes. It has a counter area where people can sit in a row next to strangers. Many people like to have breakfast in diners because service is fast and coffee refills are often provided free.

The Song

Now hand out the Tom’s Diner Student Sheet [PDF] and have students listen to fill in the missing words. All the missing words are verbs in the Present Continuous (You might chose to tell them this or not).

Play the song 1 or 2 times until students feel confident. Now go over the missing verbs. The Teacher’s Sheet has the complete lyrics. Ask students which verb tense the missing verbs are in (the main verb tense of the song). Point out that the song is a story and usually we tell stories in past simple.

Ask them what the effect of the Present Continuous is.

Possible answers: it feels like the song is happening right now as we listen, it makes it more immediate, more real, it’s a description of one particular day and not a usual routine, it makes actions seem like they take a long time, a lazy morning coffee before the train comes.

Now ask students to find the verbs in the Present Simple and explain why they think those verbs are not in Present Continuous.

Answers

he fills it only halfway: focus on the completed action, the fact that it is half full
before I even argue: she doesn’t even start to argue, focus on concept of arguing
is always nice to see you: Key word: always, also statement of opinion
look the other way: Completed action
pour the milk: completed action
open up the paper: focus on completed action of opening paper
There is a story of an actor: statement of fact
raise: completed action
see me/does not see me: see almost never takes continuous form, especially when it means looking at something.
finish up my coffee; completed action (also as the song ends, maybe we are moving to a different sense of actions)
is time to catch the train: completed action (also as the song ends, maybe we are moving to a different sense of actions)

Quickly go over the vocabulary words you did in the warm-up in context and make sure students understand. Go over any other vocab words that students ask about.

Now look at the second set of questions on the worksheet. Go over the comprehension questions and get student opinions and ideas. Some of these answers are open to interpretation.

Finally note the fun fact. Students might be interested that the engineer who was developing the MP3 format–designed to use less memory than CD format–was trying to figure out how to keep good quality in a smaller file. He heard this song playing on the radio in a colleague’s office and decided that because Suzanne Vega’s voice was so warm and you could hear details like her breathing, it would be the perfect test song to make sure the quality of MP3s was good. So Suzanne Vega is sometimes called the Mother of the MP3!

If students want to know about the history of the song, there’s some information about the restaurant itself here.

Nighthawks at the Diner

For more advanced students as a closer, show them the famous painting by Edward Hopper, Nighthawks at the Diner:

Or google “diner” or “nighthawks at the diner” to get some similar pictures (many of them homages to Hopper) of people in a diner. Ask the students to describe the people. What are they doing? Why are they there late at night? What is the story behind this picture? Encourage them to be creative and notice details in the picture to support their ideas. For homework, you can have them write a monologue like the song Tom’s Diner from the point of view of someone sitting at this late night diner–or have them write their own morning routine.