Nesting span Content Tags inside list items in Rails

How would one go about nesting content tags (spans inside an li) to display the following using the Rails content_tag method:

<ul>
  <li>
   <a href="something">Groups</a>
     <span>
       <a href="something">Recent</a>
     </span>
     <span>
       <a href="something">Popular</a>
     </span>
   </li>
</ul>

<% content_tag :li do %>
  <span>...</span>
<% end %>

You can also nest content_tags, but your code may become less readable.