Using TV and Movie Clips to Teach Pronunciation

(Youtube Videos Authentic Listening--Pronunciation, Speaking)
Google Drive Folder HERE
PDF HERE 
Addendum 1: Google (drive, docs, pub)
Addendum 2: Google (drive, docs, pub).
Rules: docs, pub

The other day, when I was desperate for material to fill up a lesson, a colleague gave me a lesson on pronunciation using Seinfeld.  

The lesson itself was not originally his creation, but comes from a PDF pamphlet made by Janet Goodwin, Dept. of Applied Linguistics & TESL, UCLA.  Although it's slightly unclear to me what the copyright is regarding the distribution of this pamphlet, I'm going to operate under the assumption that it was made to be freely distributed, and I'm posting it on Google Docs here (and embedded below.)

Seinfeld - Car Rental Scene

Clerk: Well, I'm sorry, we have no midsize available at the moment.

Customer: I don't understand. I made a reservation. Do you have my reservation?

Clerk: Yes, we do. Unfortunately, we ran out of cars.

Cust.: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.

Clerk: I know why we have reservations.

Cust.: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. See you know how to take the reservation. You just don't know how to hold the reservation. And that's really the most important part of the reservation…the holding. Anybody can just take them.

Clerk: Let me, uh, speak with my supervisor.

The directions on Janet Goodwin's pamphlet are slightly different, but my colleague advised me to use the video clip and transcript in this way:  

1). Prediction--Play the youtube clip for the students with the sound off, and get the students to predict what the situation is, what the conversation is about, and how the characters feel.

2).  Gist Listening--Play with the sound on, and ask the students to answer the question: What is the man upset about?

3). Give out the listening script.  Play the video clip again, and ask students which words get stressed.  Do feedback as a class, and then have students practice reading the dialogue themselves in pairs.  

4).  Have students listen to the video again, and this time get them to mark the intonation patterns on their sheet.  Where is the intonation going up, and where is it going down?  Again do feedback as class, and then have students practice it in pairs.

I suppose the success or failure of this lesson probably depends a lot on the characteristics of the class, and their willingness to jump into it.  But it went over great in my class.  It was a lot of fun, the students really got into trying to say the dialogue with all the word stress and everything.

In fact, it was such a success, that I transcribed another Seinfeld scene, and did it with my students the next day.

This was the Anti-Dentite Scene.

Google (drive, docs, pub)

Jerry: So you won't believe what happened with Whatley today. It got back to him that I made this little dentist joke and he got all offended. Those people, they can be so touchy.

Kramer: Those people, listen to yourself.

Jerry: What?

Kramer: You think that dentists are so different from me and you? They came to this country just like everybody else, in search of a dream.

Jerry: Whatley’s from Jersey.

Kramer: Yes, and now, he’s a full fledged American.

Jerry: Kramer, he's just a dentist.

Kramer: Yeah, and you're an anti-dentite.

Jerry: I am not an anti-dentite!

Kramer: You're a rabid anti-dentite! Oh, it starts with a few jokes and some slurs. "Hey, denty!" Next thing you know you're saying they should have their own schools.

Jerry: They do have their own schools!

Kramer: Ayayayaya!

This scene selection violates a couple of Janet Goodwin's rules.  It's not entirely self-contained.  (It makes references to a 3rd character who is off-screen, and to events that happened earlier in the show.)  And the humor is not entirely culturally universal.  (I find it funny because I know the joke is that Kramer is equating Jerry's hostility to dentists as being equally as bad as antisemitism, but my Vietnamese students are unaware of the American history of antisemitism, and so don't get the joke.)

Nonetheless, it worked relatively well.  I set it up briefly by explaining that Whatley was a dentist, and that Jerry had made dentist jokes, and that Whatley had got upset.  And the students understood some of the humor based off the pure silliness of the situation.

Finally, there was the "You can't handle the truth scene" from A Few Good Men.  Google (drive, docs, pub).

I’ll answer the question.  You want answers?

I think I’m entitled.

You want answers?

I want the truth!

You can’t handle the truth!  Son we live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it?  You? You lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the marines.  You have that luxury you have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.  You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties you want me on that wall you need me on that wall.

A Few Good Men screenplay, Aaron Sorkin, Castle Rock Entertainment, 1992

This was another one given to me by my colleague, although I've modified it.  As it was originally given to me by my colleague, it contained only the script for Jack Nicholson's monologue, and started out with "Son...".  I added the brief exchange at the beginning, because I really wanted the "I want the truth!  You can't handle the truth"  lines.  Also the version my colleague had did not have punctuation in it.  But since I didn't understand the point of that, I went ahead and added in the punctuation.  (Possibly there was supposed to be an activity for the students to add in their own punctuation? )

As I received this lesson from my colleague, it works like this:  

The pre-listening and the gist listening are the same, but then after getting the students to listen for word stress, I tell them during the class feedback that it was a trick question, because every word was stressed.  Then I explain that this is characteristic of how we talk in English when we're angry.  (This is in contrast to some languages like Vietnamese or Chinese where every word is normally stressed as a matter of course.)  Granted, some words in Jack Nicholson's speech do actually get extra stress, but I more or less brush over that.  The point for this is that every word gets really emphasized.  Then, in small groups, the class practices this dialogue.  And then the students vote on who was able to deliver Jack Nicholson's dialogue the angriest in their groups.

This scene selection also violates a couple of Janet Goodwin's rules.  It's not self-contained at all, and contains a lot of vocabulary that the students were confused about.  And at one point, a student did tell me she had no idea what she was saying.  (This time it's not my fault, though, because I got this from a colleague).  But the students were able to really get into it regardless, and they had a blast yelling at each other.  "I want the truth!"  "You can't handle the truth!"  It was over-all, a very successful lesson.