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[This is meant to supplement a lesson from IELTS Express Upper-Intermediate Coursebook on page 84-85. The lesson in the coursebook was meant to focus students attention on how lecturers will often indicate important information by varying their speed, pausing before and after key information, and stressing key words.
As always, the IELTS Express textbook was very informative, but very dry. (The constant challenge with teaching IELTS is to find a way of giving the students the information without boring them to death.) In an effort to supplement this textbook information with something more interesting, I tried to think of any film clips I knew that featured a speech with lots of words stressed, varying speeds, and pauses.
Although it's always dangerous to show something from 1939 to a group of teenagers, this was the first thing that popped into my head. And actually, my students seemed to react pretty positively to it.
It helped that my students were clued in enough to have a vague awareness of who Charlie Chaplin was. Therefore they were intrigued enough to see him in a completely different type of role than the silent comedy they associated him with. And I think you can't help but get sucked into the passion of the speech once you start listening.
There are several subtitled versions of this speech floating around Youtube in virtually every language, so I chose a version that had Vietnamese subtitles for my Vietnamese students (here).
The exercise I devised for the speech was exactly the same as the IELTS Express textbook. The students had to underline where the speaker sped up, put a slash (/) by where the speaker paused, and circle any words that were emphasized.
Before I gave this activity to my students, I had a shot at doing it myself. Although truth be told, I've always been terrible at doing this kind of thing myself. (One of the reasons I hate teaching stress in intonation in my classes is that I have a terrible ear for marking it myself.) But I gave it a shot at, and then presented my answers to the students as one alternative answer, and not the definitive answer.
The circling marks don't copy and paste well into blogger, but can be seen on the Google Drive version of this document.
This speech properly falls more into the category of oratory than informative lecture, and so the changes in speed and stress are probably more to give it a hypnotic rhythm than they are to indicate key information (the original purpose of the IELTS exercise.) But I justified it more as an awareness raising activity.
I then supplemented this by doing the speech from "A Few Good Men" (which I had previous posted here.)
At the end, I apologized to the students for only using a bunch of old movies, and told them that if they could find any clips of movies with speeches that illustrated varying speed, stress, and pauses, then we could do their examples next week.]
Listen to this speech from the movie “The
Great Dictator”. As you listen, underline
the parts of the speech where the speaker speaks faster than usual. Circle those words which are given particular
stress. Put a slash (/) where the
speaker pauses.
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my
business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help
everyone – if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help
one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s
happiness - not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one
another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich
and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we
have lost the way.
Greed
has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped
us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut
ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge
has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and
feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we
need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and
all will be lost.
The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together.
The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men - cries
out for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is
reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and
children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent
people.
To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery
that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who
fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die,
and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long
as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise
you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to
think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use
you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine
men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not
cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t
hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t
fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!
In the 17th Chapter of Saint Luke it is written: “the Kingdom
of God is within man” - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you!
You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to
create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and
beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let
us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men
a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the
promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not
fulfill that promise. They never will.
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now
let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do
away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance.
Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead
to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite!
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