Black Swan Lesson Plan

Black Swan

Teacher’s notes and keyLevel: B1/B2 intermediate.

Aims: to practise speaking about films to practise listening for keywords to practise listening for gist to recognise certain typical features of spoken English (elision, weak

forms and vowel reduction).

Timing: Before you listen: 30-40 minutes Listening: 15-20 minutes Features of spoken English: 20-30 minutes After you listen: 5-10 minutes.

Total: approximately one and a half hours.

The listening extract can be downloaded from www.teachitworld.com.The first MP4 file is the complete conversation, which lasts about one and a half minutes.

The second contains the extracts for the ‘Features of spoken English’ section and lasts about minutes.

Before you listen

Task 1 Speaking

Students could probably talk about this topic for a long time, but as it’s only the lead-in, you may want to limit the discussion to 10 minutes or so.

Task 2 Speaking

The main aim of this task is to familiarise students with the details of the film before they listen. It’s also the opportunity to feed in some key vocabulary. Weaker students in group B may need help forming questions such as:

Who’s in it?

Where and when is it set?

Who does he/she play?

What happens? / What’s it about?

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Task 3 Vocabulary

Here there’s an explicit focus on vocabulary. The keywords elicited or fed in here will help students understand the conversation in task 4.

1. Copy the following spider diagram onto your interactive whiteboard (IWB) or an overhead projector transparency (OHP):

2. As students remember the keywords they used, write them onto the diagram. You will probably want to include the following, as they appear in the conversation in task 4:

3. Print off a copy of the completed IWB page or photocopy the OHP transparency for each student, so that they can each tick the keywords they hear in task 4.


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characters

actors setting

plot

ballet company

interpretationBlack Swan

characters

actorssetting

plot

lead role

split apart

crack

Swan Lake

shocking

scary

thriller

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Listening

Task 4 Listening for keywords

The listening extract is an authentic conversation between native speakers, so it’s quite fast, but it’s also quite short and students only need to recognise the keywords at this point.Task 5 Listening for gist

Answer: Although D calls it the scariest thing she’s watched, she says several times that she didn’t in fact find it scary.Task 6 Listening for language

This task encourages students to think critically about the correspondence (or lack of it!) between written and spoken English. What they highlight may, of course, vary, but they will probably have difficulty understanding the parts containing reduced/missing sounds. Some of these are throw-away comments spoken quickly, such as And I don’t know about you, kind of and sort of; others are more important for understanding the conversation, such as travelling and it’s going to be. However, the keywords essential to understanding spoken English tend to be stressed, and are therefore more clearly pronounced.Features of spoken EnglishTask 7 Missing final letters

This task works on elision, or sounds that are dropped. Most native speakers drop a final ‘t’ before a word starting with a consonant, as it’s difficult to pronounce both, but because D’s from London she also drops a final ‘t’ before a vowel, and a final ‘g’. This fact will help students understand what happens to going to in task 10.Your students may also notice the missing ‘t’ in perfectly, which D pronounces as /ˈpɜːfɪkli/.

Task 8 Weak forms

This is a crucial point for understanding spoken English and for speaking fluently. Many ‘little words’ in English (prepositions, pronouns and auxiliaries) have a strong form, pronounced as it’s written, and a weak form with the vowel sound schwa /ǝ/ for example:

strong form

weak form

for /fɔː/ /fǝ/you /juː/ /jǝ/can /kæn/ /kǝn/

If students don’t know this, they may always expect to hear the strong form, and may not understand the weak form. In fact, because these ‘little words’ are not normally key, information-carrying words, they are usually used in their weak form. The strong form is used:


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at the end of a sentence: What are you doing that for? in short answers: Yes, I can. for emphasis: I want you to do it, not him.

This point will also help students understand what happens to going to in task 10.Task 9 Missing syllables

Sometimes unstressed syllables are so reduced that they disappear altogether. This is the case with the words in bold here:

because /kɔz/ general /ˈgenrǝl/ travelling /ˈtrævlɪŋ/ or, as here /ˈtrævlɪn/ generally /ˈgenrǝli/

In words where the first syllable is stressed and the second, unstressed syllable is spelled with an ‘e’, that second syllable often disappears, for example: interesting camera vegetables

This is important both for speaking and listening, as many native speakers won’t understand vegetables, for instance, if it’s pronounced /vegeteɪblz/!Task 10 Gonna, wanna

Students may have encountered these spellings in song lyrics and have wondered what they are. Make sure they realise that it isn’t normally considered correct to write the words this way and that they don’t need to pronounce them this way themselves.It can be a good idea to show the gradual transformation of going to to gonna as follows: it is going to be: /ɪt ɪz gǝʊɪŋ tuː biː/ it’s goin’ ta be: /ɪts gǝʊɪn tǝ biː/ it’s gonna be: /ɪts gǝnǝ biː/.

After you listenTask 11 Reflection

This is the opportunity for students to reflect on the features of spoken English that they’ve learned about.Answer: important for listening: all of the points above important for speaking: weak forms and missing syllables.

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Black Swan

As a follow-up, you could, of course, watch the film, or an extract, and read some reviews of it.

Transcript

L: And I don’t know about you, I, I really don’t like watching violent things – I find it quite difficult.

D: I don’t watch horror moviesL: No?D: at all. The scariest thing I’ve watched, um, is The Black Swan, and L: Oh, I haven’t seen that.D: that was a thriller, so it was, it was a bit graphic, but it wasn’t nece … you

weren’t really scared.L: Oh, OK. ’cause I don’t know anything about it. What, what happens in it?D: Erm, basically, it’s about a woman who’s in a ballet company and she

wants the lead role, butL: Mmm.D: to get the lead role she needs to become … she’s too nice a person, so

she needs to become a bit more … erm, I don’t know how to describe it … a bit more edgy, I suppose

L: Oh, OK.D: and, so, ’cause she has to play two characters – it’s for Swan LakeL: Uh huh.D: a new interpretation, so there’s the good, erm, swan and then there’s the

black swan. So she can do the white swan perfectly, but the black one she’s not mean enough to be, so, um, throughout the movie it just shows her travelling towards becoming more black, like

L: Oh, OK.D: in person, so it is very, it is, it is, quite, the the last scenes are a bit

shockingL: OK.D: but it’s not scary.L: ‘Cause I’ve seen the posters and you see her with this kind of crack or

something down her face – I mean, is she sort of splitting apart, like personality-wise?

D: Yes. I don’t find it scary.L: Oh, OK.D: So that should say something, ‘cause I don’t in general watch scary

moviesL: Oh, OK.D: at all. I don’t watch anything that has ‘House’ in the titleL: (laughs)© www.teachitworld.com 2011 15334 Page 5 of 10

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D: ‘cause that generally seems to mean it’s going to beL: (still laughing)D: dark and late at night.


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Worksheet

Before you listen

Task 1 Speaking

Discuss the following questions in pairs or groups of three: What films have you seen recently? Did you enjoy them? Why / why not?

Task 2 Speaking

Have you seen the film Black Swan? If you have, you are in group A. If you haven’t, you are in group B.

Group A

Prepare to tell group B about the following aspects of the film: the actors the setting the characters the plot (story)

Group B

Prepare questions to ask group A about: the actors the setting the characters the plot (story)

Now get into pairs, with one student from group A and one from group B. Ask and answer questions about the film.

Task 3 Vocabulary

You are going to listen to two friends talking about Black Swan. Before you listen, try to remember some of the words you used to talk about it.


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Listening

Task 4 Listening for keywords

Your teacher will give you a copy of the spider diagram from the board. Listen to the conversation and tick the words you hear. You don’t need to understand what the speakers are saying. You just need to recognise the words.

Task 5 Listening for gist

Listen again and try to answer this question

Did D find the film scary?

Again, don’t worry if you don’t understand everything.

Task 6 Listening for language

Listen one more time with the transcript. Highlight the parts that sound very different from the way they are written. Are they important for understanding what the speakers are saying?

Features of spoken English

Task 7 Missing final letters

Now listen to some extracts from the conversation. How does D say the words in bold?

a. that was a thriller, so it was, it was a bit graphic, but it wasn’t nece … you weren’t really scared.

b. basically, it’s about a woman who’s in a ballet company

c. so she needs to become a bit more …d. it just shows her travelling towards becoming

more black

e. the last scenes are a bit shocking

Task 8 Weak forms

Listen to some more extracts. Again, how do the speakers say the words in bold?

a. because she has to play two characters


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b. this kind of crack or something down her face – I mean, is she sort of splitting apart


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Task 9 Missing syllables

Listen to some more extracts. Again, how do the speakers say the words in bold?

a. because she has to play two characters

b. it just shows her travelling towards becoming more black

c. because I don’t in general watch scary movies

d. because that generally seems to mean it’s going to be

Task 10 Gonna, wanna

Listen to one final extract. Again, how does D say the words in bold?

a. because that generally seems to mean it’s going to be

After you listen

Task 11 Reflection

Which of the features of spoken English above do you think are important

a. for speaking English

b. for understanding spoken English?


Black Swan Lesson Plan

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