| Topic |
| BAFTA Shorts Lesson Plan US7 & 8 – CEF C1 |
| Aims/Outcome |
| To be able to discuss the story, meaning behind and some film-making aspects of four films To practice language for supporting your opinion and deducing To write / present a presentation on alternative lifestyles |
Materials |
| Still frame from film on screen Student questions worksheet The short on DVD / downloads. |
| Procedure | |
| Stage aim and timing Time needed: around 60 minutes, excluding the follow-up activity | Suggested Procedure |
| Predicting content Teacher shows a single frame from the film 5-10 minutes | The frame chosen can be from anywhere in the film, but should be slightly mysterious – not a talking head to camera in a documentary. Teacher shows single frame from the short. Students guess / predict what genre of film it will be (fiction, documentary, animated, musical) and what the dialogue, music, story might be. |
| Learn about story-telling: Relating stories to your own life Lead-in questions for the students to discuss before watching the film. 10 minutes | Teacher asks the lead-in questions, to students in small groups or individually. Lead-in: questions on vegetarianism/veganism. Teacher monitors, boarding any vocabulary relating to animals, meat production, farming and/or morality which might come up in the discussion. Teacher will try to guide the discussions towards the “why” of veganism (and of meat-eating / hunting and so on) |
| To introduce colloquial and less common phrases used in the film 5 minutes | Teacher gives the students a short time to match the expressions to their definitions. (a short time only, as they more or less will know them or not. Tell them that they can use ‘clues’ to help them: a gerund will match with a gerund, a plural noun with a plural noun etc,) Key = d = f = i = l = m = g = c = k = a = b = h = j = n =e |
| To watch and understand the film … as a film (from the point of view of film-making) … 20 minutes (length of film) 10 minutes to answer questions | Teacher asks class to watch the film, focusing on the way the story is built up by the director. a. Jay talking about his cows and raising them b. Katja talking about Jay’s lack of practicality at times. c. Selling the farm and moving away. d. Balancing the negative effects of beef farming by being more sustainable. Encourage the learners to invent an adjective (one of mine came up with “vacal”). Perhaps try “glassy”, “booky” or any the teacher invents) Teacher tells the learners to tick each shot description every time it happens. They will not produce an accurate number, but will see that JAY ALONE is probably the most common. To emphasise the loneliness of his endeavour. It is very downbeat, becoming more hopeful towards the end. His father was very strict. He didn’t have the schooling to follow his grandfather’s career which he wanted to to do, so followed his father’s etc. Not until over half way through the film. Not until minute 13/14 – near the end. |
| … and (b) as a story (from the point of view of the story being told) 10 minutes | Teacher asks learners to get into larger groups and discuss questions 8 to 12: Learners’ own opinions, even about question 10. Teacher monitors, encouraging / noticing usage of language of deduction, guessing, possibility (might, could, may …) and opinion. Teacher boards opinion language and encourages learners to make it more complex / more C1. |
| Follow up activity. Writing / presentation to practice language of possibility / language of hypothesis. 10 minutes elicitation / lead in 20 minutes preparation Presentation depends on number of groups | The film shows a farm giving up beef farming and growing alternative products. Use the model of: We could replace beef-farming with vegetable farming. The effect this would have on society would be (elicit and board ideas from the learners) Elicit various other current human lifestyles that could be replaced with an alternative (petrol cars to electric, plastic containers for glass and card, friendships with people for friendship-robots, walking for hoverboards etc. (the learners can be as radical as they wish: it does not have to be realistic, as some groups may not want to revisit the typical areas of ecology that they study in every other class) Learners form groups of 3 / 4 and choose a ‘sunbsitiution’ for a lifestyle, and prepare a presentation along the lines of “73 Cows”, explaining: What they were doing How they realized there was a better alternative How they instigated the change What effect they believe it will have. Run this as any presentation-type lesson. |