This is one activity I did with my more advanced students around Thanksgiving. It is best for higher proficiency levels, and it takes up an entire class session. It involves students working in groups to create a dialogue that they may then "dub" over a clip of a Thanksgiving-themed episode of the series called Friends. In other words, the students must invent a dialogue and speak the lines on behalf of the characters while the clip plays WITHOUT SOUND.
First, students were divided into groups of three to five (preferably four). Then, I explained that the main characters of Friends were meeting to have a Thanksgiving meal, but one of them had invited an old high school friend named Will. However, Will had a longtime grudge against one of the other main characters (Rachel) that was present at the dinner, which set up an interesting conversation between Will and Rachel at the dinner table. Explaining this backstory helped the students understand the context. Next, the students watched a clip WITH SOUND in order to establish further context. This clip should play until right before the conversation where the students must invent the dialogue. The following video was used, starting at 6:21 and ending at 8:12:
After this clip, I quickly checked comprehension with a couple of questions. Then, I explained that Will and Rachel were about to have a conversation at the dinner table and that each group of students must invent a dialogue on their behalf. Since the above clip included subtitles, another video was necessary so that the students would only have visual cues to help them imagine what was being said. Note, the goal was NOT to lipread and try to guess the real dialogue. The students should rely on context, visual cues, and their own creativity. For the next phase of the activity, the following video was used WITHOUT SOUND, starting at 0:00 and ending at 1:55:
In my preparation, I watched the video ahead of time and organized the flow of the dialogue for students to have available. This way, the students may focus only on inventing their lines. The following is the flow of the dialogue:
Rachel
Will
Rachel
Rachel
Will
Rachel
Will
Rachel
Will
Will
Rachel
Will
Rachel
Will
Rachel
Will
Rachel
Will
Each of the two characters has nine lines. Note, there are a few lines spoken in the clip by other characters, but they are not a part of this activity. Moreover, they are not necessary to know in order to invent the dialogue. The emphasis is on creating a dialogue between Will and Rachel. I instructed the students to write down the flow of the dialogue ahead of time, but it could also be printed for them. Each group invented a dialogue.
Again, the students must watch this clip WITHOUT sound. The first viewing from start to finish was for students to get a sense of the conversation. Next, I started it over but played only a few seconds so that only one or two lines were revealed. Then, I paused the video and gave the groups a few minutes to invent their lines for the part that was played. Then, I resumed the video for a few more seconds to reveal one or two more lines. Sometimes, students needed to see a section more than once. This process was repeated until the entire clip was covered and the groups had their completed dialogues. Each group had to plan speaking turns so that all students could have an opportunity to speak.
Finally, each group had the chance to perform their dialogues by doing a "voiceover" (dubbing) as the clip played from start to finish without pause. Each group took a turn to do this. The performances were quite entertaining. If time allowed at the end, all students could watch the clip WITH SOUND to see how the real conversation went and how similar (or different) their invented dialogues were.
Note, if time doesn't allow for students to finish creating a dialogue that covers the entire clip, the groups may perform the lines that they DO have!
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