The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

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IMDB - Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with bizarre consequences.

Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance

Initial Release: December 10, 2008 (Sydney)

Director: David Fincher

Writers: Eric Roth, Robin Swicord, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Stars: Brat Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton

Cinematography: Claudio Miranda

Running time: 166 minutes

Most relevant awards: 3 Oscar for Best Achievement in Art Direction, Makeup, and Visual Effects

Movie English Description

Movie English is a vocabulary and listening course that uses movies to help you learn the meaning, use and pronunciation of vocabulary. The vocabulary has been chosen to help you understand the movie and to help you grow your own vocabulary. For most of the chosen vocabulary, examples or conversations have been included showing you the vocabulary being used in a natural way and in a natural situation.

Use these examples and conversations to help you figure out the meaning of the vocabulary instead of using dictionaries, translation websites or apps. In other words, use your brain and talk with your partner / group to work out the meaning of the vocabulary from the examples and conversations. This will get you thinking in English, and this will help you much more than translating or looking up the vocabulary in a dictionary. By learning the vocabulary this way, you’ll learn more, learn better, remember more and have more fun.

Vocabulary

Open up the Vocabulary Exercise in the Lesson Documents above. Please don’t use translation dictionaries, websites or apps. Instead, work with your partner or group and use the conversations and examples in the Vocabulary Exercise to help you figure out the vocabulary.

Movie

Watch today’s part(s) of the movie. Listen for the vocabulary that you have learned and notice the pronunciation and how it’s used. By doing all of that, you will better remember the vocabulary and you will see how to use it correctly and naturally.

Discussion

The key to remembering vocabulary is to use it again and again. That’s what you did as a child learning your first language. The same thing works when learning a second language. Therefore, please be sure to use the new vocabulary in your answers to the following Discussion Questions.

  • Talk about a time when you were suffering.
  • Talk about a time when you felt offended (adj) or when you offended (v) someone.
  • Do you keep a diary? What do you write in it?
  • What is your most prized (I.E. most important) possession?
  • What are you grateful for?
  • What do you do when you need to take your mind off things?
  • When you were a child, did you have a healthy curiosity? Do you still?
  • Do you have optimism about your future?
  • Talk about something that happened to you that was miraculous.

Reviewing As A Class

Close your computers and do a review of the vocabulary from today’s lesson. Your teacher will read out the definitions of the vocabulary that you have learned so far. If you know the vocabulary, say the answer out loud to your teacher.

Reviewing Individually

Choose vocabulary from today’s lesson that you want to remember. Then, highlight all of this vocabulary. Next, schedule time in your calendar for one week from today and one month from today to review this vocabulary. By reviewing like this at scheduled times, you will remember the vocabulary much better.

Other Activities

Taboo Vocabulary Game

  • The teacher will divide you into teams to play a vocabulary game called Taboo. In this game, one person in each group turns her / his back to the TV / whiteboard / blackboard. This person is the Guesser.
  • The teacher will put one of the vocabulary items from the movie on the TV / whiteboard / blackboard.
  • The other people in that student’s team describe the vocabulary to the Guesser. They can describe the vocabulary by explaining the meaning, by saying similar words or by saying opposite words. They can’t say the exact word or a form of the word, spell the word or use any acting or body language, because this is an English speaking game! If you are the Guesser and you know the vocabulary, say it loudly so your teacher can hear you! The first of the Guessers to correctly guess the vocabulary gets a point for their team.
  • Switch to a different Guesser every 3 points.
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Sentence / Dialogue / Story Writing

Work with a partner or group and together write sentences, conversations and / or a story using 7 or more of the vocabulary items from today’s Exercise. You can also choose vocabulary from other Exercises that you’ve already done for this movie. Please underline or bold this vocabulary to make it easier for you and your teacher to see it.

Script Practice and Performance

  • Working with a partner or group, open the Script / Transcript / Quotes for this movie in the following links. Then, choose a section of the movie that you are interested in practicing. For example, it could be a section that you liked, a section filled with vocabulary that you want to review etc.
  • Then with your partner or group, practice that section of the movie a number of times, focusing on pronunciation, intonation and having lots of energy.
  • Finally, perform your section for the class.
  • Script without character names
  • Quotes

Write Out A Scene

  • Your teacher will choose a scene from this movie that you’ve already watched and tell you a little about it to remind you. With your partner / group, write out the conversation between these characters as you best remember it. Re-use vocabulary from the movie that you’ve learned, and bold it to make it easier for you and your teacher to see.
  • When you are finished, the teacher will play the scene for you again. Then, work with your partner / group to add to and improve your writing.
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