Categories: Lesson

Listening and Dubbing Practice with The Big Bang Theory [ESL Lesson]

This lesson is intended as a bit of fun to engage your students have get them talking. It poses some listening challenges and also includes a dubbing activity. Altogether, this lesson should give your students ample opportunity to speak. The topic is education, which is always relevant in an ESL class.

First up, I like to show my students have a few pictures and have them discuss what they see. I use one quote and a couple of pictures that relate to education. Try to get the students to elicit the vocabulary and ideas and then build upon that.

Next, I show a video with the sound off. I ask the students what happened, and it’s actually quite difficult to guess. I introduce the concept of dubbing and the students will then spend some time putting their guesses into practice by dubbing the clip. (The clip is from The Big Bang Theory, which is super popular here in China.)

After they’ve done, I’ll ask some groups to speak in front of the class. Then I’ll play the video again with sound and ask a few questions to check comprehension.

What is happening at the start?
What does Penny want to learn?
Why can’t she just learn “a little physics”?
What does Sheldon suggest she do instead?
Why does she say his time is not valuable?
What science experience does she have?
How does she convince him?

I then show another clip from later in the episode, and have my students discuss a little more freely:

Then I ask the following questions:

Is Penny a good student?
Is Sheldon a good teacher?
What is the conflict?
Are they successful? Why?

David S Wills

I am a writer, editor, and educator. I have written various books on mid-20th century American writers and a few on grammar and IELTS preparation. I have been in the education field since 2008 and have worked in various countries. I started this website to share some ideas and resources to help my fellow teachers.