As part of the celebrations of the centenary of Roald Dahl’s birth, Steven Spielberg has helmed an adaptation of his book The BFG. Pupils generally recognise Dahl’s work from books or films, so it is a rich subject for class work.
Don’t miss our articles on the The BFG film and Dream Jar Trail (see links below).
The Roald Dahl Museum has an excellent site. It has lesson plans for most of the books, including The BFG. They are designed for native speakers, but some of the extracts and themes can be adapted for EFL teaching. The themes about dreams and celebrating difference for example, including character cards about the heroes of various Dahl books who feel they are different.
The representations of 50 celebrities’ dreams in Dream Jars on display in the UK will make a good starting point for asking pupils to draw and describe their dreams.
You can hear Roald Dahl reading a short extract from The BFG. The Big Friendly Giant explains how he learned to read.
Teaching with Trailers
This teaser trailer is perfect for coming up with hypotheses. It is the very beginning of the film, and stops just as the BFG’s hand is reaching in through Sophie’s dormitory window. It finishes on Sophie’s voice saying, “And this is how our story begins.” What better way to invite pupils to imagine what will happen next?
It also allows for a nice little language exercise as Sophie repeatedly tells herself not to do things which she then immediately does: “Never get out of bed. Never go over to the window. Never look behind the curtain.” It’s a very natural reformulation exercise to ask pupils “What did Sophie say? What did Sophie do? or What is Sophie doing now?” (Film is a great, natural way to work on the present progressive.)
You can then follow up with this trailer, which has more elements of the story.
Tag(s) : "BFG" "cinema" "literature" "Roald Dahl" "Spielberg"