A tribute to Dolly Parton

Photo by Kristopher Harris

via Wikimedia Commons

under CC BY 2.0

A listening and vocabulary lesson

I was never a huge Dolly Parton fan, if I'm honest. But her name came up in one of my adult classes last week and that was enough of a nudge to put together the lesson below (with a little help from Claude). I then tried it with another 'mini' group, who didn't even know who she was, but instantly recognised 9 to 5 and I Will Always Love You (Surprise surprise! – "Wait, that's hers originally?!"). So a tip for the Pre-watching stage: rather than just asking students which Dolly Parton songs they know, play them a couple of clips instead – you'll probably get a similar reaction.

The lesson is based on a CBS Sunday Morning tribute that aired on August 30, days after Dolly Parton died in Nashville, Tennessee, on August 25 at 80.

Level: Suitable for B2 / C1

Materials: Worksheet (PDF) or Google Slides below

    

Procedure

Key words

Despite the sub-heading, these are not the key to understanding the report by any means – just items students might need to know. You may want to point out that "timbre" is pronounced "TAM-ber" – not to be confused with "timber" (the wood).

Part 1

You'll probably need to clarify a couple of words inside the quotes themselves before playing – grit and voluptuous both came up when I ran this.

Part 2 - Gapfill

Answers are on page 3 of the worksheet PDF / on the last slide.

Part 2 - True/False

The idea here is to focus on some lexical chunks in the report. Students may be able to answer T/F questions after the first listening but you may have to play the video again for them to note down the exact words said in the video – all of them Dolly Parton's own words (see Note on Pronunciation below).

After watching

I have to admit I was genuinely surprised when watching this that some of the people on that approval rating list (around the 1-min mark) were referred to as "luminaries". That's what prompted Question 2. Worth probing a bit further: who would students compare Dolly Parton to instead: Madonna? Cher?

Follow-up 

Dolly's wit and wisdom: two collections of her best quotes. Have half the class read each and decide which one they like best. They might want to look up when she said it, in what interview, in response to what question (but this might be tricky).

Other follow-up activities (not on the worksheet)

Charity research: students look into Dolly Parton's Imagination Library and report back.

Tribute writing: using the "true grit and true grace, all in one person" style language (from Part 1), students write a short tribute for someone they admire (not necessarily deceased).

Song activity: this ready-made "9 to 5" worksheet from Tune Into English pairs nicely as a follow-up lesson: www.tuneintoenglish.com/9to5.pdf

Note on pronunciation and accent

Dolly Parton's accent – a fairly strong Southern drawl – might be hard for some students to parse in places, so it's worth pointing out a couple of features:

• Dropped -ing: the -ing ending loses its back-of-the-mouth nasal sound, so "working" becomes workin' /ˈwɜːrkɪn/ (as heard in the song Workin' 9 to 5...).
• Vowel breaking (or vowel bending): single-syllable words often turn into gliding two-part sounds (diphthongs). For instance, "dress" can come out sounding closer to /drɛjəs/.
• Diphthong flattening: standard English diphthongs in words like "time", "my" and "right" sound like tahm [ta:m], mah [ma:] and raht [ra:t]. When Dolly Parton says her friend Miley Cyrus’s name, she famously pronounces it like Mah-ley. 

It's also worth pointing out the non-standard grammar in the worksheet's title: "don't she look good" as a nice, low-key example of vernacular English, where don't replaces doesn't for 3rd person singular in casual speech. Just don't reveal where the line comes from until the video reveals it right at the end!

RIP Dolly Parton. I had 9 to 5 stuck in my head as I was writing this.