LOSERS
Language level: Intermediate (B1)Advanced (B2.2)
Learner type: Mature teens and adults
Time: 90 minutes
Activity: Watching short film, reading
and speaking
Topic: Bullying
Language: not + adjective + enough, too +
adjective, and insults
Materials: Short film and infographic
Overview
This lesson is based around a short film
called Losers by Everynone and the theme of
bullying. The message of the film is that
regardless of what we look like or how popular we
are, we’re all united by a susceptibility to
verbal abuse. At the end of the film, the word
“Loser” is reclaimed, proving itself to be an
appropriate descriptor for the person who used it
in the first place.
Step 1
Write Losers on the board. Ask your students if
they know what this word means.
One dictionary definition is:
a person who is incompetent or unable to succeed
Step 2
Tell your students that the word loser is often
used as an insult to describe a person who may be
considered different from other people in some
way. Ask them what different types of people may
be classified by others as losers. Give students
the following examples:
People who aren’t intelligent enough.
Encourage students to use the constructions:
www.film-english.com by Kieran Donaghy
LOSERS
People who are too thin.
2
not + adjective + enough
too + adjective
Step 3
Tell your students that they are going to watch a
short film called Losers. The first time they
watch the film ask them to classify the types of
people called losers.
Link: https://vimeo.com/32151543
Step 4
Get feedback from your students and talk about why
the different people who appear in the film might
be classified as losers.
Step 5
Tell your students they are going to watch the
film again. This time you would like them to try
to identify any of the insults which they hear.
Get feedback.
Step 6
faggot, slut, bitch, gay, little girl, idiot,
cocksucker, weirdo, fat ass, retard, freak
www.film-english.com by Kieran Donaghy
LOSERS
Write up on the board the following insults which
are heard in the film.
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Ask students to put the insults into the following
categories:
1. Homophobic insults
2. Sexist insults
3. Intelligence insults
4. Sizist insults (sizism can be defined as
the discrimination or prejudice against people
of an "abnormal" body size, whether it's
height or weight.)
5. General insults
Answers:
1. Faggot, gay, little girl, cocksucker
2. Slut, bitch
3. Idiot, retard
4. Fat ass
5. Weirdo, freak
Step 7
Ask students if the insults they heard in the film
are similar to those used in their own language.
Tell your students that the insults they heard in
the film is a type of bullying. Ask them what
other types of bullying they saw in the film.
Give your students this infographic on student
bullying and ask them to find the following
information and then to discuss it with a partner.
www.film-english.com by Kieran Donaghy
LOSERS
Step 8
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The most common types of bullying
The effects of bullying on the victim
The effects of bullying on the bully
Source:
http://www.buckfirelaw.com/library/studentbullying-in-united-states-statistics-and-facts.cfm
Step 9
LOSERS
Put students into pairs and get them to discuss
the questions about bullying.
www.film-english.com by Kieran Donaghy
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