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PENGUIN READERS
Teacher Support Programme

LEVEL 3

My Fair Lady
Alan Jay Lerner

acquaintance, Colonel Pickering, that after six months of

lessons with him, he could teach Eliza to speak with such
a pure upper-class accent that no one would be able to tell
where she came from.
Chapter 2: Elizas father, Alfred Doolittle was thrown out
of the pub as he hasnt got enough money to pay for his
drinks. Eliza gives him some money.

About the author

My Fair Lady was originally a stage musical based on the
play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw.
Alan Jay Lerner adapted George Bernard Shaws play for
the musical My Fair Lady. Alan Jay Lerners words for the
songs use many of the spoken words in Shaws play. This
was partly because Lerner, by law, had to stay as close as
possible to the original.
The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856 1950)
was born in Dublin, but moved to London when he was
twenty, and soon began publishing articles and reviews in
London magazines.
After writing five unsuccessful novels, he turned to play
writing in the 1890s, but did not achieve popular success
until 1904. His plays surprised theatre audiences of the
time because of their serious attention to philosophical
ideas, moral questions and current social problems.
Many of them such as Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and
Superman, and Saint Joan, as well as Pygmalion are still
very popular today, and many have been filmed.
Shaw was a socialist who believed in equality of income
and the abolition of private property. He also supported
womens rights. He believed that many of the worlds
greatest problems could be solved by rational, scientific
thinking. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1925.

Summary
My Fair Lady tells the story of Eliza Doolittle, who is a
poor girl selling flowers on London streets until she meets
Henry Higgins, a professor of linguistics.
Chapter 1: Higgins hears Eliza shouting in her harsh
Cockney accent in Covent Garden. He says to his new
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Chapter 3: Eliza finds her way to the professors house

and offers him money to give her lessons. Pickering is
intrigued and offers to pay for the cost if Higgins can
really back up his claim. Higgins is interested in the
experiment, and agrees. An intensive makeover of Elizas
speech, manners, and dress begins in preparation for her
appearance at the Embassy Ball.
Chapter 4: Elizas father comes to Higgins to extract some
money from him. Higgins is impressed by the way he
speaks.
Meanwhile, Eliza goes through many forms of speech
training. Just as things seem hopeless, Higgins softens his
harsh attitude and she suddenly gets it.
Chapter 5: Higgins takes her on her first public
appearance to Ascot Racecourse. She makes a good
impression, but shocks everyone by her Cockney accent
and slang when she gets excited. She captures the heart of
a young man named Freddy Eynsford-Hill.
Chapter 6: Finally, Higgins takes Eliza out to the Embassy
Ball, where she stuns everyone. After the ball, Higgins
is so excited about his triumph and his pleasure that the
experiment is now over. Eliza feels used and abandoned.
Chapter 7: She walks out on Higgins and goes back to
Covent Garden, but nobody recognises her now. She sees
her father there and finds out that hes getting married.
Chapter 8: After Eliza is gone, Higgins soon realises that
he has grown accustomed to her face. Higgins finds Eliza
at his mothers house, and he attempts to talk her into
coming back to him. Eliza rejects him and leave.
Chapter 9: Higgins makes his way home, missing Eliza
very much. He plays his recordings to listen to Elizas
voice. To Higginss great delight, Eliza returns to him.

About the film

The 1964 film of the musical was enormously popular
all over the world and won eight Oscars, including those
for Best Picture, Best Actor (Rex Harrison), Best Director
(George Cukor) and Best Costume Design. Alan Jay
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Teachers notes

PENGUIN READERS
Teacher Support Programme

LEVEL 3

My Fair Lady
Lerner was nominated for an Oscar for his adaptation
of George Bernard Shaws play. The costume design was
the work of Sir Cecil Beaton (19041980), who was one
of the most fashionable photographers and designers in
Britain in the 1950s and early 60s. He was particularly
famous for his elegant photographs of the most beautiful
women of his day.
Audrey Hepburn who did not receive an Oscar or even a
nomination for her performance as Eliza Doolittle was a
world famous star when the film was made, and probably
remains one of the best-loved Hollywood actresses of all
time. She was born in 1929 in Belgium, of Irish-Dutch
parents, and brought up in Holland. She had small roles in
films in England from 1948 to 1951, but then moved to
the US, where she became a star with films such as Roman
Holiday (1953), Sabrina (1954), Funny Face (1957) and
Breakfast at Tiffanys (1961). Audiences fell in love with
her charm and beauty, and she was one of the greatest
influences on womens fashion of the 1950s. When she got
older she gave much more of her time to charity than to
acting. She died in 1993.
The musicals unforgettable songs were of course one
of the greatest attractions of the film. Although Rex
Harrisons singing voice is heard throughout, Audrey
Hepburns songs were only partly sung by the actress
herself. The producer, Jack Warner, would not let her sing,
and a professional singer Marni Nixon was brought in
to dub her own voice over that of Hepburns.

Background and themes

Pygmalion was first performed in 1913 in Vienna, and
published and performed in London in 1916. The story is
very much the same as it appears in My Fair Lady, except
that the musical version made the relationship between
Eliza Doolittle and Professor Higgins more romantic. In
the play, as the musical, Eliza grows in confidence and
independence and finally wins Higginss respect. But in
a postscript to the play, Shaw said that Eliza went on to
marry Freddy Eynsford-Hill, not Higgins.
Shaw partly modelled the character of Higgins on a real
linguist, Henry Sweet (18451912), who was one of the
first people to study phonetics in England.
Accent: At the time of this story, speaking with a proper
accent meant a higher social status. If Eliza can speak with
an upper-class accent, she would be able to leave the
street and find a respectable job.

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Relationship between Eliza and Higgins: Speaking

without a very strong London accent is not the only goal
Eliza is after. She has another battle on her hands: to make
Higgins see her as a person, not just as an interesting
experiment.
Men vs. women: The story shows the caring attitude of
women, such as Mrs Pearce and Mrs Higgins. Higgins,
however, doesnt appreciate it and says, Why cant women
be more like men?

Discussion activities
Chapter 1
Before reading
1 Discuss: Talk about musicals. Ask students if they
have seen Pygmalion or My Fair Lady. If they have,
put them into groups and tell them to discuss the
good and bad things about them. If they havent, ask
them to discuss good and bad points of musicals at
the theatre and on film.

After reading
2 Retell: Have students work in small groups. They
look at the pictures on pages 3 and 5, and take turns
to retell the story of Chapter 1. Encourage them to
describe the characters, e.g. how they look, how they
talk, what they are doing, etc.
3 Pair work: Tell students about the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) if they dont know it. Get
them to look in their dictionaries. Do some dictionary
work to practise phonetics. See the examples below:
a Give students some phonetic symbols, e.g. //,
//,//,/T/, etc. Then have students look for the
words with those symbols.
b Give students some words and have them look
them up in their dictionaries. Ask some individual
students to write the words with phonetic symbols
on the board.
c Write some words using the phonetic symbols on
the board. Have students guess what the words
are.

Chapters 23
Before reading
4 Discuss and predict: Talk about Alfred Doolittle.
Have students look at the picture on page 8. Ask the
following questions and lead a whole-class discussion.
Who do you think he is?
What type of accent do you think he has?
Why do you think he looks unhappy?

After reading
5 Discuss: Talk about Higgins.
The title of Chapter 3 is The Crazy Professor. Do you
agree that Higgins is crazy? What makes you think he is
crazy? What did he say? What did he do? Discuss in
groups.
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Teachers notes

PENGUIN READERS
Teacher Support Programme

LEVEL 3

My Fair Lady
6 Discuss: Talk about a foreign language and an accent.
Put students into groups. Ask them to discuss the
following questions.
Do you want to speak with a perfect accent?
What is the perfect accent for you?
How important is it for people to speak a foreign
language with a perfect accent?

Chapters 79
Before reading

Chapter 4
Before reading

14 Group work: Put students into small groups. Have

them look at Alfreds song on pages 30 31. They
work in groups to rewrite this song in ordinary
English not as a song. They can use the notes on
pages 4950.
15 Discuss: Talk about what Higgins really means.
When Higgins finds Eliza at his mothers house, Eliza
speaks to him, then he says, Dont you try that game on
me! Read this part of the story again. What does he
mean by game?
16 Role play: After Eliza leaves and says, I wont be
seeing you again, Higgins says to his mother, What
can I do? Put students into pairs, and have them
continue the conversation between Higgins and his
mother.
17 Discuss: Talk about the change in Higgins.
In what way has Henry changed towards Eliza? What in
these chapters makes you think this?
18 Retell: In small groups, students take turns to say one
sentence each in order to tell the story of the following
characters: Eliza (Chapters 79), Henry Higgins
(Chapters 8 9) and Mrs Higgins (Chapters 8 9).

7 Predict: Have students look at the pictures on

pages 18 and 20. Put students into pairs and have
them take turns to describe the pictures. Then have
them guess what will happen in this chapter.

After reading
8 Group work: Put students into groups. Give each
group a specific sound, such as h and long a. Have
them discuss and come up with sentences containing
those sounds. For example, Three authors were
thinking of writing a thriller. for the sound th.
Monitor the groups and help them if needed. Later,
ask each group to share their sentences with the rest
of the class.

Chapters 5 6
Before reading
9 Guess: Put students into small groups. Ask them to
imagine Elizas first public tryout. Encourage them
to think of what shes going to wear, what shes going
to talk about, and to guess if shes going to make any
mistakes or not, if she does, what will happen, etc.
When they are ready, ask each group to share their
ideas with the rest of the class.

After reading
10 Pair work: Put students into pairs. Have them work
on the following questions.
Which letters of the alphabet is Eliza saying when she
says, Ahyee, Eeee, Iyee, Ow, You! on page 17?
How could you write the following letters as words:
c, j, p, q, t, x, y? For example, b = be or bee.
11 Discuss: Talk about the change in Eliza at the Ball.
Put students into small groups. Have them compare
Eliza at the races with Eliza at the Ball six weeks later.
Encourage them to talk about what people think of
her. Ask them to discuss the reasons for the change in
Eliza.
12 Pair work: Have students work in pairs to
write down all the pairs of words in the song on
pages 2425 which end in the same sound. For
example, I and high in the first verse. If some pairs
finish earlier than other pairs, ask them to give you
the answers. Later, check the answers with the whole
class.

13 Discuss: Talk about the title.

Lead a whole-class conversation by asking about the
title of the chapter. Who do you think is going to be
married in the morning? Why do you think so?

After reading

Extra activities
19 Discuss: Put students into groups. Ask them to
imagine that Eliza does not go back to Henry
Higgins. What will she do now? Where will she go?
Then ask the groups to discuss: Is Elizas life better now
than it was before she went to stay with Higgins?
20 Discuss: Have students work in groups to discuss as
follows: In this story, a persons accent is very important.
If someone has a strong accent, rich, important people are
not so interested in them. People with strong accents
cannot get the best jobs. Are accents as important as this
in your country?
21 Discuss: Do you think people can really change as much
as Eliza does in this story? If you can change yourself,
how do you want to change?
22 Discuss: Did you like the story? Why? / Why not? Which
part of the story did you like most? Why? Which part of
the story did you like least? Why?
23 Project: Put students into groups. Give each group a
name of place in the story, e.g. Royal Opera House,
Ascot, etc. Have them prepare a presentation on these
places.

Vocabulary activities
For the Word List and vocabulary activities, go to
www.penguinreaders.com.

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