Hey! My name is David. I’ll be sharing with you a quick easy and simple way to teach a language class using movies in ten simple steps. This is something that I’ve read on a blog a while back. I don’t remember the name of the blog, but I remember it was a repost to something that Kenneth Bear had written from About.com, English as a second language. So if you look there, you can probably find it fairly easily. And it’s been awhile since I’ve actually read through this so I’m just going to show you how I’ve been doing it. I hope remember all the ten steps in the correct order. But anyways, just be flexible, have fun with it and students love it and it’s very effective for helping them word and comprehend the language. So, go through these ten steps and then I’m going to show an example with you with a movie that I did recently, this past week actually and I broke it down with my students.
So the first thing you’re going to do is you’re going to choose a section of a movie, normally 3 to 5 minutes and it can be anywhere in the movie. You’re going to show it to the students and the target language. Now for example, if you’re an English teacher, you’re teaching English as a second language, you’re going to show the section of the movie that you choose in English without subtitles to the students. So you're going to show it straight through without pausing. And normally, what I try to do is choose the section of the movie that has got plenty of dialogue maybe something funny that happens in it, but also leads up to some being suspense full or something that is going to happen in the movie. And so as I show them the section, I’ll pause it right before the big event that’s going to happen. So you run through it, let them watch it, and then after they’ve seen it, ask them on the scale of one to ten how much they were able to understand the movie.
Now, I recommend that you show it to them in English without subtitles or without letting them watch it one at a time because then they’re going to understand it and so they’ll just kind of sum it when they’re watching this section in English. Keep them on their toes and try to get them involved with this, ask them some questions and even ask questions related to what they saw, on things from their personal life if something like that has ever happened to them, etcetera, you know, depending on the level of the group. you can ask easier or difficult questions and get more conversations going. So anyways, after you’ve done that, go back through and play it slowly with pauses so to kind of show them reflection and then pausing it and let them take notes, write down the words that they didn’t understand or words that they did understand and then you can do it either way. Let them write the words they understand so you kind of see what words they’re picking up if they’re understanding the words correctly or words they don’t understand just write it the way they understood so they can go back to them to actually learn those words later.
So once you’ve done that then go back through and play it in their mother tongue. Just let them watch it straight through and see if they really understood what they thought they did. It’s actually kind of interesting, the response you get there. So now they’ve seen it and then you go back through it and this time, the fourth time actually that I showed it to them, I put it back in English and put the subtitles in English. So now, they can actually watch it and read what the actors are saying and that’s a lot more comprehensible and you know and so much easier for them to grasp, and this kind of helps them somewhat make that connection between what they’re hearing, what they’re seeing and it’s a really interesting exercise.
So once I’ve done that, I go back through and we’ll watch it the fifth time, this time with the subtitles again which I’ll actually go through pausing it and I’ll ask them to translate what they heard or what they’re seeing in the subtitles and make sure they are really comprehending it. You know, -- every single sentence, we just go through and choose different sections and just kind of go around the room. And that way, we really get a feel of the students who are understanding it and who are not. And then you can go back through and play it only in English once more for them without the subtitles and see if they are still able to comprehend it. And so as you go through this several times, you play it through the movie in different ways between six or ten times, if you got a three-minute section of the movie, this will probably actually will take you about six times ask the questions and really work through it and actually take it apart.
So, once you’ve done all that, you can go back through and actually see what words they can understand, teach them the new vocabulary and actually, you’re doing some of these during the time when they are actually pausing it and making sure they comprehend it. We just double check that they understood everything. And so, I think that we have skipped a step or two, but you know, it’s flexible. I always do it the same exact way. Some students loves to go through and actually pause it at first and translate it, you know, many times all the way towards the end. You know, this isn’t like you have to do it exactly this way. Just think about what your students, what they did and how you can help them grasp and understand what’s going on.
The final section after they really understand it and they know what’s going on, then you go back through and you let them watch the whole section without pauses and actually let them see what happens. The Cliffhanger, that’s suspenseful and it’s really interesting, the reaction with students like this and they actually feel. It helps them develop their self confidence and, you know, perceive the fact that they really are learning and that they can use what they’re learning.
Alright, so now let me tell you how I did this a movie in a class recently. We watched “Slumdog Millionaire”. Actually, I let them watch the first few minutes of the movie just to kind of understand what was going on. And then I jumped to a section of a movie that’s in Chapter 11, in a DVD it’s at one 1 hour and 23 minutes. And I let them watch about a minute up through 1 hour, 24 minutes and 18 seconds and I played through that several times to make sure they understood what was going on. And then I played from 1 hour and 24 minutes and 18 seconds to 1 hour 27 minutes and three seconds. Now, this is the section of the movie—second section that doesn’t have a whole lot of dialogue. But I just played through it once or twice and just asked some questions about what they were seeing. It wasn’t so much about what they were receiving but just what they’re seeing. They have to describe scenes, what they thought was going on and why. Then, after we did that one, we went through and played the rest of the movie from 1 hour, 27 minutes and 3 seconds through 1 hour 32 minutes and seven seconds and let them actually watch the whole thing several times using this process that I just explained to you. And the Cliffhanger session was right before he answers the last question and the final answer, and the answer is given and he realizes that the answer was correct. But the students don’t know that. They’re in doubt the whole time if he answers the question correctly or not. They haven’t watched the movie and some of the students have already seen the moves so they knew the answer. But it was a fun experience. They really enjoyed it and I hope you enjoy this also and can apply this with your students. And let me know what kind of results you get, alright?
So you can just contact me through EXLsite@gmail.com. Send me your message, send me your feedback, let me know what you thought, how you used this if you make any modifications or come up with some new ideas and it would be great to be hearing from you. So enjoy it. Talk to you all later. Bye bye.
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