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Kniaz Anna

Scovoroda Kharkiv national pedagogical university, Ukraine

Teaching English by means of movies

Nowadays students need to be exposed to a wide variety of resources from audio to printed material. Although this output seems to fulfill their needs and prepare them for the outside world, teachers always keep searching for more motivating sources. So, introducing movies into our classroom is a challenge most language teachers must face. Daily, teachers encounter students' demands for watching real movie stories rather than those graded video ones found at the local bookstores, which in the long run turn out to be artificial.

Movies present language in a way that is often more natural than that found in course-books, the fantastic visual context aids understanding and boosts listening, and students just simply love them. Video is a valuable and possibly underused classroom tool.

Obviously there are cultural factors and age factors which have to be taken into account. There may even be religious issues. But these are often a matter of common sense. More difficult to gauge is the issue of the students’ level. Some contemporary movies may have too much slang and idioms to make them appropriate for lower level learners, and may be better for more advanced learners who are interested in the idiomatic language.

During the worksheet preparation, planning and editing to accompany the movies, a wide variety of techniques are resorted to involve and motivate students as well as help them profit from the video session.

Before the students are exposed the movie, there are some things teachers should consider: language level and social maturity of the students focus on language first and culture second, or the opposite.

When using movies in class, though, there are some very important issues that need to be dealt with. Students should know that they are not expected to understand every word. You should get your students to accept that getting the ‘main idea’ is enough. Indeed, movies are difficult to understand precisely because they are so "real world," at least from a linguistic perspective. This may make watching them incredibly frustrating, especially if you're at that level where you feel fluent, but still can't follow a lot of the dialogue.

It is necessary to avoid showing the entire movie. Snippets of a movie and a good dose of the ‘pause’ button serve everyone’s ultimate purpose much better.

As for techniques, there is also a limited number of those: sound off/vision on (silent viewing), sound on/vision off, pause/freeze-frame control, sound on/vision on.

Well developed, planned video lessons should consist of three stages, which are: pre-watching (tune in), watching and post-watching.

Pre-watching stage is meant that students are gradually guided and involved in the plot, the characters and the setting of the film. They can be led at this stage by prediction based activities, brainstorming speculation patterns with the aid of visual aids such as pictures, vocabulary with words and expressions from the story or just through questions related to the main topic.

At the watching stage, there is more thorough work on the plot and the characters. Students are exposed to a variety of activities such as problem solving, filling blanks, multiple matching, ordering events, true and false or comprehension questions. The main aim at this stage is to exploit the film at its best profiting from the wide variety of idiomatic expressions, collocations and slang that the students will encounter in real life.

The post-watching stage is considered to be the follow up one where the film plot is used together with the lexical terms by making students either role-play the best parts or by organising group debates based on the moral of the plot.

Furthermore, a written homework assignment may be set asking students to describe their favourite character at lower levels or writing a film review as well as an article to be placed in the school magazine at higher ones.

Depending on the film being discussed, you may wish to become more of a facilitator than an ESL instructor. If the movie deals with sensitive topics such as social issues like AIDS, it is probably best to adopt an attitude in which you are no longer the language expert, but just another person struggling with the issues presented. As always, an important goal should be to strike a balance between setting a specific agenda and allowing the conversation to become a free-for-all.

Beyond the structuring of any particular type of class conversation, many of these films may yield other types of projects that can be incorporated into the classroom setting. For example, journal writing allows students the time to reflect on what they have seen before actually having to express themselves. Particular essays can also be assigned, with selected passages reviewed for further class discussion.

To conclude, variety, dynamics and creativity are the essential elements needed to create profitable video lessons while bringing movies into today's classrooms. Also, teachers should not be afraid to face the challenge of making the most of their creativity by creating the perfect classroom atmosphere. Using movies in class is not an opportunity to idle for both a teacher and students. In fact, quite the opposite. It is intensive and instructive work for the students. If the process of preparation is fulfilled correctly we are, after all, not ‘showing the film’, we are teaching and learning English!

Bibliography:

1. Braddock, B. Using films in the English class. // Hemel Hempstead: Phoenix ELT. – 1996. – 156 p.

2. Donley, K.. Film for fluency. // English Teaching Forum, April. – 2000.

3. Fox, T. Enhancing the power of passive film viewing. // The ETA-Rep. of China Newsletter, Vo. 3, No.1. March. – 1999. – 65 p.

4. Stempleski, S. & Tomalin, B. Video in Action: Recipes for using video in language teaching. – NY: Prentice Hall. – 1990. – 230 p.

5. Stempleski, S.Video in the ESL classroom: Making the most of the movies. ESL Magazine, March/April, 2000.p.10-12.