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Malsol
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 1976
Location: Lanzhou
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 Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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Last edited by Malsol on Mon Feb 05, 2007 11:59 am; edited 1 time in total |
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eslstudies
Joined: 17 Dec 2006
Posts: 1061
Location: East of Aden
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 11:44 pm Post subject: |
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I can't find a bigger font or louder colour, so this will have to do.
I teach ESL to a mix of nationalities. When I use video [other than as an end of term treat], I go for the non-fiction genre. "Bowling For Columbine" worked a treat with senior high students. I set the topic, eg "What thesis does Mike Moore outline in BFC, and how does he develop it?'. They've already learned essay structure: it's an EAP class.
Before watching, we field build, using other media such as print and TV journalism.
We watch twice, both times with English subtitles on. The first time is with frequent pauses for emphasis and discussion; the second is straight through.
Then on to the essay.
This works for me.
BTW, most of these students are Chinese, Japanese, Korean. The few Europeans in there tend to blitz the Asians in terms of their control of the language. |
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Malsol
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 1976
Location: Lanzhou
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 1:36 am Post subject: |
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Last edited by Malsol on Mon Feb 05, 2007 3:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 4:11 am Post subject: |
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ChinaMovieMagic rules -- and conquers TEFL-dom in China.    |
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Malsol
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 1976
Location: Lanzhou
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 4:56 am Post subject: |
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Last edited by Malsol on Mon Feb 05, 2007 11:57 am; edited 1 time in total |
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vikdk
Joined: 25 Jun 2003
Posts: 1676
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 6:39 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| I go for the non-fiction genre. "Bowling For Columbine" worked a treat |
most useful thing said in this thread so far
Edutainment - dont get hooked up on the concept of classroom entertainment as having to be some circus/slapstick/performing monkey type event!!
Look on educational entertainment as something that gains attention and aids concentration - through building a high level of interest.
In respect of language learning the documentary is a great "entertainment" media for this - the language is often precise and discussable while the subject matter can be compeling and intensely interesting - especially for a population who are not used to discussion in such an open manner.
Kind of also makes the use of those home alone type films look such tripe - and enables students to understand and think about serious matters without having to wade through the abstract aesthetic barriers - "artistic licence" - which are so often built into the more meaningful western films. |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 6:48 am Post subject: |
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| Malsol wrote: |
| If you do not do as you are told, there will be consequences. |
This sounds like a line from a movie -- can't recall which. There were some naughty bits that I don't think Chinese students would be able to follow. But I could be wrong. Was it an old black-and-white about a British public school?
Chinese students might be quite interested in the 1950s and 1960s films about British public schools, corporal punishment, bullying, headmasters, prefects, head boys, and so on. Interesting stuff that will open some eyes on the other side of the world, eh? |
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Malsol
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 1976
Location: Lanzhou
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 7:46 am Post subject: |
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Last edited by Malsol on Mon Feb 05, 2007 11:56 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Steppenwolf
Joined: 30 Jul 2006
Posts: 1769
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 8:49 am Post subject: |
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| Malsol wrote: |
this is highly condensed nonsense!
First question:
Why do our college students take that long to read one page?
Tentative answer: because they don't understand any contiguous English
Second objection:
WHy did you quote S. KRashen?
His observations cannot be applied to any CHinese English classroom; these are not environments conducive to free discussions and the developming of imagination.
My last point is:
At university level, students are required to "know 4000 words"...Four thousand only! And not that they know how to use them! |
"First question...Second Objection...Last Point"
And some Chinese admin actually believes that you are a teacher?
Movies will help them acquire contiguous language.
You create the classroom environment, or should.
Movies will teach the students how particular words are used. Especially if you pre-teach the vocabulary properly.
I have letters from students. I will try to locate them and post them.[/quote]
OKO, Malsol, so you are not interested in helping your students deal with language-specific problems. You subscribe to the illusion that there is a foolproof and easy way to acquire an L2 that is both "interesting" and "friendly" without requiring the students to make their own effort.
And that's why you are a victim of self-deception. Even you have to make extra efforts to get your students in on the language used in the movies - they have to be subtitled. IF that's not one way of defeating the purpose of enabling students to use what little they have learnt in so many wasted classroom and self-study hours, then what is?
Pre-teaching? That's another delusion. It means the student never has to get in touch with the language used in the real world; he or she only gets exposed to language his or her teacher has introduced to them.
A real student knows how to help himself or herself without depending on a teacher all the time, or depending on subtitles.
Our students fail to learn to help themselves; they have never learnt how to learn. And even if they have been "pre-taught" new vocabulary they are not familiar with vocabulary they studied before. Does any of your students ever differentiate between the various ver tenses? Do they recognise a past tense when it is used? How can they understand a movie that uses language that doesn't use the present tense in every sentence?
In the end, your movies may be just an extra prop for their memory; "ah I remember THAT word because it popped up in THAT movie my FT showed us before Christmas! But what does it mean in Chinese?" |
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Malsol
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 1976
Location: Lanzhou
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 9:49 am Post subject: |
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Last edited by Malsol on Mon Feb 05, 2007 11:53 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Itsme
Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 624
Location: Houston, TX
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 10:08 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| "Do not cast pearls before swine" |
or before C_ocks, apparently:
| Quote: |
�sop. (Sixth century B.C.) Fables.
The Harvard Classics. 1909�14.
The C_ock and the Pearl
A C_OCK was once strutting up and down the farmyard among the hens when suddenly he espied something shining amid the straw. �Ho! ho!� quoth he, �that�s for me,� and soon rooted it out from beneath the straw. What did it turn out to be but a Pearl that by some chance had been lost in the yard? �You may be a treasure,� quoth Master C_ock, �to men that prize you, but for me I would rather have a single barley-corn than a peck of pearls.�
�PRECIOUS THINGS ARE FOR THOSE THAT CAN PRIZE THEM.� |
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vikdk
Joined: 25 Jun 2003
Posts: 1676
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 11:10 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Our students fail to learn to help themselves; they have never learnt how to learn. And even if they have been "pre-taught" new vocabulary they are not familiar with vocabulary they studied before. Does any of your students ever differentiate between the various ver tenses? Do they recognise a past tense when it is used? How can they understand a movie that uses language that doesn't use the present tense in every sentence? |
this hillarious diatribe must have been heavily influenced by that new fangled educational method - eduboring.
Remember folks - in ages past - Steppenwolf has suggested good classroom method is to get the student to memorise sonnets |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Malsol wrote: |
| I told you to go outside and play with the other children. If you do not do as you are told, there will be consequences. |
vikdk, glad to see you're playing nicely with all the children in the sandbox. We don't want to see those "consequences," do we??
Have a happy holiday. |
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Malsol
Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 1976
Location: Lanzhou
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| Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 8:05 pm Post subject: |
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Last edited by Malsol on Mon Feb 05, 2007 11:52 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 12:26 am Post subject: |
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Henry is quite awake at the moment and earning more money than Internet maltrolls can imagine (at 4:05 a.m. China time) in their wildest dreams. 
Happy last day of Hanukkah to all!! Weren't the latkes tasty this year???
Please send all dire "consequences" my way... especially those from the bullying headboy in that movie whose title I can't remember. As I recall, the headboy gets a delightful and delicious comeuppance at the film's conclusion.  |
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