Korean Job Discussion Forums

[kittyfye]

Does anyone have any experience teaching with movies?

I have a fairly high-level class that wants to be taught with movies one night each week. As well, the want conversation on another night and writing on a third.

My hope was to teach conversation and writing from the movies, but I dont much care for movies, myself, so I dont know where to beging.

Any ideas or sources?

[mishlert]

If their level is high enough to watch, and understand a movie in english (no K-subtitles) you could do:
1 class of movie watching.
1 class of writing about the movie.
1 class about discussing the movie.

[casey's moon]

I had a class request movie English before. I found that it was quite difficult for many of the students. I also put a ton of work into it and they lost interest quickly before even half of my hard work had a chance to pay off. I was watching the movie ahead of time, timing how long a scene was, developing comprehension and discussion questions, etc., and after two classes they decided that "free talking" was more there style.

I swear, the only good thing I got out of that demanding, selfish class was a husband.

[Ya-ta Boy]

There are lots of things you can do with a movie. Some of them are:

Copy the dialog to a scene and then choose words to delete (for example, all prepositions) and have the students fill in the blanks while watching.

Turn off the sound and have students write the verbs the action is showing (this works better with an action movie, obviously)...the car is exploding, the actor is running away, the bad guy is shooting...

Have students list the emotions the actors are portraying...

Show part of a scene and then stop the movie and ask: What is going to happen next?

Transcribe the dialog of two characters talking, delete one character's dialog and ask the students to fill in the missing dialog.

Play a scene without subtitles and ask the students to translate the dialog. Compare it with the subtitles when they finish. You can also do this one with a Korean movie and have them translate a scene into English.


I'm not a fan of just turning on a movie and say, "Watch the movie". The students can do that at home without paying you to turn on the projector.

If you use a movie for discussion/writing, get movies with strong themes. Action movies and love stories seldom work well for this.

[mishlert]

There are tons of movie script sights where you can go and save them to your computer. Once that is done, you can edit them (blank spaces) as you wish.
My advice is to start with a 30, or 60 minute TV show to get an idea of their true level of understanding.
Note: 30 minute TV shows run 22 minutes
60 minute TV shows run 44 minutes

[ejmlab]

Check out this site ESLNOTES It has loads of materials for teaching English through movies.

Cheers

[ilovebdt]

Hi, I'm currently using movie trailers as a listening exercies in my calss . I use this site: www.esclub.gr/cinema/trailers. My highschoolers love it.

Ilovebdt

[Ya-ta Boy]

[UncleAlex]

You might want to show an entire movie (Enemy of the State) scene by scene
on a weekly basis by handing out the dialogue script one week in advance so that
the class can be ready for each session. I've conducted drama and role-playing
sessions using the movie scenes and have handed out comprehension and
discussion questions. Movie English keeps most of the students satisfied.
If that's what your class wants, then you can't go wrong.

[casey's moon]

[JacktheCat]

I have started an experiment with one of my advanced extra classes, where I show them a Korean movie they haven't seen before with the sound turned off, and they have to follow the movie only by the English subtitles.

Will be interesting to see how it turns out.