Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Blue Flower]

Each of my elementary classes, at one of my schools, gets a lesson in the cinema room per month. My problem is, what am i to do with them? So far, we have watched Harry Potter, but i want to use it more educationally, the other teachers are using it to teach english songs, but im not interested in singing twinkle, twinkle, little star with my kids. Does anyone have any ideas/experience in using media in the esl classroom?

[crazylemongirl]

fun movies of no educational merit

Ice age,
Monsters inc,
Toy story
The disney collection
CLg

[Catalina]

Hello,

Here are a few tricks I have tried with videos.

You should watch the video first and depending on the length of the video

1. Pre-teach some words from the video
2. Watch video with sound off - try to get students to say words aloud -add more key words if they can manage
3. Show video again - now with sound and ask kiddies to listen for key words. Maybe raised hands every time they hear a certain word?

Options for follow-up

Get kiddies to re-act the story (a great time waster and a riot to watch)
Draw scenes/characters etc
Watch video again - stop at exciting moments and ask kiddies "what will happen next".

These ideas are from a book for Teachers from Oxford Press called Very Young Learners - it's an excellent resource.

Another option using CLG's movie suggestions would be to pull one of the theme songs off the intenet and teach it in class. If you do it before the movie then the kiddies are prepped to sing along. You could also do it after the screening and the kiddies would have a visual to go along with it.

Hope this helps.

Catalina

[captain kirk]

the boss, at great expense, set up a foam-lined 'media room'. at first we were doing a script for a movie called mathilda. then it was 'willy wonka and the chocolate factory'. we went to 'wonka' because the english was simpler. we'd run through the movie once, then study the script. having seen the movie already they could connect back to what the script is talking on about. HOWEVER, movie study was flip-floppish. it was a huge kick for them to watch the movie once without stop. but getting through the script is like hacking through the jungle with a machete; hot, sweaty work. 'teacher' is going about a thousand miles an hour firing off attempts at translation, word by word, dictionary whizzing. while trying to maintain a 'tom tom' beat to keep them interested, and the momentum going. hey, kids, translation is fun!
then the korean english teacher got the above task. because it would be 'more easy' for her to translate. i was pulling words out of context, not able to relate the context. so she had an edge. at first, she couldn't believe her luck! a nice change for her. watching movies was supposed to be the foreign teacher's job. but, after a couple of weeks, she got to cursing the activity.
the kids just don't want to be frantically connecting full-out on translating line by line. it's just TOO much work. something about a movie just makes most people want to zone out to a degree, and look at the pretty, coloured, moving pictures. how could they resist that? they yawn, stretch forward, watch the mouths move and incomprehensible english quickly pour out. in a dark room leading to mini naps.
the korean english teacher, female, 25, is highly conscientous. at least she appears to be. i've heard koreans work hard at appearing conscientious, by instinct and cultural conditioning. even so, i get the impression she's valiantly putting her fingers in leaks popping from a great, leaking dam trying to make 'english class' out of movie watching.