Activities by watching movies, videos

Activities by watching movies, videos

If you, going to the foreign language lesson, do not want to be limited to the materials of a boring textbook and outdated cassettes with the "teaching aids" - excellent, then the game methods of working with films (in general, all kinds, but especially with feature films) will certainly be useful to you! After all, virtually any feature film (dubbed or not, with or without subtitles) can turn into a convenient, unique and exclusive didactic material. And most importantly, to find movies in any language today is not difficult.

But a good teacher will not waste lesson time on something that the student can do at home by himself: without any kind of guidance from the teacher, without the special conditions of the school lesson. So, simply watching a movie for the learning process in today's lesson is too passive, and therefore boring and ineffective. That is why I offer some game tasks for work with video at the lesson, which I conducted myself at the English lesson for high school students.

I. Prediction.

Before the screening, I told the students the name of the feature film they would be working with excerpts from. Also, I told them what year the film was made, what country it was made in, who the director was, etc. But the important thing was to ask the students, "What do you think this movie is about?"

The students answered in a few words, i.e., in short: "about unhappy love," "about saving the world," "about strong friendship," etc. This task prepared them for perception, "tuned them into the wave" of the English language.

It was better for students to write down their wording on the board, which ensured that their individual students would repeatedly go back to the "starting point." Which, in turn, helped them to have a voluminous awareness of both their situationally developing goals and their progress toward them, as well as the results they voluntarily or involuntarily attained.

II. Voicing.

This method can be used both at the beginning of the film, and during any of its episodes. I chose an appropriate episode in advance (for example, in my case, it corresponded to the level of preparation of my students).

I turned off the sound and gave the students the task of voicing what was happening.

I grouped the class into working groups-teams. Then I let them watch the fragment once - and, after a couple of minutes of preparation, the groups were to dub the film.

III. What's next?

This activity can be done several times in a row at different parts of the movie. I stopped the screening at the "most interesting part" and asked the students, "What happens next?"

I supplemented the task with special conditions. For example, I limited students to using only the future tense (or the past tense).

Then, the students answered the question according to my conditions.

IV. Without a picture.

This technique is the opposite of dubbing. I chose a fragment of the film that could only be listened to. For example, one of the dialogues. Or a dense background of "street noises."

The students, united in working groups, became actors: they invented and staged the event sequence of the episode based on what they heard.

I made sure that when discussing the task, students communicated only in English.

V. Back to the Past.

After watching a particular segment (or the entire movie), it is useful to puzzle working groups of students with the task of how they imagine the past of the characters they have seen.

I set up an opinion poll with this kind of directing. I drew several columns on the board and signed them: childhood, family, education, etc. A messenger from each team would go to the board and fill in the columns with the key words his team had discussed.

The resulting variation thrilled the students' imagination and stimulated their curiosity about their neighbors' opinions.

VI. Character descriptions.

I asked each of the students (or work teams) to choose one of the characters and for two minutes to formulate a description of his or her appearance, character or some habits, by which the neighbors had to guess who the prototype was.

This kind of work is also worth doing at home, because "the written assignment requires a more careful choice of vocabulary and more attention to grammar."

VII. Believe it - don't believe it.

After watching a certain episode, I asked: "Do the characters say what they think or are they lying?" Messengers from the work groups ran out to the board to put a tick in the appropriate column. Then the marks were recalculated and the results were discussed, argued, and, if necessary, corrected.

The questions were quite varied:

√ What emotions guide this character?

√ How does the character feel at any given moment in the film?

√ What feelings (or emotions) can this character not feel in this episode?

Such questions helped to draw students' attention to how the inner world of a person manifests itself in his or her facial expressions, gestures, intonation, and movement patterns.

VIII. Freeze Frame

Freeze frame is the work with one isolated picture from a film.

I used theatrical techniques such as "frozen/living picture," so I had no trouble coming up with occasions for such staging tasks in my lesson.

Aside from that, I simply asked some of the very unexpected but fairly routine questions, stopping the film here and there. For example:

- What does the character smell as he walks down this street?

- What's in his coat pockets (or her purse)?

- What is the weather (or time of year/day) outside the window of the character's room?

- What landscape does the character see in front of him/her?  (i.e., behind the cameraman's back), etc.

Note that efficiency increased when the class worked in groups. Who were given the same picture, the same task, the same question. As a result, the class saw several versions, which effectively increased the atmosphere of creativity in the classroom.

I gave my students a limited amount of time to prepare. But there were several "rounds" with new stop-frames in the class.

Let me remind you that there are also paired forms of such work. For example, the class is divided into pairs. One of the two is shown a frame (in this case it is more appropriate for all pairs to work with different still images, that is, pictures from the film). One describes the frame in words, and the partner schematically depicts it, asking the first one leading questions.