Using movies in the classroom
Teachers have used movies as an effective tool for language lessons for decades.
Let’s have a look at why film is such an effective learning tool and at some great resources to help you get started with this effective teaching method.
Enjoyable learning = motivated students
It’s no secret that students love to spend their free time binge watching series and movies on platforms with low, or in most cases no costs. It only makes sense to bring them into the language classroom! This makes learning a second language more entertaining and enjoyable which is key to getting students engaged and motivated.
Real life conversations and visual context
Movies/film provide students with authentic and varied language. It gives learners the opportunity to experience real life situations outside of the classroom - like an average interactive English conversation. It expresses emotions; learners can study facial expressions as well as the natural flow of the speech and familiarize them with the environment all together.
Resources
The amount of teachers using film or video in the classroom has increased rapidly. Usually teachers had to spend hours on getting appropriate movie material and creating new lesson plans that corresponded with the movie in an educational manner.
Luckily the internet happened, and we’re now flushed with an abundance of blogs and websites providing resources for learning or teaching English with video/film.
Check out these awesome sites to get you started with film language lessons!
1. Lesson stream
https://legacy.lessonstream.com/
An awesome site that provides teachers the ability to customise their ideal lesson plans, like video lessons!
2. English Attack
https://www.english-attack.com/
This site lets you learn English from movies and TV series by playing games and doing assessments.
3. Viral ELT
https://viralelt.wordpress.com/
This site uses viral videos accompanied by 10 conversation questions and a listening activity.
4. VYOND - Go Animate
This site lets your students create their own animated short films!
They can use active storytelling, modernize already existing content, improve learning outcomes with better, more visual, and dynamic communication!
5. Allat C
This site provides lesson plans based on short video clips for teachers that work with a bit more advanced learners.
6. English Central
https://www.englishcentral.com/browse/videos
Let your students watch one video daily. This site has over 10, 000 videos with subtitles for students to practice their vocabulary and pronunciation.
7. Clip Flair
A website where your students can learn foreign Language through interactive re-voicing (dub) and captioning of clips (subtitles).
Who knew movies aren’t just for relaxing! Expose your students to the natural form of English through film and watch them learn it in no time.