10 Creative Ways to Use Short Films with ESL students
Short films are great opportunities we have as English Language teachers to connect with our learners at an emotional level. Students love movies because visual literacy is the dominant medium of communication among them; therefore, we should ensure its integration in our classrooms. In this blog post, I will share some Short Film ESL lesson plans and ideas. Check out my blog post 8 Short Films your Students will love to add more fun into the classroom!
Let’s start off by acknowledging some of the advantages of short films!
- They are short, so you don’t need to spend hours in class watching a movie.
- The stories have a beginning, middle, and end, which make them linguistically exploitable.
- The language spoken, if any, is super simple, so they can be watched by learners of all ages and levels of English.
- Most of them have beautiful messages we can use as springboards for discussion and reflection.
You can use Short Movies in the ESL EFL classroom in multiple ways, but I’m just going to mention 10!
Before Watching Activities
- Show the title and a picture of the Movie, and ask your learners what they think the story will be about.
- Predicting! Pause the video and ask your students to tell you what will happen next!
- Pause the video and ask students to describe the scene. What can you see in this scene? Is there…? Are there…? What is ….doing?
While watching Activities
- Pause the video at certain moments in the story and ask your learners to put the subtitles on.
- Check understanding by asking students comprehension questions.
- Play the “true” or “false” game. Pause the video at a specific time, then read your learners a true or false statement. If they think the answer is correct, they have to jump. If they think the answer is wrong, they have to change seats with a classmate.
After Watching Activities
- Use graphic organizers to indicate the different parts of the story (beginning, middle, and end).
- Ask students to reflect on the themes presented in the story. It is also important to connect the story to their own lives.
- Consolidate Grammar points and vocabulary.
- Create something! Depending on the film’s theme, students can develop beautiful projects that will help them appropriate the story.
Short movies are an entertaining way to take a break from the English classroom routine. They also present new ideas and ways of thinking while students practice listening and thinking in English. Short movies also encourage them to explore the more creative parts of themselves and keep their minds open to new possibilities.
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Please reach out with any questions, I am happy to help!
Paula.
