This really helps the students to understand the film and keeps them engaged while watching. The success of the Disney movie “Frozen” in recent years makes it an obvious choice, but the choice of song and movie really depends on you and your students. These types of movies are great for emphasizing and describing actions in the classroom. This activity works really well to keep students focused on a movie and listening carefully. For lower levels it can be a drawing activity, in which students must draw the conclusion and write a simple sentence to explain. Do you agree with the film’s portrayal of modern life? The aim of the lesson is not for the students to be able to sing the song perfectly (although that would obviously be great), but rather the main goal is for them to understand the meaning of the song and how it feeds into the context of the film. 2. Song learning can be a very valuable method of learning English, and students usually love music to boot. After the students are familiar with the song, go through the lyrics line by line and teach the students the meaning of any words and phrases that they’re unfamiliar with. 2. By Mulle. 5. ESL Video Lesson Instructions. Foods and animals are often one of the first types of vocabulary covered in beginner classes. Read through and ask your students how comic books are different from regular books, movies or cartoons. Cal’s focus in ESL teaching is developing non-conventional lesson plans to get the maximum motivation from his learners. Shopping. Learning English becomes fun and easy when you learn with movie trailers, music videos, news and inspiring talks. I like gap-fills, quizzes and especially character biographies. Is the depiction of young people in “Aspirational” realistic? Tap to unmute. Have students get into small groups and try to come up with at least one film for each type of film. As you can see, you don’t have to look for any specific language or grammatical reference in videos to use them in creating a pretty comprehensive ESL movie lesson plan. I actually spread this activity over two lessons, one lesson for the song and then another lesson for the film itself. You then ask your students: “What happens next?”. Click here to get a copy. This is clearly a predictions lesson, and works beautifully to teach the “I think that x will y” prediction structure. Don’t worry if they can only remember one line, as long as they try everything is golden. As mentioned previously, students are motivated just by hearing that they get to watch a film. Give each student a copy of the lesson. The key activity begins after the end of the film. Level: Upper-intermediate (B2-C1) Type of English: General English. Any activity can be adapted for this, as long as students have specific pieces of information that they know they have to be on the alert for. It sounds counterintuitive, but you can lean more heavily on the visual quality of films to teach lessons. Once again, the animated movie. All Rights Reserved. (Download). Violence in the Media Needs To Be Regulated. The passive voice is very commonly used to give instructions. Family Relationships Lesson Plan. Publication date: 11/07/2012. This can be done by answering questions and drawing pictures for lower levels, or by acting out scenes and writing scripts for higher level students. This ESL lesson plan is designed around a short animated film titled Pip and the themes of disability and service dogs. This activity works well with almost all superhero movies, but a familiarity with the characters can really help the students to comfortably complete this activity, and so I prefer to use the “X-Men” movies. 4 Original Video Lesson Plans to Inject Vitality into Your ESL Classroom. Thanks for subscribing! There is also an alternative American English version of this worksheet available to download: Movies. turn a short video clip into a whole lesson plan, advanced classes are much easier to personalize, adapt a small clip into a whole lesson plan, Sneak Attack! Grammar Lesson: Tense Review. FluentU lessons are ready to go utilizing flashcards, quizzes and other learning systems to ensure maximum learning outcomes! They have to watch and name as many “foodimals” as they can. For example, if the pictures are an old man, a student and a baby, then the order would obviously be baby, student, old man. Over the course of a semester, having several movie lessons is a great way to add a bit of variety! One way to change this lesson up really well is to change the time frame. Do you want to teach English while traveling the world? Not to mention, it's guaranteed to get your students excited about learning English! First, run through of the song in question (I use Randy Newman’s “You Got a Friend In Me” from “Toy Story”). Another good example for a short film on social media, though it’s darker in tone, would be the Facebook-themed short film, “What’s On Your Mind.” This could be used for further discussion. FluentU is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Cal Hudson is an ESL teacher in Sokcho, South Korea. Afterwards, put students in small groups to create a new ending. Have them get up and draw them on the whiteboard. Making a video in English class is a fun way to get everyone involved while using English. Then set them up with an active watching activity and start the film. can take anywhere. This is a really simple and easy-to-execute lesson plan which enriches any film watching lesson. can take anywhere. This goes down as a treat in my lessons, and most students love it. Here are some of the most successful lesson plans which use this amazing resource. You don’t need to burn an entire class session watching a whole feature film, either. Video Games ESL Lesson: Vocabulary and Discussion Topics. Do you want them to draw a simple 3-panel progression or a full 20-page comic book? Next, introduce the movie. 5 ESL Film Lessons That Get Students Actively Watching English Movies 1. The answers are all vocabulary related to the topic. Critique a short film and prepare an oral movie review, citing evidence to support opinions. All in all it was a great lesson and resulted in tons of talking time from my student. What does the film say about social media? This lesson is perfect for students to build simple sentences using a wide range of verbs. Kenneth Beare is an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher and course developer with over three decades of teaching experience. If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to teach English with real-world videos. It gives them the vocabulary needed to describe movies, along with IELTS questions to test them. On FluentU, all the videos are sorted by skill level and are carefully annotated for students. In this lesson, teachers will learn how to engage English as a Second Language (ESL) students through discussions about movies. Bean” movies means that your students don’t have to be experts at listening. Here are a few ideas for video lesson plans to get you started using video in the classroom. English ... English ESL Powerpoints; Video Lessons; Teaching jobs; Forum; Register; Members; Blog; Advisory Committee; Donate; Create an ESL popup quiz around any Youtube or Vimeo video in minutes. I always find that advanced classes are much easier to personalize. Taking the exercises below as an example, you could use the time the students spend watching the video as a mini-vocabulary activity. Download: Create a video lesson Upload your self-created worksheets Teaching jobs NEW This is a very fun way to combine the two! Rather than just focus on the film, this lesson is centered on the soundtrack and how it relates to the film. Some examples of foodimals are “shrimpanzees,” “watermelephants” and “flamangoes.”. The presentation part of the class involves the groups reading their alternative ending to the group. Higher level students can use this as a writing activity, in which they have to paint the scene in several sentences. Movie brainstorm and speaking activity (PDF) 2 Elements of movies vocabulary. FluentU brings English to life with real-world videos. If someone made a movie of your life, what kind of movie would it be? Generate Vocabulary quiz (Youtube only) Generate Grammar quiz (Youtube only) Make your own … After this, play “Finish the Scene.” As you might expect, this involves pausing a scene just before it reaches a climax. We also participate in other affiliate advertising programs for products and services we believe in. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc, or its affiliates. Draw the Comic Book. Lesson . Bring English immersion to your classroom! Well, there are thousands of films—many worth millions of dollars—which are just waiting to be used in the classroom. You can easily have a follow up speaking activity by having the students read and compare their character biographies. It’s packed … Building context is important to set up the... 2. Using films as part of lesson plans can range from building an activity around a single scene to building an entire unit around a full film. FluentU takes real-world videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons. The beauty of films is that, by simply being careful with your movie selection, you can tailor your lessons to all ages, interests and abilities. Both clips could be used as precursors to a lesson on informal English and text-speak. FluentU brings English to life with real-world videos. As teachers, we often pour a lot of time and energy into finding and creating classroom tools and resources. Then listen again and ask the students to repeat anything that they heard in the song. Have they seen it before? ESL video clips are in many ways that language learning gem. What do they think it is about? I do this by playing a picture ordering game in which students see a list of pictures and have to put them in order of past, present and future. Pixar’s “Ratatouille,” with its delightful representation of fine cuisine and the unlikely partnership of its hilariously slapstick central duo, is perfect for showing the class how to put this into practice. This is because they’ll soon be making their own comic books! It's project based learning at its best. Ask the students some basic questions about the mood of the song, what they think it means, etc. First, decide exactly how you want your students to complete this activity. 1. Show the clip to the class. Only choose interesting films! When using videos in advanced classes I most often use movies to encourage discussion. Movies Lesson Plan (ESL) – Chatting “Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years pass in a second and you can hop from one place to another.” Federico Fellini (1920–1993), Italian film director You can also start a conversation by asking for movie suggestions. But during the journey the filmmakers (journalist Craig Leeson and environmental activist Tanya Streeter) make the shocking discovery of a huge, thick layer of plastic floating in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It negatively portrays a younger generation so obsessed with capturing a moment for likes that they forget to actually be present in the moment. Lesson Plan on Switching Between Present Perfect and Past Simple . This is a no-brainer, Students love the magic, whimsy and exciting visuals of the “Harry Potter” series, and the fact that there are 8 films set (mostly) a year apart means that each lesson has a potential follow up. Building context is important to set up the fun activities, and this can be a great opportunity to teach the many different movie genres. Students have to describe what happens one year later. Instead of just sitting and watching a whole film (and falling asleep), students are made to actively watch and complete small tasks as the film progresses. In other words, they can bring your English lessons to life. Briefly review key words such as plot, character and setting. Students can guess what happens one year later, and then watch what really happens at home or in the next lesson. Who is the main character? Watch the short film with the class. As a result of this lesson, students will 1. identify vocabulary terms related to films 2. use vocabulary correctly to discuss film previews 3. participate in a film about going to the movies by reading an assigned role in English 6. Next have students come up with their very own! Hint: He probably does something stupid. “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2” in particular is full of rich colors and images, making it ripe for an ESL lesson harvest. This clip, in which the main character, Remy, first learns how to control his human companion in the kitchen, is full of typical cooking actions, as well as one or two general actions for variety. A collection of English ESL worksheets for home learning, online practice, distance learning and English classes to teach about movies, movies. This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you All around, technology is a really great tool in the ESL classroom. Here are three examples of how to create great ESL movie lesson plans. Students write first draft of a summary which is factual a description of the plot, character and setting. 4. First, start with the ones that are named in the movie clip. It contains not only vocabulary and grammar exercises taught and practiced through a variety of activities to make learning fun, but the design of the worksheet is awesome. Explain that students will be making a movie whose theme is “How to Make a Movie.” The film vocabulary they have learned “in action” will now become part of their movie. Have a go at singing the song with the students and see how they do. And who better than Pixar to help illustrate these actions to your classroom? Watch later. Learn/Practice English with MOVIES (Lesson #1) Title: The Incredibles - YouTube. You could start by asking what the theme is, what they think about their fellow students’ interpretations and whether they agree with the message of the film (in this case, that social media is making people shallow). Depending on the class’s level you can tell them to leave the last two to the end explaining that let and help follow irregular rules when used in the passive voice. Click here to get a copy. Prepare a handout before class with a few questions on it. This level of pre-engagement means that, with just a little thoughtful lesson planning, you can have your students more excited than you thought they could ever be to be speaking English.