4 Jan 2012

From screen to the classroom. Part 1

Films have always been a great source of ideas and an excellent resource we can use to suit our English classes, motivate our students and help them develop their listening, speaking and writing skills. 


Apart from that, films are a highly valuable source of authentic language since they are full of vocabulary, expressions and structures that native speakers use. They are perfect to bring the English-speaking world into the classroom.

The question for teachers is what kinds of film clips we can use, what for and how to use them.

What kinds of films can we use and how?
Did you know that there are some absolutely fabulous teachers’ blogs which can inspire you to create your own activities to suit your students’ needs? Through their blogs they share their own materials just for free and give useful tips on how to create your own ones.

One of them is Film English, a wonderful project started by Kieran Donaghy, an English teacher at UAB Idiomes Barcelona, whose aim is to promote the use of film in the language classroom. In this blog you will find lesson plans around different topics such as jobs, money and greed, football and values, among others.

Claudio Azevedo is another teacher who I have inspired me and I have learnt a lot from. He publish his own resources in two blogs:
  • Movie Segments for Warm-ups and Follow-ups which includes a series of movie segments to be used to brainstorm and prepare students for the topic that will be discussed in class.                                                                                                  
What can I say about Jamie Keddie’s Lessonstream website? Well, he is a really creative and enthusiastic teacher and this can just be seen by visiting his new website full of free lesson plans based on films for different levels and aims.

Next week, I will publish the second part of this post with more ideas and examples on how to work with films in the English class.

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