This early morning, the thermometer has registered below zero on my way to school! Fantastic views like this, make me stop the car, grab the camera and instantly shoot the moment! I’m always driving in a hurry!… But I can’t say no to the urge of capturing beauty. And cold is beautiful… At least in settings like this: a steamy long curvy river… PineTree School is still some miles ahead but I'm pretty sure that there it is even beautifully colder!… Brrr...
Three years ago, on January 9th, it snowed @PineTree!… Needless to say that when the students looked out of the window and saw the snowfall, everybody put an end to the lessons and went out to the schoolyard to take pictures and play with those white frozen pieces of magic!… And when I say everybody, I do mean EVERYBODY, including the Principal and her team! It was a beautiful, even though frosty, unexpected moment!…
Using films in class brings a whole world of opportunities to explore several skills!...
You can use them to practise writing, e.g. ask students to write the film review; you can use them to focus on pronunciation and accents; you can use them to do grammar contextualized exercises, e.g. the Reported Speech, based on a dialogue between two characters;you can use them to explore vocabulary; you can use them to articulate with other subjects or to focus on cultural aspects of a specific country or epoch... And much more, depending on your creativity and imagination. Or needs!...
Today I suggest the film 'The Life of Brian'. It's the perfect comedy to introduce your students to the finest British Humour. 'The Life of Brian' is a Monty Python's production... Needless to say you'll spend the whole film laughing...
'Brian is born on the original Christmas, in the stable next door. He spends his life being mistaken for a Messiah...'
Your students won't probably understand all the punch lines... You can always pause the film and explain why you are bursting into tears... In addition, you'll be practising their speaking skills...
You could use this film at the end of the 1st term to celebrate Christmas... Or at the beginning of the 2nd term, not only to celebrate the Three Wise Men but also to start the New Year smoothly... Or if you have to lecture the topic 'cinema and films'.
Showing the subtiles depends on your students' listening comprehension skills. If you think they are strong enough to understand the basics, don't use them. But if you have weaker students, I would advise you to use them. If they don't understand 'the whole picture', they won't pay attention and you will be wasting your time!...
Take a look at the trailer, in case you haven't watched the film yet!... I dare you to stop laughing...
When you have students that like to learn something else about the language beyond the syllabus, you shouldn't ignore that urge... As I'm about to finish lecturing the unit 'A world of many languages' and my 10th form students love practising the British and American accents, this seems to be the perfect time to present Hugh Laurie @Ellen's show.
Hugh (a British actor) and Ellen (an American entertainer) are trying to guess, in turns, the meaning of some American slang. Do words like 'chin wag', 'ba-donka-donk' or 'chuffed to bits' seem familiar to you? Or even English? But they are... And they are slang.
Dictionary.com gives several definitions for slang, one of which is: "very informal usage in vocabulary and idiom that is characteristically more metaphorical, playful, elliptical, vivid and ephemeral than ordinary language."
This is what I'm going to do: write those words on the board and ask the students to pay close attention to the definitions given by Hugh and Ellen. Students should then try to write down the definitions/meaning explanations and read them out loud to the class. Later, in small groups, they will try to build their own sentences and play a little bit with the words!... Bearing in mind that the videoclip lasts 4.01 minutes, this will be a 40/45 minute activity.
You might also like to read a previous post on 'funny, different stuff' to do in classroom with the idiosyncracies of the English language: the tongue twisters!...
This is T@PT's first blogzine: an online magazine powered by Themeefy. "Themeefy is a free service that lets you discover and curate knowledge from the Web and archive them in themes to publish as personalised magazines later. (...)" Read more @Themeefy
This edition compiles T@PT's posts throughout November and December 2011! Themeefy has a great educational potential!... Both you and your students can use it forclass projects!... Experts say this is the future!...
