Teaching English as a Foreign Language – 7 Tips for Using Popular Movies

Films and videos in the classroom of English as a foreign language

If you are looking to expand the role of films and videos in your EFL classroom, what better way to expand students’ communication skills, grammar and vocabulary than by using clips from popular films? Try using these seven tips to boost student motivation while enjoying a favorite hobby of kids and adults alike, watching short scenes or clips from popular movies.

1. Use pre-viewing activities

Before the video, familiarize your students with the topic and grammar through preview activities. A variety of these may include puzzles, photos and pictures, short games as TPR or “focus” activities, a story or anecdote, or activate the learners’ schema in various other ways.

2. Ask students to complete a graph as they watch

While watching a short video or movie segment, you can have students fill in key information in a box. Items such as character names, occupations, family relationships, clothing, and settings can be easily recorded in this way. This allows students to focus more on communicative aspects and less on writing.

3. Select a grammar point demonstrated repeatedly in the movie clip

There’s no need to leave grammar out of a video-based lesson or stage. If a usable point or grammatical structure is repeated or highlighted during the movie clip you plan to use, so much the better. Just remember to pre-teach that grammar or structural element, even a class or two before the video, so it’s recognizable in context.

4. Have a list of six to eight lexicons

Select a list of six to eight or ten vocabulary words, idioms, and expressions from the movie or video clip you plan to use. Pre-teach them during the preview stage of the lesson. When students hear them in context during the video viewing session, the lexicon will have additional impact.

5. Make use of visual information

A popular movie clip is an audiovisual experience, so use it as such. As students watch and listen to general and detailed spoken information, include visuals so they can skim and scan as well. How many? How much? When? Where? Who? How and why are good starting points for capturing visually presented information from the movie clip or video segment.

6. Allow students to select their preferred movie clip

It can be quite a dilemma. There you have maybe two or three or more movies to choose from, but you’re not sure which one your students would prefer. So I have an idea, you choose, let them do it. Take three movies, for example, show students just the first five minutes of each, and then let them choose which one they would like to work on. If you have a clip in mind from each of the movies, show each clip and give them a choice. You can build your activities and lesson plans with the confidence that your students will be interested and motivated.

7. For post-viewing discussion:

If not addressed during preview activities, now is the time to talk about favorite actors and actresses, similar plots and stories from other movies, and what outcomes might be different or better for what was seen. Stage recreations, altered dialogues and plot twists that students can come up with. Be imaginative, be creative, be bold or even funny, but have them communicate about their experience.

Prepare for worksheet

You can prepare a one or two page worksheet to be photocopied and used by students for the video session. Alternatively, students can copy the format into their notebooks. Just make sure you plan your pre-viewing, during-viewing and post-viewing activities well and your English video clip-based lesson is sure to be an award winner.