teachingactivities

movie reviews

Page history last edited by ben shearon 3 yrs ago

Movie Reviews

Stuart Greig

GRADE LEVEL:	SHS 1-3 (depending on school level)
SKILLS:	Critical thinking, writing, listening, reading, speaking
TIME:	At least a class and a half
MATERIALS:	Worksheets, VCR (optional)
OBJECTIVES:	To encourage the students to expose themselves to English outside the classroom, to give the students a new “conversation topic” in English, to encourage the students to voice their own opinions

PROCEDURE:

Warm up. I’ve not supplied a warm-up as it can be varied to suit the style of the ALT and amount of time (s)he has to prepare. The first time I tried this topic I simply described a film, and the students had to guess what movie I was talking about. The second time I prepared a reel of scenes from movies (Spiderman, The Seven Samurai, and so on), and attempted to elicit conversation from the students by asking questions about the scenes. “What genre of movie was that?” “Have you seen this movie?” etc. Keep it to 10 minutes and pretty relaxed – this is not an energetic 40 minutes that follow.
The next activity is a quick (5 minute) cloze activity, on the attached worksheet. Beforehand, ask the students if there are any words they are not sure how to pronounce (cinema and special effects are probably completely new words), and ask them a few simple questions to see if they follow the meaning (eg. “Can you name a movie that is based on a video game?”). Be strict with time for filling in the gaps. And go over the answers FAST.
Following that; I have supplied a movie review for a (then) up-to-date movie, with some questions attached. I read this aloud, with gestures for assistance with the meaning. Rather than read a glowing review, I added some negatives into it, because in a review we don’t have to hold back our opinions. Get a JTE to act shocked when (s)he hears it, and then explain why it’s okay.
Give the students the movie review, and then ask them the questions on the sheet. Try verbally first, and if the students are unresponsive make it a writing exercise.
Break the news that over the summer (or whenever) vacation the students will all be writing movie reviews. You can choose to have them present it as a “show-and-tell” project, or as a written exercise.
Have a quick chat about movies until the bell. Pick on students who didn't contribute.

NOTES:

I made this a writing-only exercise, given over a term break, and I noticed that the students used the English again in a show-and-tell presentation the following term.
There is no reason for any Japanese in this class, unless the ability of the kids is exceptionally low, or for discipline reasons.
I did this activity shortly after giving my kids a poll asking them what they’d like to learn about in class. The top answers were “foreign movie” and “music,” so I devoted a fair whack of a term to these things.
Related activities: supplying subtitles to an English movie, translating a Japanese movie into English, debating (ie “Which are better, American or Japanese movies?”), what happens next?-style storytelling activities, making a short movie, etc.
The first time I tried this (in a regular English Seminar Class), with candy offered for the best efforts, one-fifth of students did their homework. The second time, in a Writing Class, with the potential for bonus points in their tests, two-thirds of students did their homework.
Use newer movies.

HANDOUTS and WORKSHEETS:

http://teachingactivities.pbwiki.com/f/moviereviews_sgreig.doc