Using Movies In Class…Without Sound?

Browsing through the January 2005 print issue of Modern English Teacher, I came across a great activity presented in an article entitled “Silent Movies” by Glenn Gainer.

Gainer discusses selecting a movie: choosing one which appeals to students is important but he’s found that as long as there is some reasonably clear situation or issue and the students have a well-defined task, they are interested. He also notes that the teacher should be careful not to make the clip too long; surprisingly, a five minute clip, along with reasonable preparation, task and follow-up, can be perfect for an hour-long class.

As the language level of most films may be higher than that of many EFL solutions, Gainer has decided to focus on a strategy that removes the dialogue: show the video without sound. Make sure the five- to ten-minute clip you choose has easy-to-follow action, a clear problem, and characters with “color” (interesting gestures and facial expressions).

One activity he calls “How observant are you?” Students watch the clip and take notes in groups on what they see. When it’s over they have a set amount of time to create as many sentences as possible about it (The man was wearing a white jacket with a red flower in the pocket). It’s not a bad idea to go over a few grammatical structures which they are likely to need (present or past continuous, past simple, there is/there are) beforehand. My own twist would be to have the students make questions from their sentences for the other groups instead of simply reading them out – they get points for correct questions and the other teams can get points for correct answers. Gainer suggests adding to the competitive element of the original by giving additional points for more complex sentences, or by developing follow-up questions – if the students note that the man ate at a restaurant, the teachers’ question is, “What did he order?”

For more on using video in class, check out Everybody Loves Movies or the Video section of the Dave’s ESL Café Idea Cookbook.