We are watching films not only for enjoyment!

What do you think about watching films in the class? Is it good, necessary, important? Our last classes were about it. In our class we can use different videos on different topics with different goals.  Usually in my Uni (in Russia) we watched films after finishing the topic or when we have free hours. The activity after watching is usually about giving expression of the films, learn new vocabulary or discuss interesting facts. Of course it’s very good, but not perfectJ.  While watching the films in English we are involved in the actor’s speech, trying to understand, to remember new words and phrases. This is very important hearing the original speech with good pronunciation, especially for children, because they usually haven’t experience in English communication. 

I like the idea of our teacher (Raquel) – not just watching films but also analyzing specific things. For example in our class we were watching the film “Mulan”. It was a very productive viewing of the film. We had some questions in the beginning of the class about the film. Every group of students had to pay attention to the things which are connected to the question. For example: the role of women, the role of the family and etc. In my opinion it’s very good way to organize this activity. Every student has a specific question or topic to pay attention to different things while watching. After the film we had to organize a small group with the same questions and discuss them (like it was in our class). And in the end, like a reflection part, with one person from the group discuss all questions.

From my point of view this organization of the lesson is very good and successful. Every student is working, after watching, with the help of teacher’s questions, students can know the film from a new side; also thanks to the different questions students will pay attention to events or actions which they had not thought about before.

One important thing when we want to use films in our class – give students a purpose! Students need to study every moment in the class and we can’t spend time just for watching. So the teacher needs to give a purpose to students. It could be question to discuss, some finish activity when children need to use knowledge from the film or may be a theatre (children should pay attention to the behavior of the heroes, communication with other characters and etc.).

That is why I think that watching films in the class is very good. But teachers need to organize it very clearly and with a definite purpose. Thanks to our teacher for this new knowledge!

P.S. The opinion of readers can not coincide with the author’s opinion.