Movie Trailer ESL Video Lesson
Using Film Previews to Practice Constructing Questions in English
May 15, 2008
Using video in the ESL/EFL classroom can be difficult at times, especially for teachers in developing countries where resources are scarce or very expensive. Planning lessons around a video is time-consuming: teachers must review the video for appropriateness (language, age, culture, content, etc.), prepare a detailed lesson, and often deal with strong student dislikes of certain genres. In some parts of the world, it may be almost impossible to obtain video materials that are appropriate for lower levels. In many schools, teachers may be limited to pre-assigned “video days”.
Nevertheless, using video doesn’t have to be tedious, scary, or a waste of time. This two-hour movie trailer lesson demonstrates that a well-planned video activity can integrate the four skills as well as grammar, while using very few resources.
Advantages to Using Movie Trailers
- Trailers are adapted for a general audience, so explicit language or scenes will already be filtered out.
- Most DVDs contain movie previews, and they can often be downloaded from or viewed on the Internet, making access to them much easier.
- Students will get more practice developing their language skills since trailers are generally short.
- Trailers are short, so students who may not otherwise like a certain genre will be less likely to lose interest.
Objectives
- To provide practice in constructing yes/no and information questions
- To give students opportunities to discuss preferences in films
Materials
- Three movie trailers
- Slips with names of movies on them
Level, Age
- Basic – Intermediate
- Adult/young adult
Procedure
- Ask students if they have seen any movies recently in the theater. In pairs, have students discuss the kinds of things that they consider when they go to the movies (who stars in it, who directs it, etc.).
- Guess That Movie Mingling Activity: Put the names of some well-known movies (such as Titanic, Shrek, Lord of the Rings, etc.) on pieces of paper. Tape these to the backs of the students. Students walk around the class asking their classmates yes/no questions in order to discover which movie they have. When they guess their movie correctly, they must sit down.
- Ask students to write down the types of questions they asked in the mingling activity. Elicit a few and write them on the board. Use them to get students to notice question format.
- Play the movie trailers. At the first viewing, students write down the genre of each movie. At the second viewing, the students work in groups to answer some of the questions on the board from the previous activity (who directed it, who starred in it, did it win any awards, etc.).
- After students check their answers, they choose the movie they would most prefer to see, based on the trailer, and write a short recommendation for their classmates. It may help to bring in a sample of a movie review from a newspaper to use as a model. Students may also like to work in groups. (Students may watch the trailers a third time if needed.)
- If time, students create a movie trailer for their class, or a movie poster for one of the movie trailers they saw in Activity 4. Students share their trailers or posters with the class when finished.
