As progressive practitioners in our ongoing search for additional resources, approaches, techniques, and methods to expand our repertoire of English language teaching tools, we often need look no further than our immediate surroundings for inspiration. A commonly available source of authentic English is movies. Are the films practical for teaching the English language? How do you do it? What are the good movies for teaching English? Where can it be obtained? Why bother using movies at all? These questions, and others, will be briefly explored in this series of articles. Here, then, are five good reasons why you should use popular movies with your students to practice and acquire the English language.
1. Movies in English are very enjoyable
A wide variety of student types enjoy watching movies. It is a resource from which considerable mileage can be gleaned on a wide range of subjects and topics.
2. English movies are readily available
Unless you live in Tibet or Borneo, English movies are usually available from a variety of sources. Rental stores, bookstores, theaters, media outlets, record stores, and music stores all have numerous titles available at any given time. Offers change or are updates as new movies are released.
3. Different movie formats are available
Whether your available viewing equipment is VHS or BETA, NTSC or PAL, 35mm, 16mm or even 8mm video, you can still find a wide variety of movies to choose from.
4. Display duration is controllable
How long are your English class sessions? Fifty minutes? An hour? Ninety minutes? Two hours or more? Regardless of the length of classes you have, the movies can be tailored to the time period you have available. How? Simply use movie clips or “installations” instead of the entire movie in one shot. Actually, this seems to work much better for many teachers and class groups.
5. The use of subtitles and subtitles is controllable
Another useful movie-watching aid is the ability to turn features such as English subtitles or L1 learners on or off, or the use of subtitles in movies, documentaries, or videos produced with this feature. The use of English subtitles not only provides listening comprehension support, but also helps in vocabulary development and reading comprehension. As English language learners’ skills develop, these aids can be turned off.
As progressive practitioners in our ongoing search for additional resources, approaches, techniques and methods to expand our repertoire of English language teaching tools, the films can offer us a dynamic and easily accessible resource to enrich and expand our English language teaching. These reasons contain just a few of the many benefits that we and our students can experience. In the companion to this article titled “5 Ways to Use Popular Movies for English Language Teaching,” we’ll look at ways that movies, clips, and videos in English can be put to good use in the EFL classroom. .
