All lesson plans in this blog are of my own creation for use in my own classes. I encourage educators to use any and all lesson plans on this blog in their own classes, to alter the plans to fit their needs, and to leave comments on how to improve the plans. If you are re-blogging a plan, or otherwise sharing these plans with others, I ask only that you cite my blog as your source.

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Using film clips in the classroom

It has been a loooong time since my last post. My professional interests have kept me moving in many different directions, but I'll spend the next few weeks blogging about what I've been up to in the last two years. For starters, I began this post 2 summers ago, and then never finished it. Here it is, finally.

Though most of my use of film includes having students watch an entire feature length film, there are times when I want to show only a small clip of a film. I have found clips can be very useful in the following ways:
  • To highlight a particular scene or sequence in a longer film that students have already watched. I do this in class to draw their attention to particular features they may have missed, or to allow for more in-depth analysis.
  • The film in its entirety doesn't support your learning goals, but one scene does. I mentioned showing clips only from the film Libertador in an earlier post to highlight certain aspects of the independence movement that we study in our course. The rest of the film might be appropriate in another class, but not in this one. 
  • To highlight grammatical or lexical structures used in a particular. Film is a great source of authentic input. 

I  attended the International Association for Language Learning Technology (IAALT) Fleat 6 Conference in Cambridge  in 2015 and learned about several tools that will make using clips much easier.

Tools to use when you own the DVD and want to make clips to use in class or to assign as homework.


2. Extracting clips from a Film on DVD; allows DVDs from all regions to play on computer

Tools to use when you have a video clip from YouTube or Vimeo and you'd like to make it more user friendly for the classroom or to assign as homework.

3. Add questions and other activities to pre-existing videos from YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
2. Download YouTube videos
3. Chopping YouTube videos into shorter segments

*Since I started this post 2 years ago, these two tools have become my go-to resources. Berkley Film Database has a selection of films in a variety of languages. Some languages have more offerings than others, but all the clips have been tagged for language used, language function and much more. Sharing the clips is easily accomplished with a URL that can be shared via a content management system.  EdPuzzle is a a web-based tool that uses existing clips from YouTube and other similar sites. You can crop the video so that it shows only what you want, embed questions for your students, and track their answers or simply whether they watched it, and much more. You also have multiple ways to share your video clips with your students.  It is a tool that I use in multiple classes! 

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