Learning English by watching movies?

I was a big movie-goer when I was a college student. I enjoyed watching a movie even in a sweat-smell cinema then. Watching the movie over a shack of pop corns is a blessing. You may not be in favor of my opinion here. I know some people might be driven crazy by the dim light and stiffy air in the movie.


Modern people find it more comfortable and cozy to watch video movies at home. That is also the way I prefer compared with stepping into a stiffy movie theater.

I have tons of experience in learning English through watching video movie at home. Truly, I do think it a good way to learn English well even without the real cultural impact abroad. Watching home video movies takes me lots of preparations.
First, I cover the subtitles on TV with rolls of tapes for fear that I might depend too much on the subtitles when comprehending the dialogues in the movie. Then, I might rewind the video over and over again in order to play a part of the leading character. I might pretend to be the leading actor and thus I can keep most of the actor's script in mind. That is fun to imitate the pitch and intonation of different genders and ages.

Some teachers might think it a good way to watch movies in English class, through which students can learn a lot by watching the movie.
Honestly speaking, I favor the idea, but when it comes to putting it into practice, it takes lots of padagogical techniques.

Watching the movie for the whole period of English class? No, it is not good. For one thing, the teacher might find him/her short of time moving onto the next lesson in the textbook. For another, from the perspective of some psychological assumptions, students might know of the movie but depend too much on the Chinese subtitles. They might end up without learning any English because the distraction of too much images in the movie. Based on some related literature revivew in Taiwan, college students can learn more English through watching video movies. Above all, this way can boost students' motivation to learn any foreign language. But the pragmatic applications in the class are still on the way, requiring some experiments.
Thus, I conclude some tips to learn English by watching video movies from the literature review as follows:
1. Have students watch the movie only for or less than half an hour. That is, only show the students parts of the movie based on the teaching plan.
2. Before watching the movie, the teacher can ask students some questions to arouse their attention while watching the movie.
3. After watching the movie, some activities can be engaged to make sure if the students gain a lot from the movie.
Some activities? That's a big question for most English teachers. I might give you an example here. After watching the movie" Legally Blonde", the teacher can have students linked onto a wonderful website http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechlegallyblonde.html
where students can listen to and watch Elle Woods delivering Student Address in Harvard Law School's 2004 Graduation Ceremony. After that, the teacher can have students learn the text of the address and thus make their own address.


Bear these literature review in mind and then you can desin a good teaching plan for your dear students!