[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Hi Kieran,
Hope you’re keeping well. Thank you very much for your review. I’m aware I could have done much better, but really I’m up to my ears with work right now (mid-term assessment and all). Now I’m moving forward with my final project :))) and I’ll meet the deadline for sure.
Thank you, you’re feedback is very important to me.
All the best :)!
MLuísa

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Hi Kieran, here my Lesson 5- Topic 2 work.

Short film: “We’ve all been there”
Goals: – activate students’ schemata; expand vocabulary/language; learn about other cultural environments; give opportunities to improve writing skills; foster values such empathy and kindness, never forgetting the idea that no matter who you are we may all need the help of another human being and that “what goes around comes around”.
I would use this short video with my B2 and B2+ students.These are students with good background.
1.Pre-viewing activites to activate students’ schemata: I would tell them we were going to watch a short film;
write the word “Boomerang” on the board and elicit what they might know about it; then I would also write “We’ve all been there”, organize the students in pairs and ask what they thought the film would be about; I would ask them to register/list their ideas.
2. I would show the first part of the film and ask pronominal questions about the characters: who is the lady? where is she coming from and where is she going? why has she stopped? who is the young man and what does he want? who is the young pregnant woman? I would ask them to write 3 short paragraphs telling the story of these three people.
3. Then I would have students watch the short film and compare their stories.
4. Debate: How did the video made them feel? Why?; How did the film related to the word “Boomerang” and the title of the video?; Values to be discussed here.
5. As homework or for the following class I would ask my students to write a summary of the film they had watched entitled “What goes around comes around” and to find out whether we have equivalent saying(s) in Portuguese (which we do and they go more or less like so: “Não acontece só aos outros”; “Faz o bem, sem olhar a quem!”; “Que recebas no dobro o que deres ou desejares ao outro”; “Não faças aos outros o que não queres que te façam a ti”).
Thank you.
MLuísa

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Lesson 5 – Topic 1
I’ve chosen the short film about the very nice senior gentleman who has learnt to read motivated by his pride for his son’s success as a writer.
Having carefully considered all the four hereby required aspects, and although the spoken or even the written/printed language isn’t difficult, there are lots of information we the viewers can infer from every camera shot, every detail, no matter how small, the music, the setting, even from the antecipation we sense of what is to come.
Therefore, I’d use this short video with my older students (aged between 18 and 20) who are will soon be finishing their vocational courses. In general they are above B1 or B1+ level and some are B2, B2+ and a few very close to C1, so I believe they would feel comfortable speaking, offering suggestions, answering questions or participating in the debates. The length as thoroughly explained is within the ideal length, so we can show as many times as necessary any particular part of the video. I’ve also chosen this short video, exactly because it’s very relevant for my students right now as we are talking and working round the subject of ethics and values, both on a personal and a professional perspective. So it couldn’t be more suitable and more interesting than that. All values such as, motivation, perseverance, resilience, empathy, friendship, teamwork, love, willingness, trust and also sense of belonging and pride.
And the huge potential: for one starting with predicting who the people are or what the students think will happen next, just by showing the first scene and ask; or what had led to that particular moment, what’s the story; or how would the life of that person might change (after students had seen the full short video). Then there are discussions, debates about how the video made them feel, who was telling us the story, through what means (using 3Cs and 3Ss frame).
The writing potential is also huge as I could ask students to: image the letter this older gentleman would write to his younger self telling about his new found happiness; or what would he say on a video he would record to motivate young people to study; a short multimodal video his now famous son would record to tell his family about their grandfather.
These are some ideas I think are very usable and would just work very well with my students.
Thank you!
MLuísa

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Hello Stella, and everyone,

Just some brief words to say that I agree with you, should I ever get to teach young learners. Great tool/strategy to help develop their knowledge. Parents’ consent is also paramount here in Portugal to deal with certain issues if your students are under aged. Thanks for sharing.

MLuísa

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Hello Stella,

Thank you very much for sharing your views and analysis on this topic. I’m learning so much with everything I have been given the opportunity to read and I’m feeling like a very lucky person having access to both our fellow participants’s posts and Kieran’s comments to our own. It’s really fascinating when one carefully looks at a multimodal text under so many different perspectives.

MLuísa

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Lesson 4 – Topic 2

The 7-Stage Film-making Framework could totally work with my students. At least that’s my very honest belief.
I’m especially thinking of my Arts and Theatre Class (B1, B1+, B2, B2+, C1) because they are very creative, imaginative and always looking forward to different acticities. Having said that, I also believe that with proper guidance, according to the framework and following it to the ‘t’, I could also use it with my other students.
Probably the only problem I forsee (since the great majority of them know how to use the facilities of their devices or are very fast learners): my students are all attending a vocational course, which means they are long hours at school, having therefore not much time to dedicate to the project.
This 7-stage framework is already very clear, per se. However, I might set a time limit on the lenght of the film/video and also give a deadline for the work to be handed in.
Thank you.

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Lesson 4 – Topic 1

First of all, thank you for sharing all these activities with us. I do think that the activities are all great to bring students to fully understand how their learning process is also part of their responsibility, with all our help of course. How? By getting them actively involved in varied activities, namely those directly related to Media Culture and all the different forms of communication, daring to be creative, imaginative, acquiring new skills, such as those of film-makers, story-tellers, and at the same time, learning the language.Students become active ‘actors’ rather than passive subjects of a system.
Activities I would use with my students: all of them, always bearing in mind their level of knowledge and how far I may ‘push’them. The film review I would rather ask my B1+-B2 students to work on, but I believe that giving a list of simple questions and selecting a simple easy film I could adapt and ask my lower level students to do the same task.
One that all of them I’m sure would enjoy doing is the ‘How to video’. My favourite ones are the ‘How to video’ and the ‘Making a film review’ since they give students a choice, help activating their schema, encourages them to use real everyday language, while also encouraging them to use specific vocabulary according to what they’ve chosen to work on.
If they can be proud about their own work, then I’m sure we’re on the right track.

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Lesson 3 – Topics 4 and 5

After watching some of the videos, reading the papers, the activities and having done my analysis of both topics 4 and 5, I’ve decided to bring them together and comment as if they were one item.
My reasons why: both topics verse on the very important subject of Values and as I see it they are inseparable and connected.
We are all only too aware that our students (and not only I have to add) would “die” if they ever find themselves without their smartphones or their internet should break down. For most of them, their social network persona, the ‘Likes’ they get on what they post, the number of ‘Friends’ is much more important than anything else.
Looks are very important these days, yes, so many people are living of their looks, life has taken the very fast lane, and we just don´t stop to really think and see the other. Thus teaching/discussing values with my students is so very important. I should like to think I will help them to really look at what surrounds them critically, help them to develop their empathy, respect for the difference and help them raise awareness for the cultural different habits of others. Educating both the mind and the soul, standing up for others, giving a hand, showing empathy, we’ve all been there, really! I’m just thinking that one of my favorite short videos is about the story of 3 people from the land of the boomerang. Throw it well and it will come back to you!

This coming week I’ll be working these subjects with my students and I’ll be using the activities with “Stand Up”, “We’ve all been there” and “Momentos”.

Thank you for such wonderful ideas!

MLuísa

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Lesson 3 – Topic 7

Another great asset and great strategies to bring new or revise language/vocabulary into the classroom and teach our students about genres (or remind them about) and introduce new ones to them. As previously said, reasons and motivation are the same, e.g. to get our students to be able to use contemporary English language at a conversational level in different subjects.
I’ve used Branded shorts, the main topic of my lesson was ‘Young people and Consumerism’ so short ads videos came in handy to work with them and they enjoyed it very much, ending up making a short video themselves doing a survey inquiring their peers about their spending habits; I’ve also used short videos talking about social issues and those do, almost always, bring about lots of debate and students enjoy those very much, may be because school is one of the few places where they can discuss and talk about serious issues with their peers and adults (their teachers);
I do an activity with my students (they enjoy doing it, most of them) called ‘Paint me a Song’, I had enjoyed doing some years ago. It’s like this: Individual work; students had to choose a song in English that really meant something to them; they had to produce a representation of how the song made them feel or inspired them, the way they saw fit, for example making a drawing, a painting, a collage, a carpentry art work, they could in fact present any form of art/object; then they should write a short text stating the type of emotions, giving some reasons why. Their pieces of Art and texts would all be part of an exhibition in the school entrance hall at the end of the term.
The other 3 genres, I haven’t heard of them before, but they are surely very interesting and enticing for me to have a go an try them.

MLuísa

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Lesson 3 – Topic 6

Given all the reasons so clearly presented, short films are certainly one of the best ways if not the best to help our students develop vocabulary and enjoy doing it too, at the same time gradually, as I’ve stated so many times (because it’s so obvious to me as a teacher). Short films, when carefully chosen never forgetting who our students are and at what level they are at, bring ‘theme-related vocabulary in a clear visual context’, which will certainly grab our learners’ attention, since they can acquire so much knowledge through listening to the dialogues or sound, watching images or the body language and gestures of characters, their expressions, I mean I dare to say that almost any of my students will be able to grasp the full meaning of what they are watching with not much difficulty. They will also be able to learn and aplly/use daily conversational interaction listening to natural flow dialogues instead of theatrical recorded ones, coloquial language, in accordance with the Common European Framework.
As for the suggested activities I’ve used some variations of them according to the level of my students. I’ve used some of the short films/videos that sometimes are part of a lesson in our course book or others I search for myself, depending on what my students need to work on. For example the Venn diagram, I’ve used the same exercise but using columns (the middle one represented the common area); the ideas using collocations or reconstructing the dialogue, I’ve never used, but I would with my more advanced students, maybe B2 and B2+.
As for the lesson ideas, I find them all very good, adaptable and usable. I’ve also already used them with my students.
Usually, my students’ favourites and mine are the ones that mentiion feelings/emotions and speak to their heart. They always spark some discussion (being honest discussion does sometimes use Portuguese…)

MLuísa

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Lesson 3 – Topic 3

I’m sure I’m repeating myself, but it’s the absolute truth. I’m totally and utterly in love with the activities. I was hooked throughout our last webinar. Knowing myself and my students it’s obvious for me that the next thing to do is to try the activities in my classrooms with my students. Our schoolyear has just begun! These activities are vey much ideal for a lot of reasons, namely, they use short films which can be stopped and used frame by frame so to speak, they are innovative, full of creativity, bringing contemporary issues (sometimes sensitive and difficult ones) into the classroom, which may spark debate, develop critical-thinking, stimulate feelings of empathy, help someone dealing with an issue when sheding a different light on that exact issue, well the benefits are immense(in my opinion).
In fact, these are only some of the benefits of these short films.
Then, when we teachers, also use them to promote and help our students developing, apart from other, one of the skills they most struggle with, such as Writing (at least here in Portugal), I pat myself on the back, and think “we’re getting there.
I’ve never used these type of short films, but I’ve used trailers instead applying some of the activities described. I usually start by carefully choosing an appropriate one I believe they might not have seen or know about and start by just writing the title on board and elicit what they think it may refer to; students usually work in pairs and write down their ideas; Usually ask them to “dress” the character(s) in both the physical and psychological aspects and I continue by showing parts of the trailer and students try to imagine and create a narrative; a before of what they are watching, the story, and how it might end. The all story is written (I give them identical A4 pieces of paper), we have a board, students do not sign their stories which are pinned on the board, I mark them A, B, C, D…, students read the stories in silence. Then I ask (answers are not mandatory) who would like to say which story was his/her favourite and why. I also recommend (strongly) they see the original film to compare.

MLuísa

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

I have to be honest and state that I like them all, think they’re all very usable, adaptable to so many different students and levels, great to work all the different skills, “force” students out of their slumber sometimes (’cause it’s a different, interesting way to learn) and can include all of them, excluding no student (I would mostly use pair or small groups organization), as I consider peer working such a great way to have students sharing ideas and motivating one another without exposing themselves too much.Because we’re spoiled for choice I’m having a hard time choosing a favourite, exactly, as you’ve stated on your video they’re all such a wonderful, usable way of teaching/learning/working with a language.Surely, depending on the short film they would be appropriated to different levels of knowledge and our expectations as teachers and also how motivated and I should say how dared my students feel about my choices of films.
However, on what concerns the written text to be done as homework, I’d rather my students would do them with me in class, so I could guide or give some help to the ones who might need it. In class I can always encourage them, at home I’ve so may times found out, it’s difficult.

I’ve already used, with students of different levels, what I think was a variant of “Back to Back” but it was with a written text using a “reader” and a “writer”, called ‘running dictation’ (but it was a bit loud and troublesome, but students enjoyed the feeling of competition); I’ve basically used these activities but not with short silent films.

I do recognize that having no dialogues or very little is a fantastic way to get to a vast audience, without the barrier of the language, thus promoting both the use of the target language, students’imagination and creativity, fostering also their sense of belonging, community, and hopefully empathy, especially when dealing with sensitive issues that these short films are capable of raising in the classroom.

MLuísa

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Lesson 3 – Topic 1

Totally agree with all the benefits stated. We are dealing with young people whose world is moving at the speed of light and whose attention span is not what we teachers would like it to be (let’s be honest, our own is not at its best at times…), so short films have all the ingredients to grab their attention, motivate them to work with, be willing to use the language, learn new vocabulary and also (hopefully) enjoy doing it! I tend to be optimistic, and I like to think and believe that it might even inspire some of my students to have a go at making short films.

I’ve read the 5 generic activity worksheets and I can say that I could have all my students to work with them. Of course, I would need to be very careful with the choice of either the short film or the video or the ad or even the film sound track. For example for my lower level students the activity sheet for video ads has verys easy, direct type of questions and it’s very good to promote speaking and writing (a short summary); the setting analysis sheet, would work better with my older students, as I think they would need to use some inference skills; the sound grid sheet can be used for any level, very good to develop/apply vocabulary/language such as adjectives, quantifiers; the film sound track, I find it very adaptable. I could use with different levels, might change some of the words in the questions depending on the students (level, attention span, the need of pre-teaching vocabulary).

In fact, I find them all very usable and adaptable to any level.

MLuísa

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Lesson 2 – Topic 2 – Introducing and using this framework at my school
First and foremost, I strongly believe students will benefit greatly when I use this Seven-stage Extensive Viewing Framework with them (because I’m certainly going to give it a go), both my lower level or my mid/higher level ones.
As to having the programme applied or used in language teaching/learning classes at my school I would take the following steps:
1. Arrange a meeting with both my departament coordinator and fellow teachers of English to let them in into this fantastic system/tool/strategy, sharing the work I’ve been doing (after I finished this course, naturally);
2. Present it to the school Director. I would prepare a project/presentation where I would use all the knowledge and strategies I’m learning here, stating what it is, the expected goals, how it would benefit students on what the learning of English is concerned, when watching/listening to a film, by being in contact with authentic language, a plethora of images, ideas, cultures, language (formal, informal, coloquial, expresions, idioms), doing pre-watching activities (to activate their schemata), working step-by-step when using the vocabulary on the glossary which will help their understanding of the story much better, having students benefiting from the reading of the sub-titles (some in Portuguese, other in English making comprehension easier and helping improving their knowledge as wel), the potential discussions with their peers on the topic afterwards, the opportunity at the end to give their own opinion/view on the film and to create a product of their own applying what they’ve learnt, at the same time boosting their self-esteem, not forgetting that viewing a film is also providing them learning with entertainment.
I would also explain what a multimodal text is and give reasons of its importance; I would dare to invite the Director of the school to participate in a session as a trainee, together with other colleagues where we would view a film and I would apply the Seven-stage Extensive Viewing Framework, so she could better grasp and understand the idea. I would also promote the idea of creating a Film Club in the school Library (this could benefit a greater number of students). This project could also pave the way for teachers of other foreign languages that are taught at my school, such as French.
3. Funds to buy the necessary technology (projectors – good ones); some resistance from the Library coordinator as there are other projects already using the space.

MLuísa

[Maria Luísa Sobral]

Hello Kieran,
I do hope you and all colleagues are well. Although on this forum page your instructions say “three” EV guides, the instructions for the activity say “two”, so I’ve chosen 2 Extensive Viewing guides I thought my students would like totally work very well with them. Thank you.

Lesson 2 – Topic 1

1. Extensive Viewing guide for the film “Catch me if you can”
This one would work very well with my B1/B1+ students, 3 classes mainly male students, aged between 16 and 19.
I’m positive they would love to watch and do the work for this genre of film. First of all is based on real life events, one of the two main characters is a young male person (the actor is a good looking one too!), and it’s above all, a crime story, a law officer (an adult) chasing a defiant, intelligent youngster who manages, not once but quite many times to outsmart the policeman. At some stage, he even ends up being recruited by the FBI! I’m sure this dichotomy will appeal to them greatly. Also, and because I know them well, come the moment to deal with the social issues questions, this will resonate with many of them, because unfortunately so many are in or come from broken or disfunctional families. This could be their opportunity to talk about or listen to issues without actually feeling they are being put on the spot. I would have the students working either in pairs or in small groups, giving the chance for stronger students to help weaker ones; they could also use, apart from the glossary, their own devices (using the dictionary trustworthy websites I’ve given them) to find out about other unknown words and I couldn’t wait to see the final projects as a response to this multimodal fantastic resource to learn a language. With these students I would surely use sub-titles. That would help them a great deal
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2. Extensive Viewing guide for the film “The Kings’ Speech”
This film (one of my favourites, I confess) I would use form my B1+ and B2 students, mainly girls (only one male student) and they attend a vocational course of Performing Arts. In general, although the majority have a good level of understanding of English, I would use sub-titles, even having a native speaker in the course.
I’m very sure they all would love to watch and do the work for this historical drama film, also based on real life events. The problem faced by the king to be would resonate with many of them, because they many times talk about the fear and the nervousness on stage, they talk about being scaref of forgetting their lines or losing their voice (literally). Also on what social issues questions are concerned they would be very vocal, because this topic of whether your birth/family determines your achievements or your success in life, thus generating lively discussions.
As for the modus operandi, I would also have them working in pairs or small groups in order to foster help and learning from their peers. I’m sure I would get very good projects as post-viewing works. They are very creative students.

As for the viewing guides, I love that they are (naturally) so carefully organized, from the instructions for the teacher to the ones for the students to the way the guide they are structured. The step-by-step, the scaffolding of the questions, the glossary bringing an array of new vocabulary, the opportunity of using sub-tiltles, either in English or their own language (some students may feel daunted to watch a film without them) will, no doubt help students immerse in so many topics, providing only we choose the appropriate multimodal resource to work with them.

MLuísa

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