Do It Yourself: Using a Movie Trailer for an ESL/EFL Lesson


Dave Winet reports that watching a video film review with students made him realize that viewing the trailer while listening to the reviewer is much more engaging to the student than just hearing or reading the review.  He then "ESL-ified" the review using Youtube's annotation feature by speaking slowly, using simple vocabulary, and glossing words and expressions both orally. The annotation feature can be turned on or off, providing double possibilities for challenging students.  Exercises (for example, using a link to Kubbu or QuizStar) and discussion questions (added to the comments at YouTube) could easily be added.

The technique Winet used is as follows:

1. Go to a site with commercial movie trailers, such as  http://www.hd-trailers. net, to download a trailer. Some sites will have an application for doing so, while others can be collected with Real Player Downloader or iTunes.

2. Convert the downloaded trailer to .avi (if it's .flv or .mov, etc.)   Use Pazera-Software tools for Windows, or find your own  free 'something to .avi converter' online for Windows or Mac.

3. Load the .avi file into Live Movie Maker (for various versions of Windows) or iMovie for Mac.

4. Click Tools/Narrate Timeline to add your spoken commentary on the voice track (over the video sound track). Prepare some notes to read from so that it flows better. With Mac, you may need to record the sound track separately on Audacity or SoundTap, and then add it to the video file.

5. Click Tools/Audio Levels to make the movie soundtrack softer than your voice. (On other tools, this feature may be done by directly moving the audio lines.) This is key!

6. Save the movie as .avi (Save as... in the location you choose).

7. Upload to Youtube (you'll need a Youtube account - free)

8. In Youtube add annotations as desired (see Youtube help for how to do this -- it's not hard). If you are using another archive site, be sure students know about such translation tools as Babel Fish.

9. Get the link and post it on Facebook, Twitter, your TeacherTube account, etc., for your students to access easily.


Based on suggestions by Dave Winet of Study.com http://www.Study.com