Short Film in Language Teaching

Use short film in foreign language teaching and learning

Learners of a new language face exciting challenges in developing their abilities to speak, listen, read and write and in learning about other cultures. Through short film, teachers can bring new worlds into the classroom and bring language learning alive.

Research has shown that short film has much to offer language teachers in helping learners develop their knowledge of language and cultural awareness. This online course will share ways of teaching languages through the medium of short film that will inspire and motivate both teacher and learner, and improve attainment significantly.

This course is designed for language educators, in any setting, who want to develop their professional expertise in film-rich approaches to teaching.

It will be particularly beneficial to those teaching Spanish or French, although the learning outcomes will benefit educators with expertise in any language.

• Introduction - working with sound
• Welcome to the course
• What do we already know about short film and language learning?
• Introducing film sound and language
• Film dialogue and language
• Assessing language learning with sound
• Working with images
• The film image and language learning
• The different dimensions of the film image
• Interpreting body language
• Assessing language learning using the film image
• Working with time
• Introducing film time and languages
• Flashbacks, backstory and the past tense
• Present tense, narrating and ellipsis
• Flashforward, prediction and future tense
• Assessing language learning using film time