Short Films in Language Teaching

Engelbert Thaler, Engelbert Thaler

• Publisher: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9783823300403
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Critique littéraire Histoire et théorie

The second volume in the new academic series SELT (Studies in English Language Teaching) is also divided into three parts: A. Theory – B. Methodology – C. CIassroom. Part A highlights the topic from the perspectives of different academic disciplines, in this case from a TEFL as well as from a film-didactic and a cultural-literary viewpoint. In part B, methodological contributions on selected short films and suitable procedures are assembled. Part C is a collection of concrete sample lessons for teaching English with short films at various levels. These lesson plans have been designed at university, carried out and evaluated by 11 experienced teachers, and finally revised by the editor. Peer reviewing is guaranteed by an academic advisory council consisting of six well-known TEFL professors.The new series, above all, aims at bridging didactic research and classroom practice. Thus it is intended for foreign language lecturers, students, teacher trainers and teachers.

C. Lessons

New Silent Short Films

Lena Heinze

1 Genre

The first person to »create the illusion of motion« with photographs was Muybridge in 1877 (Klepper 1999: 5). From then on, all films were naturally silent, as the soundtrack had not been invented yet. Nevertheless, the showings were not only a visual experience for the spectators as a live orchestra or pianist usually provided background music. Sometimes there were even live narrators, who recited the dialogues of the film. This period is often called »classic silent era« and goes on until 1927. In that year, The Jazz Singer was the first film with synchronized sound. As to the length of the films, they were not two hours long at the beginning of film history, but rather short for technical reasons.

Nowadays there is a revival of short films and some of them are created as silent short films, which is why this contemporary phenomenon is called »new silent shorts«. Donaghy (2015: 275ff.) recognizes great teaching value for the TEFL classroom:

• As many short films are artistic, they have limited appeal in the commercial marketplace, so to make them easier to sell all around the globe, they often contain little or no dialogue, which makes comprehension easier.
• They offer intensely cinematic experiences, using images and movement, sequence and duration, sound and music.
• They are great for the language classroom as they can be used with any level – the teacher just needs to adapt the difficulty of the task to match the level of the students.
• Students have to compensate for the lack of dialogues by creating their own spoken or written output.

The short film Gift, which the following lesson plans are based on, can be categorized under several genres of short film: social shorts, branded shorts, viral shorts, but this teaching approach will use it from the perspective of new silent short films. »Gift« by Zsófia Zsemberi (2015) can be adapted for learners at different levels – in this case A1+ and B1+. This film was also chosen because the topic of pet adoption and abandonment is highly relevant for students as many teenagers have or would like to have a pet, which makes them sensitive to the issue of animal abandonment.

2 Procedure

Lesson A (lower grades)

Title	Gift (4:36 minutes) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMs7dkdO4YY)
Synopsis	A family adopts a little girl for their daughter’s birthday. They play with her at first but after some time they lose their interest in the girl. Consequently, the girl seeks the family’s attention, and since she does not get any, messes up a room. This leads to a fight and the father takes the girl to abandon her in the wilderness. When he drives away, we see that the girl was actually a dog. The last shot shows the caption »Be responsible. Give, adopt wisely.«
Competences	Listening-viewing, speaking, writing, lexical competence
Topics	Gifts, pets, family, relationships, feelings
Level	Lower intermediate
Time	45 min.
Steps (Global-to-detail-approach) A. Lead-in 1. Realia: T shows S a wrapped gift and has S describe it. 2. T asks S about the best gift they have ever received. 3. T tells S they are going to watch a film called Gift and has S predict what the film may be about. B. First viewing The video is played straight through. C. Global comprehension 1. »What is the gift?« 2. »Did the ending surprise you? Why (not)?« 3. »What does the insert at the end of the film say? (Be responsible. Give, adopt wisely.) 4. »What does that mean?« D. Second viewing The video is shown again.
E. Detailed understanding 1. S put the film scenes into the right order, and write sentences to revise the plot (M 1). 2. S c...