I love using movies to each English, but they can be too much – you know – too long, to boring, yadda, yadda, yadda.

The Genki English guy, Richard Graham, has a suggestion. Use movie trailers.

What a fantastic idea!

Richard Graham suggests using Apple movie trailers. It’s a good choice, in that the movie trailers on the Apple site are offered in HD. http://www.genkienglish.net/usingmoviesinclass.htm

Below is the link to the Apple movie trailer site. There is a veritable smorgasbord to choose from.  If you get a positive response from the students, you could do it as a regular thing, turn it into “Movie Monday.” It doesn’t have to be on a Monday, but you get the idea.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/

Here’s some activities that you may want to include in your lesson plans:

• Transcribe the trailer and have the students follow along as a simultaneous listening and reading activity.

• Create a close activity from the transcript, while focusing on specific grammatical items, such as contractions.
• introduce new vocabulary and idioms
• Assign a movie trailer to be viewed cold as a homework.exercise.  The students view it,  write down a few new vocabulary words, and then find the appropriate definitions to share with the class.
• Turn the trailer transcript into a Reader’s Theater script. Then the students can perform the readers theater, acting out the roles/parts as trailer plays in the background with the sound off.
• If there is a song with lyrics? Assign small groups to sing the song to the class as others in the group act it out.

For example, Invitcus http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/invictus/ can be used to teach about Nelson Mandela and apartheid. If you’re a Rugby fan, then “forget about it!” You could springboard an entire mini-unit about the game, history, rules, etc; Maybe you could get a Rugby club going with the students too?

Here is a random list of additional resources:

• http://www.fantasyjr.com/where-the-wild-things-are-lesson-plans-and-movie-news/
• http://www.lessonplanspage.com/LAWildThingsStoryElementsK2.htm
• http://newteachersupport.suite101.com/article.cfm/teaching_with_where_the_wild_things_are
• http://www.nwf.org/BeOutThere/parentsguide.html

• http://www.easyfunschool.com/article1293.html

• http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/early/Jeryl-Wild.htm

• http://www.ibiblio.org/mturner/seawell/legos2/susan/wildthings.html

Character development

• http://www.scetv.org/education/ntti/lessons/2005_lessons/character.cfm

Beginning, middle, and end

• http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/early/Jeryl-Wild.htm

Sequencing

• http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/Language_Arts/Writing/WCP0033.html

What about A Christmas Carol? That’s another timeless classic, perfect for the holiday season.

• http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/achristmascarol/
• http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=238
• http://www.learningtogive.org/lessons/unit10/lesson3.html
• http://ulsterballet.org/acc-lesson.TeacherGuide.pdf

and let’s not forget the PPTs!

• http://languagearts.pppst.com/dickens-christmascarol.html

Then there is Amelia…

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/amelia/

lesson plans

• http://www.idahoptv.org/ntti/nttilessons/lessons2002/taylortatten.htm?CFID=566417&CFTOKEN=24829627
• http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/units/Byrnes-famous/Earhart.html

• http://www.patriapress.com/earhartre.html

biography

• http://www.ellensplace.net/eae_intr.html

Forensic evidence – create a discussion – Is she alive or dead? Let the students decide based on evidence provided by the following sources and then present their position to the class.

• Is she alive? http://www.irene-amelia.com/index.html
• Is she dead? http://www.nndb.com/people/943/000026865/

There’s lots of rich material to choose from. It can be used year after year once you put the lesson together, so a little bit of work now will pay off in the future…