INTHE CLASSROOM ENGLISH & TV
suplemento de FOUR SKILLS
IN THE CLASSROOM
ENGLISHANDTV While Some EFL Teachers Think Using DVDs of TV Shows and Movies in Class is a Bad Idea, It’s Not If You Use Them the Right Way
número 1: ENGLISH & TV Este es el suplemento número 1 de la revista FOUR SKILLS. Su nombre es “In the Classroom”, y esto es debido aque en este suplemento, hemos decidido llevar la idea de una revista práctica para el profesor más allá. Con lo cual este suplemento será temático según el número, en este caso, el tema es “English & TV” y de lo que se va a hablar en este número es del uso de las series de televisión en el aula EFL. Para ello contamos con un artículo de la profesional Cassandra James y tras este artículo unas hojas que explican series y escenas de estas series muy buenas para su uso en clase.
by Cassandra James
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taught English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Thailand for seven years and, during that time taught hundreds of Thai children, teens and adults. In Thailand, if you can’t make the class ‘fun’, most students aren’t interested in learning - even the adults. That’s why, early on in my teaching career, I began to introduce DVDs of TV shows and movies into the classroom, to make my classes more fun, while still improving my students’ English skills. Some EFL teachers believe you shouldn’t use DVDs of TV shows and movies to teach English and that’s true, if you do it the lazy way - put in a DVD and let your class watch it. That’s not teaching and your class might as well just spend the afternoon at the movies. But, if you use DVDs the right way in your classroom, not only will your students (adults and children) love your class, you may be surprised at how much English they suddenly begin to understand.
Reasons using DVDs of TV Shows and Movies Works - If you use a DVD of a TV show or a movie to teach EFL the right way, here’s how your students will improve: a) Accents - The main problem for foreign students learning English is they’re taught it the ‘correct way’, meaning with a middle-America accent or a Queen’s-English accent. All well and good, until they meet someone from Texas or Edinburgh, Scotland and suddenly they don’t have a clue what that person is saying. It doesn’t even sound like English. b) Sound and Subtitles are a Double Whammy - I used DVDs with both English soundtrack and English subtitles (NOT the Thai subtitles that my students would understand). What I learned was, with both English on the soundtrack and in the subtitles they became what I call a “double whammy”, my students both heard it and saw it, and this
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reinforced new English vocabulary in their brains much faster than if they only heard it or read it. c) English Slang is Important - Most EFL students, even the fluent ones, have problems understanding English slang. Think about it. Most native English speakers don’t speak absolutely correct English with perfect grammar and vocabulary. We use a lot of slang. Which means, when EFL students are confronted with a real live native speaker, the slang that person uses isn’t in their vocabulary so they’re absolutely lost.
How To Teach EFL Using DVDs of TV Shows and Movies The Right Way Never stick in a DVD, turn out the classroom lights and just let your students watch it. That’s the lazy way and they’ll learn nothing. Instead, watch only short segments of movies or TV shows at once (not the whole thing at once), use these simple teaching tricks and you’ll be amazed. a) Completing a Question Sheet - During some DVDs, my students would be given question sheets with 20 questions from the TV show that they had to answer, while the movie was running. With children especially this stops them talking or messing about during the movie as they have to listen in order to answer the questions. For lower-level students, I would allow them to work together in groups. b) Pre-Teach the Vocabulary - With TV shows like CSI or House, I’d spend the first half of a two-hour class pre-teaching some of the ‘Medical Vocabulary’ in the show, explaining what it meant, and having a discussion about medical issues using that vocabulary. Not only did this make it easier for my students to enjoy and understand the show, they also learned medical vocabulary useful in their every day lives for doctors’ or hospital visits. c) Assign a Project - In several classes, I
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used the Michael Moore documentary “Bowling For Columbine”. This was suitable for three hours of classes. Two to watch the movie and one hour for a follow up discussion about guns and gun control in America. I also assigned a project to every class that saw the
Never stick in a DVD, turn out the classroom lights and just let your students watch it. That’s the lazy way and they’ll learn nothing. documentary. For the next class, each student had to do research online about gun violence in America, find an interesting news story about something that happened in America involving guns, prepare a short speech about it and give the speech to the class explaining what they’d discovered. I even found some chocolate guns in a shop and gave a chocolate gun to the student who gave the best presentation. d) Act Out a Scene - Another fun way to enhance the learning experience of a DVD is to have your students write and act out a scene from the movie.mPut your students in groups and let them choose a particular scene in the movie they liked and have them re-write what happened in their own words. Allow them time to rehearse the scene then have each group act out the scene in front of the class. The most important thing about using DVDs of TV shows and movies to teach EFL is your students must be active participants in the class and not passive DVD watchers. Create projects, make your students think, have them answer questions, allow them to be actors - anything you can think of to make sure they’re actively participating and you may be amazed at not only how much fun they have, but how much more they enjoy learning English too.
ENGLISHANDTV
EXERCISES En esta sección se presentarán distintos diálogos de diversas populares series de televisión, para poder estudiar su vocabulario. El profesor, reproducirá estos diálogos en clase y le preguntará al alumno las siguientes preguntas: -¿What’s happening in this scene? -¿What is the relationship between the characters? Después, el profesor continuará haciendo una serie de preguntas de vocabulario, dependiendo de la escena.
BONES
From the episode ‘The Woman at the Airport’ Diálogo: BONES: This is not good. BOOTH: Yeah, thanks for that insight. BONES: No, I mean the architecture of the skull has been radically altered. BOOTH: You mean by rotting and being eaten by coyotes and having the face ripped off by you? BONES: No, by surgery... lots of surgery. I’m not sure I’ll be able to tell who this was.
yeah: forma coloquial de yes (sí) insight: perspicacia, entendimiento radically altered: radicalmente alterado, totalmente alterado to rot: pudrirse to rip off: arrancar, despojar surgery: cirugía. To undergo surgery significa ‘ser operado’. ‘She underwent three hours of surgery’ significa ‘Ella se sometió a una operación de tres horas’. Surgeon es cirujano.
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CHARMED
From the episode ‘Thank you for not morphing’ Diálogo: PHOEBE: So how big was this dog again? PRUE: Huge. Did you see the scratches on the attic door? PIPER: What was it doing in the house? PRUE: I don’t know. Someone obviously left the front door open again. PHOEBE: Why do you always assume it was me? What about Piper? PIPER: No... PHOEBE: It’s not a big deal. We checked the house, and nothing is missing, except my Pat Boone Christmas CD. PIPER: You know, this is really creepy. If there was a dog in the house, then it had to have an owner. No dog I know can open that front door, let alone reach the top shelf.
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huge:enorme scratch:rayón, arañazo. El verbo to scratch significa raya, arañar y también rascarse. attic:ático, desván to miss:faltar, perder. En otros contextos puede significar echar de menos. creepy:espeluznante. La expresión to give somebody the creeps significa darle escalofríos a alguien. owner:dueño. El verbo to own significa poseer, ser dueño. let alone:expresión fija que significa “y mucho menos” shelf:estante. El plural es shelves.
THE BIG BANG THEORY From the episode ‘The Bad Fish Paradigm’ Diálogo: LEONARD: Hey! SHELDON: Hi, Penny. LEONARD: Hey, Penny, if you’re not doing anything Friday night, I thought maybe we could go and see a movie. PENNY: Oh, um... you know, I think I have the dinner shift on Friday. LEONARD: What about Saturday? PENNY: You know, I’m not sure. The manager hasn’t posted the schedule yet. How about I let you know? LEONARD: Great. So you just let me know when you know.
hey!:en la primera línea del diálogo se usa como una forma de saludo informal, que significa ‘Hola!”. En la tercera línea del diálogo se usa como una interjección equivalente al español ‘¡Eh!, ¡Oye!, ¡Oigan!’. shift:turno. Dinner shift se refiere al turno de la cena, dado que Penny trabaja en un restaurante. on Friday:recuerda que con los días de la semana se usa siempre la preposición on. to post: publicar, fijar (un anuncio) schedule:programa, horario how about...?:¿Qué tal si...? to let somebody know:hacerle saber.
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