Movie Talk – Love Language

Recently, I have been talking a lot about using video shorts in the classroom. Why? They are super engaging and full of great material to introduce and practice vocabulary and grammar structures. I have explained how to incorporate these little priceless gems into your classroom. Now, let me show you what you can do with these video shorts.

Love Language

I love using the short mini-movie “Love Language” because it has a story of deafness in it. These are hard to come by. We would all love to see more cultural videos out there, but, alas, I will settle for what I can get my hands on for now.

“Love Language” is a short, less than 5-minute story of a guy crushing on a girl. It appears throughout the story that the girl is ignoring the boy, or at least she appears to be uninterested. The boy tries to get her attention, engage her in conversation, and make her notice him. At last, he writes her notes, and they communicate this way for a few days. In the end, he discovers she is deaf, and he does not care.

This is how I do this specific movie talk.

What To Do – Step One

To use this in your classroom, first, watch the video so you know the story and can retell it as you go through the still images. The students should not watch the story until after you have walked through the narrative with them.

As you go slide by slide, teach the words and concepts you want them to know. The words have to be easy to decode through body language, imagery, mime, or other means. You don’t want to introduce the words in the students’ first language, but they do need to understand what you are teaching them, so make it comprehensible. For this video, I practice classifiers, agreement verbs, and new terms.

Step Two – Tell the Story

As you are telling the story, you want to check for understanding. Ask yes/no questions with your novice learners and a combination of yes/no and information-seeking questions with the more advanced students. This type of questioning method is known as circling. The line of questioning should be checking to see if students are understanding the new words you are teaching and if they can follow the storyline, plus it offers repetition of the vocabulary and structures you are teaching. For example, “Does the girl look interested in the boy?” to see if they understand the term INTERESTED. Then proceed to ask several more questions around the word INTERESTED, like a yes/no, a WH question, and a either or type question. For higher-level learners, you can ask questions to have them predict. For instance, you can ask “What do you think will happen next?” or “Do you think she is interested in the boy? Why?”

Step Three – Check for Understanding

After telling the story to the students using the still images and questioning them, quiz them to check for comprehension. This can be as easy as a true/false line of questioning, where students write the response on a whiteboard or a thumbs up for agreeing with your statement or a thumbs down for disagreeing. One of the best ways you can do a quick assessment is to use a graphic organizer where students do a story summary or character analysis.

You can also use Google Forms to get a quick feel for where students are at, or use other technology like Kahoot or Quizlet.

If students understand the material, move on. If not, try going back through the slides and elaborating on the information. Becoming more animated will help the story greatly.

Step Four – Summarize

I have students summarize the story in writing so I can see where they are with the information, vocabulary, and concepts. Once I have collected these papers, I play the movie for them to watch in its entirety. No pausing.

We then discuss the movie. I answer questions they may have and clarify vocabulary they might be just catching onto after viewing the story. Then I will play and pause the movie to go through the story again. You don’t want to skip this step, even if you feel it is redundant or if students get it. This is repetition and it is key to having the new information stay long-term in the brains of our students. If you read my previous posts on this topic, you know this can take a few days to complete. Don’t try to put it all in on the same day.

Step Five – Produce

My final step in this activity is to have students record themselves telling the story. You will get a huge variation in the amount of information students can provide. This is OK. Remember to encourage lower-level students so they can continue to develop their L2. Try to model the information again to help them figure out how to expand their ideas.

I have 1:1 devices for students. Before students record the story, I have them watch the story on their device and sign along with the video, practicing it several times on their own. This gives me time to circulate and answer any questions about the vocabulary they might have. You can also have them sign the story to a friend or a small group.

Conclusion

I hope you can use this adorable little video in class. I like to use it around Valentine’s Day since it has an underlying theme of love, and that is where my classifier and verb concepts come into play. However, you can use this story any time during the year. Enjoy!

Find this resource and many more here.

Want to try doing a clip chat or book chat? Try one of these already-made, time-saving packets: The Present, Lily and the Snowman, First Day Jitters, or Stone Soup

Free Graphic Organizers for the Language Classroom

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