Authentic Video in the Beginning ESOL

Classroom: Using a Full-Length Feature

Film for Listening and Speaking Strategy
Practice
Noriko Ishihara and Julie C. Chi (United States)

As many teachers can attest, learners seem to become more motivated about language
learning when video is involved, especially authentic video. Feature films attract
learners’ attention with dazzling Hollywood effects, and because they aren’t designed
for instructional purposes, they reflect authentic use of the target language. However,
because of the authenticity of the language, teachers tend to limit their use of feature
films to intermediate-to-advanced level classrooms. Some instructors prefer dealing
with video clips, rather than an entire film. This is unfortunate because there are
advantages to using a fulllength feature film for beginners. In this article, we discuss
the theoretical grounds for using video material; describe our experiences teaching
adult beginners listening and speaking strategies using the film What about Bob?; and
discuss assessment as well as anticipated problems, and possible solutions, associated
with the use of feature films in the ESOL classroom.

Rationale for the use of feature film

Authentic full-length film brings extended context and interesting content to the
classroom. By using film, an oral skills course and other skill courses may be
integrated through the use of common themes, functions, and/or grammar featured in
the film. Although listening activities in oral skills textbooks may share a theme, they
are unlikely to carry much intriguing content at the beginning level. Moreover, text
activities, unlike films, are often disconnected. The use of film, however, provides a
rich context by which students can improve comprehension and practice listening and
speaking (Altman 1989, Kitajima and Lyman- Hager 1998, Burt 1999, and Stoller
1993).

Arcario (1993) and Lonergan (1984) point out that the extended context, interesting
content, rich visual imagery, and often exaggerated actions and gestures of film
provide students with multi-sensory input that is close to what they would find in real-
life communication. Such visual input is engaging and motivating to learners, and
because of film’s many contextual clues, helps students’ comprehension of the
language used in the film (Chapple and Curtis 2000). Moreover, film’s multi-sensory
input is likely to assist in more effective memory retention, since it requires viewers to
use the right hemisphere of the brain in addition to the left, which is already activated
for language learning.

Another benefit of introducing authentic content through film is that it provides a

focus for discussing language and culture (Altman 1989, Burt 1999, Stempleski 1993,
Donley 2000). Cultural aspects of the film, such as customs and humor, or culturally
specific use of language, such as idioms, could be discussed with learners, or learners
could exercise their powers of observation to inductively learn functional use of
language (e.g., speech act realizations, Rose 1997).

Why What about Bob?

Since humor has long been considered an effective way to lower learners’ affective
filter and thus maximize language learning, a comedy like What about Bob? is a good
choice for anxious learners. The film is a comedy about Bob, a psychiatric patient
who comes to completely trust his new psychologist, Leo. Bob follows Leo on
vacation for help with his problems and gets acquainted with Leo’s family, who come
to like Bob. However, Leo gets increasingly irritated with Bob and attempts to isolate
him from his family.

This film works well with beginning-level learners. With assistance, the language is
not too dense or difficult for them. Even though the natural rate of speech used in the
film is likely to present a challenge for such learners, with repeated viewing and help
with vocabulary, they can understand most of the plot line. The story sparks interest
and enthusiasm. In fact, the compelling story line keeps learners interested and willing
to stretch their comprehension of the language and content. The humor in the film
seems to relax nervous learners and enhance their language learning. The humor is
also non-offensive and of a type so universally familiar that people from different
cultures can understand and appreciate it.

Since the film encourages viewers to predict future occurrences, it is suitable for
practicing inferring and predicting skills. The film is also so rich in action and visual
aides that it is appropriate for speaking activities, such as describing scenes and
actions. We will demonstrate this point later. Finally, because the film is neither very
recent nor a blockbuster, it is unlikely that many learners would have seen it prior to
instruction.

Logistics of teaching with full-length feature film

There are a variety of ways to divide the film into manageable sections. In our
beginning level program, classes met for two hours from two to five days a week, but
the video lesson was taught only once or twice a week for 50 minutes each. We
divided the film What about Bob? into 10 segments of approximately 10 minutes each
and played each segment in a language lab or the regular classroom. At minimum, a
television and a VCR are needed; it would be best to teach in a language lab with a
large screen and individual corrals containing headphones, especially for certain
activities, such as those described later in Activity 1. Other materials would include
handouts with tasks pertaining to the particular scene and language use, and cassette
tapes and tape players for assessing individual student’s speaking skills while carrying
out specific tasks. Although it is possible to use video to focus on writing, grammar,
and pronunciation (Aiex 1999, Parker 2000, Stempleski and Tomalin 1990), we used
it to improve listening and speaking skills.

Teaching objectives and activities

To best serve learners of diverse backgrounds, specific teaching objectives should be
set at the outset of instruction. In our case, four groups of learners were adult ESOL
students from around the globe, ranging from age 18 to their mid 30s. Some learners
were planning to attend an American university; others were learning English for
better job opportunities or study-abroad experience. Still others were immigrants to
the United States learning English to improve their quality of life. Our initial student
survey showed that all of them would welcome the use of technology such as video
and computers. Taking such students’ learning goals and preferences into
consideration, the following teaching objectives were decided upon in order to equip
learners with listening and speaking strategies (Oxford 1989):

1. Understanding the background information

2. Observing the characters
3. Making an inference
4. Listening for general ideas
5. Listening for specific information
6. Describing a situation
7. Describing a series of actions
8. Making a prediction
9. Understanding culture
10.Telling the whole story and stating opinions (also see the assessment section)

Pre-viewing, viewing, and post-viewing activities

Effective use of an authentic film, especially in a beginning level classroom, requires
careful planning and appropriate teacher guidance of pre-viewing, viewing, and post-
viewing activities (Burt 1999, Stempleski 1993, Stoller 1993). Pre-viewing activities
are used to tap into the students’ background knowledge or to review the previous
segment of the film. Key vocabulary is introduced, and learners can read the
comprehension questions on the handout and predict the answers. Such pre-viewing
activities stimulate learners’ imaginations, spark their interests, and aid in
comprehension of the segment. While viewing, it is recommended that they focus on
the gist of the content and watch carefully so as not to miss important visual clues.
The instructor can play the segment or part of it more than once if necessary to ensure
learners’ understanding. Post-viewing activities include going over the answers to the
comprehension questions, predicting future occurrences, and getting learners to
practice the language through role-play and summaries. Whereas pre-viewing and
viewing activities center on understanding input, post-viewing activities focus on
output practice.

Sample activities
Two activities are described here to demonstrate the ways in which some of the
listening and speaking strategies can be learned and practiced through class activities
while being taught inductively. In our classrooms, these activities were implemented
using the video What about Bob? but similar tasks can be done with other videos. The
first activity below makes use of teaching objective #4 (listening for general ideas), #2
(observing characters), #6 (describing a series of actions) and #7 (describing a
situation). The second activity combines teaching objective #2, #4, and #8 (making a
prediction). Depending upon class size and student level, the time required for these
activities is generally from 45 minutes to one hour.

Activity 1: The lake scene

The lake scene is a short film clip (about 1 to 2 minutes) during which Leo takes his
son Siggy to the dock to teach him how to dive. The scene offers a variety of visual
and auditory clues, which assist in comprehension of the key language used. What
makes this activity so motivating is that learners are not asked to passively watch and
repeat back what they saw or heard; rather, they are to take separate roles, one as the
listener and one as the viewer, practicing listening and speaking strategies for
effective comprehension.

Pre-viewing activities: Learners should be prepared for as much of the vocabulary as

possible short of giving away what happens in the scene. For example, a short lesson
on action verbs that includes verbs used in the scene, among others, would be plenty.
It is not necessary to prepare learners for all new vocabulary words because they can
be learned through attention to context clues. When the vocabulary lesson is finished,
learners are supplied with a scene title and short description of the scene. One
suggested title is simply The Lake Scene, followed by the description, “Leo is
teaching Siggy how to do something.”

Viewing activities: The class should be divided into pairs. One learner is asked to be a
viewer, the other a listener. The setup will differ depending on the available media
resources, that is, whether the class is in a language lab or in a classroom with a TV
and VCR. Listeners may only listen to the video clip, and they should turn around or
sit behind the TV. Viewers may only watch the clip, and they should either take off
their headphones or plug their ears. Listening strategy is emphasized by having the
listeners write down key words and pay attention to tone of voice, intonation, and
pauses. For listeners, a short cloze activity can be designed as an alternative to note
taking. For instance, the viewers can write down verbs that describe the actions in the
scene and pay attention to nonverbal communication (body posture, gestures and
facial expressions) and the setting to get a general idea of what is happening in the
scene. Note that the video clip should be played two or three times until each learner
feels somewhat confident about his/her listening or viewing task.

Post-viewing activities: When learners are ready, they return to their partners and
collaborate to create an account of the situation just seen or heard in the film. Viewers
are encouraged to demonstrate what they saw; listeners supply the language, which
they can do more readily because they had heard many of the words used.
To wrap up this activity, pairs are asked to share their conclusions with the class. It
would be nice to show the video once more to give all learners an opportunity to listen
and watch at the same time. It is often motivating to conclude with a communicative
activity, such as a role-play task. Learners look for good qualities of communication
and cheer for the best-performing actors. Teachers may want to consider recording
these role-plays on videotape to use for additional language feedback, to review new
vocabulary, or to demonstrate the students’ progress at the end of the term.

Activity 2: The dinner scene

The second activity comes from a scene in the latter part of the film in which Bob, the
patient, is invited to dinner at Leo’s house. This is an unpleasant situation for Leo,
who is trying to drive Bob away. With this scene, learners listen for the flow of the
dinner conversation and how utterances are connected to each other. Later they go
over key vocabulary and they practice appropriate intonation, which plays an integral
role in this segment. In addition, the learners predict what might follow this scene.

Pre-viewing activities: Learners are informed that in this scene Bob is eating dinner at
Leo’s house. As a bridge from the previous scene, learners can discuss why Bob has
been invited. Learners are also encouraged to observe carefully what happens at the
dinner table. Learners are encouraged to observe how everyone feels in this scene and
why they feel the way they do.

Viewing activities: Learners are asked to remember the flow of the conversation as

much as possible so that they can reconstruct the dinner conversation later from
memory. After viewing, learners, in groups of three, get an envelope containing strips
of paper printed with lines of dialog from the scene; they must rearrange the strips to
recreate the dinner conversation. At this stage, learners might need some help. The
instructor can play the video more than once, or stop the video to enable the learners
to catch up and do more work with the strips. Alternatively, learners could read over
these strips before watching the video. When the reordering is completed, the students
review the order of the strips and discuss the language and content. Use of appropriate
intonation can be another focus of discussion, since various tones express the different
emotions of the characters in this scene.

Post-viewing activities: After learners’ comprehension is achieved, the students can

roleplay the scene to practice the language. Each student should hold the strips of
paper with the lines of the character he/she is portraying and should try to make
appropriate eye contact with the other students in their group as they read the lines.
By listening carefully to the other role-players, students will know when to speak their
lines. The students are encouraged to express the characters’ emotion using suitable
intonation, as discussed and practiced earlier.

To conclude this set of activities, learners are asked to predict what is going to happen
after a scene in which Leo, the doctor, is choking and coughing severely. If they have
difficulty with this task, the instructor can prompt them to think about what the wife,
children, or Bob might do in that situation. Although learners are likely to be
disappointed about not being able to see the rest of the film immediately, this
predicting activity encourages them to start forming a habit of predicting what might
occur subsequently, which will assist in better listening comprehension.

Assessment
As with any material learned in the classroom, teachers must assess their learners’
comprehension and progress. Although we could have used several different
assessment methods for our film activity, we chose to use the following three: (1)
informal assessments done during classroom discussions and when monitoring
individual or pair/group work, (2) occasional collection of activity handouts to check
comprehension, and (3) a tape journal assignment done at the conclusion of the film in
which learners recorded their responses to guided questions on cassette tapes.
Questions included in a handout asked the students to describe the characters and
events and to summarize the film. Learners also were asked to describe one incident
in the film and state their opinion of the event. We responded individually to students’
answers on the tape with feedback on their language use, summaries, and opinions.

The informal assessment during the class counted towards learner’s participation
grade; collected handouts were assessed as part of the occasional assignments for
various topics. Two other tape journals were assigned for topics unrelated to What
about Bob?, so this particular tape journal entry counted for one-third of the final tape
journal grade.

Anticipated problems and possible solutions

As we have seen, a full-length authentic video can be used quite successfully in the
language classroom. However, it is important to consider, prior to instruction, the
problems that could occur. The first, and probably the most common, problem is that
learners may feel overwhelmed by the authentic language used in the film. To
forestall this problem, learners can be asked to focus on general ideas rather than
details. Second, because this video has been around for some time, there is the
possibility that learners might have seen it in their native languages. If so, these
learners can be asked to focus in greater detail on, for example, the language used in
the film. Such students could be used to assist other learners, thereby enabling them to
practice English for a meaningful purpose at the same time that they are helping their
classmates. Third, some learners may claim that they can watch movies on their own
and that doing so in class is a waste of time. To counter this argument and assure
learners of the usefulness of video in the classroom, it is important to incorporate into
the lessons a great deal of speaking practice, new vocabulary and expressions, cultural
information, and other challenging tasks. Fourth, as with most commercial movies
these days, offensive language is likely to be included in a film you choose. Students
need to be reminded that such language is authentic and goes with the territory of
using a non-instructional film. But if the thought of having to discuss four-letter
words for language practice makes either the instructor or students cringe, it may be
prudent to turn off the sound and have learners simply describe the actions or
situations. Another option is not to place importance on the language in that part of
the scene. It is appropriate to approach questions about the meanings of offensive
words by suggesting that they ask a friend outside of class, and then move on with
class. Finally, and possibly the most frequently unanticipated problem, is that there
might be technical problems associated with such things as headphones, audio
systems, LVD players, VCRs, TV connections, or the language lab’s main system. In
such cases, it is crucial to have back-up plans, such as a class discussion to check
comprehension or review the last section of the video the class watched.

Conclusion
The use of full-length feature film has a definite place in the beginning-level ESOL
classroom. Such films provide meaningful language through interesting content and
extended context, thereby enabling learners to become more motivated to learn and
communicate in the target language. Once learners gain confidence through
understanding and enjoying authentic film, they might feel prepared to view other
films at their leisure. The more we emphasize the learning strategies associated with
listening comprehension and speaking, the more likely it will be that learners will
apply them as they venture into authentic language.

References

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Noriko Ishihara is a doctoral student in Second Languages and Cultures Education

at the University of Minnesota.

Julie Chi is a college-level English as a Second Language Instructor.

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