Using Thai movies in ELT

Thai movies in ELT


Below you'll find a kind of lengthy description of an idea that I worked out over the last couple of weeks. Please feel free to use it. It can be done with any class mathayom, or at university level. Even in adult classes it's no problem. It's a great and entertaining way to show students they can do more than just remember their lines.

The aim of this lesson is to label students’ already existing concepts with English words by relying on students’ common ground and as a result let students express emotions and feeling in their English language use. Movies provide a combination of authentic language, emotions and context. By using Thai movies in ELT you provide your students with two basic ingredients of communication: context and feeling. The third ingredient, authentic language is so to say your variable. A breakdown in communication is often the result of lack of context and or different perceptions of emotions. Thus by providing your students with a context they fully understand and the emotions that are closely related to them, you create common ground for the students and smoothen the usage of the target language. Language, at this point, has become a minor problem. Students can transfer, not translate, the Thai script of the movie into English by using the knowledge they have plus the extra knowledge they gain from the transfer. Even if they have limited knowledge it remains easier to transfer concepts they can relate to into English than something that is not akin. Another advantage, and very important factor, of the use of Thai movies is that they take place in Thailand and represent average daily life situations they can relate to.

I piloted this idea over the last couple of weeks with a Bed third year class that got stuck in automated language use. I wanted to get them away from the preprogrammed rehearsal and the memorization of lexical entries and let them ‘feel’ the concepts and the emotions they convey. As the students of this class are not world travelers and a lot of them haven’t even been to Bangkok yet, I thought it was useless to introduce English movies and ram the English meaning in. This would lead to the same result that I was trying to get away from: preprogrammed rehearsal and recitation. Also, I was trying to introduce the idea of acting as in two years from now some of them will be teachers and as far as I know teaching is performance and performance is often acting. How can you give natural input in an institutional setting without some good acting? Another huge advantage of acting is that the students are not themselves. They act out a character, so if they do anything out of the ordinary it’s not the student but the character. This seems to work great.

The project can be stretched out over a couple of weeks. To complete all the steps it took me about 2 full lectures of 3 hours with low-level B.ed 3rd year students.

Steps of the lesson:

- Students form groups of 4-5 students, have them form the groups on their own as this increases their autonomy and shows your faith in their abilities.

- They choose a Thai movie, preferably one with a foreigner in it, and discuss the movie. This gives them the chance to make a fool out of the foreigner, something they love to do, but also to relate to the foreigner, as one of them has to act out that particular role.

- Make sure that everyone understands the genre of the movie and have them brainstorm on the meaning of the movie. Everyone should have seen the movie or should see it before they start transferring it into English.
- They choose a scene that they find interesting and make sure they had enough roles for all the students.

- They find the Thai script on the Internet and copy the scene.

- They transfer the Thai into English as a group. Encourage them to use the dictionary as little as possible. This lowers the chance of awkward or low frequency word usage and encourages them to explore the boundaries of their English skills.

- Students choose a role that they are comfortable with and that they can relate to.

- Students try to get an idea of the character by making a profile of the character. Have them come up with a list of words that describes the characteristics of the character. This reinforces the links between English words and their concepts.

- Students start practicing the movie and come up with props that they need. Keep the usage of props limited. Let them focus on props that strengthen the characteristics of their role but do not replace the character or take away the essence and function of the language and consequently the objective of the lesson.

The actual classroom performance:

I built up their confidence with a couple of small acting activities.

- Act out a fruit. Students choose a fruit and act out how they feel if they were that fruit. A rich imagination of the teacher will definitely facilitate the outcome of this activity.

- Say: “Wow, you look great today” in different moods. Students pair up and say “Wow, you look great today” to each other in different moods. Sincere, sarcastic, sad, happy, crazy, etc. Model the activity clearly with a couple of students.

The final warm up activity before they actually start their acting is an activity that I borrowed from Dave Hopkins’ textbook, ‘Smooth Moves’. It’s called “Death in the afternoon”. It’s a simple skit that students can act out in different moods. For instructions and the dialogue please see Smooth Moves, page 83. The dialogue can be adjusted for lower level students. I rewrote it and adjusted it to their level. The skit can be hilarious and it takes away the anxiety and it reminds students of the mood they have to take up in the acting.

After that I gave the students a little break and some preparation time for their final task: Acting out their scenes.

At this moment I let the students take care of everything. It is their performance and their work. I sat down in a corner of the room and had them rearrange everything. The last thing I wanted to do was walk around and boss them around. I did this every time after I modeled the activity. Back off and sit down, let the students take over. Yes, sometimes it gets out of hand but who cares: they’re learning.

Any comments, suggestions, critics.. please let me know, it would be great if we can improve the lesson!