This post has been inspired by the talented Isabelle Jones who asked in Twitter which Spanish films teachers integrated as part of SoW at KS3. She made me think of film in the MFL classroom, which can be such a powerful cultural tool to motivate students, learn culture, values and of course language!
However, like any task/activity, it must be very well thought out and truly embedded in the curriculum. I am not keen of watching films, for the sake of it, but planning to watch and study a film while taking the opportunity to exploit it and embed it into the curriculum.
How to integrate films into the curriculum
When planning a unit based on a film, I think of three pillars: the planned final discourse, cultural outcome and linguistic/grammatical exploitation.
Pillar one: the final discourse
Firstly, like with any other unit, plan the discourse which you would like your students to produce, linguistically, after watching the film. For me, in most cases, regardless of the linguistic level of my students, this discourse is to be able to tell what happened in the film and give opinions about it as well as recommendations.
As with any work unit, I need to define the exact final outcome/discourse that students will have to produce and work backwards thinking of activities to get them there. For that purpose, I create a Sentence Builder with this language which will be the backbone of the whole film unit. See this link to see the Sentence Builder I created for Coco this year for our Y9 classes.
Pillar two: the cultural dimension
However, a film is richer than that! So, also think about the cultural dimension and what you would like students to learn culturally from any given film. In this category we can also include values or international issues promoted by the film:
Coco for example, is great to explore the Day of the Dead in Mexico and the Aztec culture.
Voces inocentes is a fantastic opportunity to talk and debate about children in war, the power of friendship and children soldiers. It is also a good film to learn about differences between poor and richer countries and immigration.
Cuerdas is a fab example to talk about diversity.
Zipi y Zape it’s great to talk about values such as friendship, family and the world of comics in Spanish speaking countries. In fact, it could be twinned with a Zipi Zape comic story and it could lead to the Argentinian comic Mafalda.
I always conduct these debates and research in English.
Pillar three: exploiting the language
Finally, the last pillar to consider when planning a unit based on a film, is the language (vocabulary and grammar) which I would like to explicitly teach and to practise from the film. For this, I use extracts from the film to be analysed linguistically with specific activities, to move later, to practise such structures in different contexts.
This pillar is normally integrated with the first one, as I would like students, to learn such structure and use it in their final discourse and it is included as a seed planting experience in the original Sentence Builder.
Planning/creating the tasks
I then start planning the different activities to tackle these three objectives. Another strategy I use when exploiting a film, is to make it clear to students that they will need to create a project on the film, so there is a clear product for them linked to the final discourse. I turn this into a competition!
The project, tends to be a big poster where students write or talk, using a QR codes, on what happens in the film and a recommendation ( basically a review, based on our original sentence builder) and a section on the cultural/international/geographic aspect that we debated in lessons, written in English. All must be illustrated with pictures, etc.. promoting the artistic vein of my students! Normally, I give a choice of format to create this final project: poster by hand, a video, a digital infographic, a physical/digital book etc.. so there’s something for everyone!
However, for the film to be embedded nicely into the curriculum, pillar one is key! To develop this, I apply the same T&L strategies I do on any topic. For me these are based on the Lexicogrammar or EPI approach, by Gianfranco Conti.
I exploit the original, planned Sentence Builder, after watching the film, by doing lots of listening and reading tasks on the content of such Sentence Builder (Modelling phase), such as dictations, mini white board activities and quizlets/Memrise for students to learn the key vocabulary.
I then move into Structured Practice with many of Gianfranco classic activities: pyramid translations, oral ping pong, information gap activities, lots of pair work based on practising sentences from our Sentence Builder. For this, I use digital tools such as Genially, wheel of names or LearningApps among others. Grammar is learned/ practised towards the end of this stage.
Finally, once students know the structures well, we move to developing fluency and manipulating the language with more activities: speed dating, some of the activities from the previous stage but now with open ending questions, leading to students acquiring the language spontaneously and creatively to carry out their final project.
Once the language is secured and students can narrate events on what happened in the film, we move to the cultural/ value activities on the film, which would have been already pointed out as part of the Sentence Builders but now will be debated and analysed in English. At this stage, I use YouTube videos, online materials and group discussion activities to promote dialogue and debate!
The whole process normally takes me 6 weeks, basically, half a term.
An example of this process can be found in my resources from Coco. However, these are not fully finalised. Click here.
Students learn the film unit well and I have had many students who use the sentence builders learned at this stage, to describe a film they recently watched as part of their GCSE oral conversation, which shows the impact such films had in students.
Normally we dedicate 6 weeks in Year 9 to a film project, while we use Short Films and Extra episodes with Y7/8.
Favourite Films for Spanish
Short films
If you do not have lots of time, using short films and some follow-up activities, is also a stimulating way to learn the language! Personally, I use short films for Y7/8 and a whole film unit in Y9, as their language is stronger. Have a look at this pack on short films activities we created for my department.
These are some of my favourite short films:
Finally, oldies like the Extra videos (available in French, German and Spanish), which can be found in YouTube, are great for a relaxed soap time at the end of a busy term or every so often to chill out! Worksheets for the Extra Spanish series can be found here.
Overall, film can really enrich the curriculum, however it is important to be exploited fully and be part of your teaching continuum.
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