LingualNet - Learning English Through Media: "Napoleon Dynamite" Movie Trailer

Details

Activity Description

Students watch a short video to practice listening comprehension of everyday conversatoinal exhanges and then take a quiz to check their listening comprehension.

Preparation

1. Make sure that the Web site it not blocked at your school before using it with students.
2. The sample video clip is a short movie trailer from the film "Napoleon Dynamite." View the video in its entirety and then do the quiz yourself in order to anticipate difficulties.
3. Finally, plan a warm-up/introduction activity that will introduce the topic of the video and instruct on any difficult vocabulary the video contains.
   

How-To

1. Conduct a warm-up introduction activity to prepare students for the topic and vocabulary of the video.
2. Open the URL for the video. Make sure that your computer speakers are turned on and set at an adequate volume.
3. You may choose to read the synopsis of the video to prepare students for their viewing.
4. Play the video. Depending on the level of difficulty of the video and the level of your students' English abilities, you may need to replay the video several times.
5. Select Take the Quiz. Students can pair up and be called on to give answers, can write their answers in advance and then be asked to voluntarily give answers, or be asked as a whole class to vote on the correct answers.

Teacher Tips

• You may want to copy and paste the quiz questions into a document and have students view the questions before watching in order to better focus their listening and answer the questions as they watch the video. At minimum, it would help to show the students the questions before they watch the video.
• Each video has a synopsis, popularity rating, difficulty level, script, and run time (all are short, 3 - 10 minutes maximum).
• When teaching with video, it is a good idea to have pre-viewing activity (conversation, vocabulary, discussion), while viewing activities (listening cloze, general listening comprehension questions on main ideas, supporting details, etc.), and post-viewing activities (personal opinion questions, writing, reflection, discussion, conversation, dialogs, etc.).
• There are many videos available at this site. Some of the other videos come from YouTube. If YouTube is blocked at your school you can either choose to use a different video or download it using one of the YouTube video converters available on the Internet. Not all videos have quizzes, so you will need to come up with questions for many of the other videos.

More Ways

• You can find a video clip (all are short) that better suits the topic you are teaching by searching in the categories: Music, Documentary, Comedy, Celebrity, Drama, Animation, Food, and Science.
• The Web site also has games that can be used as warm-up or filler activities, which are also available on iTunes as mobile apps in a free and a paid version:
  • English Wizz – a Jeopardy-style game with questions on English vocabulary, grammar, and world knowledge
  • Listening Master - Learn Science, History, and American Pop Culture
  • Idiom Power - Match each idiom with the best meaning (this game also available as an app on iOS and Android)
  • True Love - follow the love story and interact with the characters (this one requries a name and e-mail address to play and you will receive a Certificate of Achievement via e-mail at the end, but you can use a phony e-mail address if you do not care about the certificate) The first scene has no interaction, but the others seem to.

Program Areas

• ESL: English as a Second Language

Levels

• Intermediate Low
• Intermediate High
• Advanced

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