Movie Segments to Assess Grammar Goals by Merve Yıldırım

by Merve Yıldırım, FLE Junior Student/2015

Introduction of the movie

A wheelchair bound photographer spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes 
convinced one of them has committed murder.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Writers: John Michael Hayes (screenplay), Cornell Woolrich (based on the short story by)

Stars: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey |See full cast and crew.

While we were seeking out creative blogs for suggestions about teaching English, we discovered an amazing one “Movie Segments to Assess Grammar Goals” blog. 

Today we all know that to draw learners’ attention, we need creative things. Let’s imagine that you are reuniting creativity and authenticity for your lessons. Isn’t it  wonderful for a meaningful learning environment ?  Yes, it is.

Teaching a grammar topic through a text book might be boring and tiring for the learners. However, to change the learning atmosphere is in our hands. We are all aware of the fact that using authentic materials is highly motivating, inspiring and imaginative,so it seems obvious that using movie segments in our lesson plans is a great idea .

For a lesson which we are asked to explain “should and shouldn’t”, we used a movie segment from the movie “Rear Window”  in this blog spot . In the segment, the main character “J” talks about his observations. After the students watch the movie segment ,  they are asked to give their advice to “J” using should and shouldn’t . We think that it is a good way to get students’ interest to the topic.

Thank you