Dealing with functions

Although there are different approaches to teaching functions, we believe that illustrating the language in context is the clearest way. When students see people apologising, inviting, suggesting, etc, they fully comprehend what functions mean and how to deal with them.

Here is the lesson plan prepared to work with the movie The Haunted Mansion. The main character, Jim Evers, is talking to his wife: is he apologising? Is he introducing himself? What is he doing?

Enjoy this Lesson Plan with your Pre-Intermediate students and let us know how it works out.

If you haven’t seen the film, here’s the trailer.

Some reasons why using movies in a ESL/EFL classroom is a great idea

Working with feature films

• Is intrinsically motivating
• Exposes students to different native speaker voices, slang, reduced speeches, stress, accent, dialects
• Provides contextualized linguistic, paralinguistic and authentic cross-cultural information

You can use them to

• Practise listening strategies and fluency
• Illustrate grammar and pronunciation points
• Learn new vocabulary, idioms and context-bound expressions
• Present cultural background
• Encourage theme-based discussion
• Provide enjoyable language learning opportunities

“Using authentic sources from the native speech community helps to engage students in authentic cultural experiences” (Peterson & Coltrane, 2003).

References
King, J. 2002. “Using DVD feature films in the EFL classroom.” The weekly column.
Marcikiewicz, A. “How to Teach Through Culture and Culture Through Popular Movies?”
Peterson, E. & Coltrane, B. 2003. “Culture in Second Language Teaching”, Centre for Applied Linguistics Website.
Picture by Siggito http://www.flickr.com/photos/siggito/2218711219/