Children are one of the most important costumers of this product and this kind of public can learn a lot if they have the correct material to work with.
The brain has been described like a sponge in kids before 12 years old. In the first six years of his life, the brain changes more with learning skills and the gaininf of a language than with any other cognitive skill. Children born with natural abilities to imitate pronunciations and understand any language by themselves, without the need of studying in a conscious way the grammar rules.
Cinema can teach English, this is a fact, but what kind of films are suitable for children and which are the premises to allow them enjoy and learn?
1. Subtitles: It is recommendable for the children to watch the film for the first time in their own language. After that you can put on the subtitles and the audio in English... the images will do the rest. Children learn fast, so you'll be surprise about how soon they start to repeat some expressions in English.
2. A film they like: They should love the movie don't matter how many times they have watched it before. In addition to enjoy it, they will memorize without realizing it some scenes and the conversations.
3. A correct vocabulary: No cockney, no slang and no bad language. The best way to learn a language is practicing it with the formal and right level. For children is easier to learn the other level (the informal) with songs or being in touch with native kids.
The boyish and family films are the best to learn English because they have short dialogues, easy plots, a lot of gesticulation, exaggerated and expresive characters, words followed by actions and no niceties or double senses.
Here we have five personal recommendations from the members of the group:
1. E.T. (1982):
The main character of the film has left his home and he finds himself in an unknown place where he has to make questions and express his emotions to come back home.
2. The Nightmare before Christmas (1993):
It's a funny, dramatic and a bit scary film where Jack Skellington, the main character, fight for the triumph of the good over the evil in a fantasy world called Halloween Town.
3. The Lion King (1994):
Representing Disney Company, which has created a lot of animated films since Snow White and the seven Dwarfs, in 1937, allowing the children to be closer to popular tales and culture. Here we can see values like kindness, friendship and love.
4. Harry Potter films (2001 - 2011):
Combining literature and films like in the Harry Potter saga is a good way to teach them two skills: reading and listening. It's recommendable the reading of the books of the saga and to start little by little with a dictionary or the help of the parents (if the books are in English) or to read the books in Spanish and to watch the films in English, although the best option is to do the two things in the original language. It all depends on the level of the children.
5. Finding Nemo (2003):
Representing Pixar Animation Company. This kind of films have a high level of creativity which kids love and represent a change from the boyish films.
In addition, we have created a presentation in Slideshare where you can learn more about animated films:
In my view, learning English through movies is one of the most effective and efficient methods. Using English movies we can improve our pronunciation and we can learn new vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteAnother advantage is that we can learn English in a much more fun and entertaining way. As a personal experience, with Harry Potter I learned a lot of interesting and new words.
Thanks for your post, it's interesting.
I think this is a very good idea and maybe it is not as exploited as it could be. In my opinion films in English are very difficult to understand clearly without subtitles, maybe it is because coloquial English has lots of expressions and phrasal verbs. I've been thinking about this a little and I think that if parents and teachers get the habit of watching movies in English with children they may learn English faster and in addition they would have the ability to talk in coloquial and formal English.
ReplyDeleteI really like this post. Since I was three I was interested in films and now I love all types of films. Nowadays I see all the movies and the series in their original language and with subtitles. In spite of the fact that the movies in other languages are more difficult to understand, they help us to learn more than we think. For this reason I think that we should promote this.
ReplyDeleteI do exactly the same as you and I strongly believe this is a good method of teaching English. If parents got the habit of watching movies in their original languages our children would be better at learning not only English, but any language. TV in Finland only emits films and series in their original language, adn that's why most of the population is able to speak a lot of languages.
DeleteHey Jorge, Fran and Ricardo, good work! I liked your topic (because I also love cinema and think cinema, tv and music are good ways of learning English without realizing you are doing so!) I enjoyed reading your tips, and list of recommended films as well as the slide share. Thanks too for the link to Kieran Donaghy’s blog – now I am convinced :D
ReplyDeleteI liked this post because I think all you said is true! I like cinema as you, boys, and I also think that it's a good idea to learn english through movies because if you like them, you will see them in any language. I think that the films you mentioned in your post are good films to learn english and they are very entertaining too!!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this post!
I totally agree with you that children are like sponges, so we must take advantage of this opportunity to promote the viewing of movies in English. It's a fun way to learn vocabulary and hear the pronunciation of each word.
ReplyDeleteI like all your recommendations except The Lion King, this movie was too traumatic on my childhood, Mufasa's death made me cry for hours.
Good job!
Cinema is an art that has survived through the years. Nowadays, as going to the cimena is very expensive, people watch films at home instead.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that one of my favourite hobbies is watching movies, especially films about love. One of my favorite films is “Amelie”, it is about a woman who is desperately looking for love.
I think that films may bring a dynamic way to teach children and it also brings them meaningful learning. Regarding the learning, the teaching of a foreign language is a good way of attracting the kids´ interest.