Instructional Session 28

Objective: By the end of class, you will be able to… Beginner: write sentences in French to describe people in class, giving details to compare descriptions of people in the past and present Intermediate: say sentences in French to describe people in class, giving details to compare descriptions of people in the past and present, giving details to compare descriptions of people’s internal AND external traits in the past and present Advanced: say a series of connected sentences in French to describe people in class, giving details to compare descriptions of people in the past and present, giving details to compare descriptions of people’s internal AND external traits in the past and present, and using transition words to say more

Preparation:

In this session, you will learn a twist on a well-known strategy, Movie Talk, that I call “Reverse” Movie Talk. You will first read about “traditional” Movie Talk, and then you will learn about the variation “Reverse” Movie Talk.

“Traditional” Movie Talk is a powerful strategy that is generally very well-received by students and enjoyed by teachers as well. This strategy was developed by English Language Development professor Dr. Ashley Hastings, under the name “FOCAL Skills Movie Technique,” in the 1980s and ‘90s to improve his English language students’ listening proficiency. It worked so well, and proved to be so engaging, that many World Language teachers began to adopt the practice.

“Traditional” Movie Talk uses a video clip of about one to two minutes. To deliver the input, you play the video with the sound turned off, for a short time, until a scene that you can talk about comes up. You pause the video from time to time, point to various items and people, and describe things in a slow, unhurried, clear fashion. As you point to the details of the image, you describe and narrate, and also ask a few questions, perhaps asking students to make inferences. (Why is she sad?) or predictions (What are they going to do?).

After a bit of discussion, you then play the next part of the video, pausing when there is something interesting to talk about displayed on the screen. During this part of a Movie Talk, or a “Reverse” Movie Talk, you will spend MUCH more time paused and talking than with the video running. A one-minute video will easily take five or six minutes. For that reason, it is suggested to begin with very short clips. A video that is four or five minutes long can easily take 30 minutes or more in class, when you add in all the time for pausing and discussing, and that is just too long.

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“Reverse” Movie Talk is a way to deliver a Movie Talk that I have found increases the good aspects of Movie Talk while also avoiding a common pitfall that always plagued me, which was students’ impatience with the practice of pausing the clip many times to describe and discuss the details of the images. My students would often grumble a bit when I would pause the video, because, quite understandably, they were eager to experience the video in its entirety. Reverse Movie Talk eliminates this issue, because, as the name implies, it “reverses” the order, and students watch the entire video before seeing it again with my “help” to “explain” what is going on.

The main difference is that in regular Movie Talk, the language of the video makes no difference, because you use it with the sound turned off, and simply speak over the images, while “Reverse” Movie Talk begins with a video in the course language, and you show it all the way through (or almost all the way through, if you want to preserve the ending as a “cliffhanger”), with the sound on, so that students develop a sense of humility, and feel that they need you to play the video again and “explain” it in slower, more comprehensible language, using the visual elements of the images to help them understand the details that they will surely miss the first time they watch the clip in the course language.

This part of “Reverse” Movie Talk is actually exactly the same as a traditional Movie Talk. The difference is that students generally “need” you to pause and speak comprehensibly about the video, since they generally will have many gaps in their understanding after their first time viewing the video in the course language. Since you will watch the video again, with the sound on, in the course language, after you narrate over the images, students will feel a sense of accomplishment, as they will be able to understand the culturallyauthentic speaker(s) in the video better, the second and perhaps third times they view the video in the course language.

Saving Movie Talk for Later in the Year (i.e. Now)

Now that we have a proliferation of video available through the internet, Movie Talk has skyrocketed in popularity. In fact, many teachers devote a large percentage of their entire year’s curriculum on Movie Talk. It is true that many teachers have found great success and confidence by beginning the year with Movie Talk. However, I do not recommend using Movie Talk all year long, for several reasons:

(1) Technology already plays a huge role in students’ lives today. I like the hand-built aspect of working with the students’ artwork and their own ideas and interests. (2) Students today need community and acceptance more than ever. When we work together to create characters and stories, and to learn about each other, and to share and explore time-tested stories, we help students not just in language acquisition, but also in character development. (3) By starting the year with more interactive language delivery methods, we teachers develop our communication skills more deeply than we could if we simply relied on Movie Talk all year.

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(4) Anything used to excess eventually loses its excitement, and it is best, in my experience, to save a visually-exciting and super-engaging strategy such as Movie Talk and Reverse Movie Talk for the point in the year when you will be glad to have an engaging, novel “trick” to pull out of your hat to reenergize the class.

By working with students’ ideas and creativity more directly all year up to this point, you have really flexed and developed your language teaching muscles, and therefore Movie Talk or Reverse Movie Talk will be no sweat for you. It has been surprising to me to see the mass confusion surrounding how to implement Movie Talk, as if it is a strange new way to teach. Perhaps that is because new-to-CI teachers are looking for the quick fix, the technology solution that will engage their students in L2 communication without them having to stand in and look their students in the eyes to deliver the instruction. Avoid putting the cart before the horse.

The horse - what is driving all the instruction you provide this year - is your skills at engaging students in your speech, always going slowly enough to make sure they understand, looking them in the eyes, pointing and pausing, disciplining yourself to illustrate each and every word as you say it (through gestures, or pointing to the word, or drawing, or using an object in the classroom, etc.), reading them for signs of boredom, knowing when to spin off into a “side conversation” about a student’s interests, and all the other skills you have developed while you have been working with all the other instructional strategies this year.

Since you have been to the Teacher Gym with me day after day this year, and perhaps bravely watched yourself on video, and worked so hard and faithfully at developing your language delivery skills, then Movie Talk or Reverse Movie Talk will be easy for you. Just talk about what you see on the screen and place your hand on concrete parts of the image, like you have been doing all year!

For a teacher with well-developed language delivery skills, Movie Talk is a treat to implement. Through your hard work this year, you have earned the ability to take up many new delivery methods and feel like an experienced violinist taking up a new piece of sheet music. After they wrap their mind around the new music, a violinist simply uses their already-developed violin-playing skills to perform a new piece.

By now you have developed your delivery skills, which are likely much stronger than you think, and certainly much stronger than they would be if you had not allowed me to work with you through the pages of this book all year up till this point. You can now start, as an experienced proficiency-based teacher, to apply your skills to different pieces of sheet music, to do a little “sight reading”, which is to say different activities like Movie Talk and those mentioned further on in this book.

You will likely find that the issues plaguing teachers who have not done the heavy lifting that describes the work you have done up to this point in the year will not really bother you. There will still be challenges, of course, but you will have grown a lot this year. You have skills that will soon start to feel “portable” to you, meaning that you can use them to tackle new strategies, and learn them more quickly, and feel more comfortable than 90% of new proficiency-based teachers, many of whom - at great cost - jump into a kaleidoscope of teaching activities without first developing their delivery skills. Page 446

You now have strong teaching bones and muscles, so you will have no problem using them to do a Reverse Movie Talk, or a “traditional” Movie Talk, or any of the other activities that are out there swirling around online and at conferences. Further, it is my sincere hope that you have developed a sense of how the daily instructional framework and the year-long curricular framework function as a “shelving” or “cataloguing” system for all the enticing ideas you are bound to come across if you spend any time at all following blogs, Facebook groups, or conferences on communicative language teaching.

“Traditional” Movie Talk

To do a traditional Movie Talk, you do not have to do much planning. (There is only slightly more planning for a “Reverse” Movie Talk, which will be explained below.). You simply need to find a short, engaging movie clip, in any language. You can use any clip that you think your students will enjoy watching. If you want to align it to the current phase and cycle — Cycle Four, Information, Phase Two, Organization and Vocabulary — then you will want to select a clip, in any language, that relates to your informational topic. Or, you could just take a quick break from the topic, and spend a day teaching an unrelated, but fun and pedagogically-valuable, clip about any topic.

For your first clip, should you want to begin with a regular Movie Talk, I suggest using a very short video. A French teacher from California, Erik Olsen, at a presentation at COFLT in Oregon in 2016, suggested a 44second clip of a toilet paper ad with a funny twist ending. It is short, hilarious, and has plenty to talk about, so it makes a good first Movie Talk. You can easily find this video by googling “toilet paper iPad commercial.” I have literally never had a bad experience using this short video in class, except for the aforementioned light grumbling from students who were eager to just watch the video all the way through.

Even though the toilet paper clip is less than a minute in length, the Movie Talk can require up to five or six minutes or more. This is because you will basically be treating the clip like a collection of still images to discuss. For a traditional Movie Talk, I suggest that first you explain to the students that they will see the video with the sound turned off, and you will help them understand the video by pausing it and telling them what is going on, speaking in the target language. Be sure to inform the students that they will see the video in its entirety at the end.

To prepare the video, I like to watch it and make notes for myself, or just imagine good places to stop. You will most likely want to stop about six to eight times during a one-minute video. When you stop, you will want the image that is projected at that moment to be interesting, with specific things (objects, characters, locations, facial expressions, etc.) that you can point to and talk about. You want to use concrete, visual information to scaffold the students’ comprehension of the plot, as you would with any visual aid to support comprehension.

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Before you start the Movie Talk, you might say a sentence or two in the students’ stronger shared language, to give a bit of background information about the clip. For instance, with the iPad commercial, you might say, “This is a commercial from France. It has a funny ending. We will watch it two times and the first time I will pause it and explain things to you in French. This is so you can learn more French. Then we will watch it the normal way with the sound on and no stopping.”

Begin the video with the sound turned off. Play it for a short time, until a scene that you can talk about comes up. Pause the video from time to time, point to various items and people, and describe things in a slow, unhurried, clear fashion. Ask a few questions, perhaps asking students to make inferences. (Why is she sad?) or predictions (What are they going to do?).

After a bit of discussion, play the next part of the video and pause when there is something interesting to talk about displayed on the screen. You will spend MUCH more time paused and talking than with the video running. A one-minute video will easily take five or six minutes. For that reason, and I repeat this point from above et again because of its importance, it is suggested to begin with very short clips. A video that is four or five minutes long can easily take 30 minutes or more in class, and that is just too long here at the class’s first experiences with Movie Talk. Remember, you are trying to keep the activity a “begged-for” experience. Plus, you are trying to build your skills in manageable chunks. A one- or two-minute video is a better playground for you, and more manageable.

Even with a short video, you do not even have to Movie Talk the entire thing. On her blog, The Comprehensible Classroom, Martina Bex provides very valuable insights on how to end a Movie Talk. If the video has a twist ending, sometimes it is fun to not talk about the whole video but rather leave a “cliffhanger” and have students make inferences and predictions, and then show the ending in the next step when you play the video all the way through. It is pretty much required that at the end of the experience, you play the video all the way through with the sound on. If you do not, be prepared for a social uprising among the students.

Reverse Movie Talk

As mentioned above, my students often grumbled during Movie Talks, because it is sometimes frustrating to have their viewing interrupted when the natural human tendency is to just see what happens in the clip. I developed this modification in which I can actually have students who WANT to hear me explain what happened in the clip, because they cannot understand it on their own. They also may come to really see the value of your Teacher Skills at helping them understand the language, after they watch the clip in L2 (French

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or Spanish for me) and feel the need for someone to guide them through the content. Try it; you just might like it. I know it was a major game-changer for me!

Unlike “traditional” Movie Talk, for a “Reverse” Movie Talk, you will select a video in the course language that relates to the topic you want to address. You will, as explained above, want to select a short video (or a short part of a longer video) so that you can play a two- to three-minute video clip in the course language, with the sound on.

The first time you play the clip, you will do so with the sound on, perhaps slowing the playback speed to 75% of normal, to help students’ comprehension. To further support comprehension, you can also choose to play the video with the subtitles on, in the course language. It is entirely your choice whether to use subtitles. There are benefits to students’ language acquisition to reading the subtitles in the course language as they hear the language in the video, so there is truly no reason not to turn the subtitles on, unless you want to offer your students (especially more advanced students) a more challenging listening experience.

In order to increase students’ motivation to listen to you speak about the video the second time you show it, when you will pause the clip and speak about the images as described above for “regular” Movie Talk, you will ask students to write or sketch a certain number of notes about the main ideas and details of the video before you play it the first time with the sound on in the course language. You might give them a graphic organizer or simply have them take notes on a blank sheet of paper.

Asking students to take notes from a culturally-authentic video — even one made for preschoolers — is an ever-so-slightly “mean” trick to play on your students, as you are basically setting them up for some frustration during this first viewing of the clip.

You will want to tell them to make a number of notes that you intuit is slightly too challenging for your class, when watching the video for the first time, in the course language, with no teacher support. Most students will not be able to complete the task, and so they will generally be asking you to “slow down” or “pause” or “go back” or “explain” the video. You now have them right where you want them — wanting you to deliver a “traditional” Movie Talk, complete with plenty of pausing and pointing out visual details in slow, concrete, comprehensible language delivered as only their beloved, skilled, and suddenly very much appreciated teacher can do for them. This is the power of “reversing” the Movie Talk procedures: eager listeners who want what you are planning to offer!

I like to select educational videos produced for children who speak the course language. Educational children’s videos generally use clearer, slower speech, and more visual aids than videos produced for older speakers of the language. I like to tell my students, before this first viewing, that this video was made for French-speaking five-year-olds, and perhaps that I will reduce the speed to 75% to help them catch more of the language. Knowing that they are watching a little kid video, at 75% speed no less, helps them to develop that sense of humility, because they will most likely still not understand enough quickly enough to take the amount of notes I specified during this first viewing. Page 449

I want them to feel this slight frustration. In fact, I am counting on it, because it tends to greatly increase their engagement with my “teacher talk” through the video, after they watch it once or twice all the way through with the sound on. Because students generally want to get the number of notes you told them would earn an A - or whatever criterion you specify - they will usually be quite eager for your “support” when you replay the video and explain the details to them in a way they can comprehend more fully.

You will not want to be so “mean” as not to inform your students prior to viewing the clip that they will most likely not understand all of what is said in the course language. You can reassure them that you will "help them understand more” after they watch it. Then make sure students are set up with note-taking materials and play the clip once or twice with the sound on. You might stop the video before the very end, if you want to preserve a “cliffhanger” for the final viewing. This is fun, but not necessary, especially with “Reverse” Movie Talk, since you are using these slightly mean tricks to build natural motivation to attend to your teacher talk with the sound turned off.

After you have shown the clip one or two times with the sound on, you will replay it with the sound off and lead a discussion (basically a normal Movie Talk) in which you pause at key moments to explain the action in comprehensible language, using the paused image from the video as visual support that you can point to as you narrate and describe the clip’s contents. Stop again before the "cliffhanger" you did not show the first time(s) you showed the video, if applicable.

Then, re-play the clip with the sound back on, with or without subtitles in the course language, so that students can enjoy the ending of the clip and also feel the satisfaction of understanding more the second time around. You can ask students to add to their notes or write words and phrases they recognize. You might play the clip once without allowing students to write, so that they can engage with the listening task with their full attention, and then ask them to take up their materials and make notes as you play the clip a final time with the language on.

Once you have selected your course language clip (and perhaps also practiced or “warmed up” with a “traditional” Movie Talk, maybe using the iPad commercial suggested above), you are ready for this lesson. Now we will move on to the lesson procedures.

Continue to greet the students in English, review expectations, etc. Distribute or project the Reading Workshop text. You might make your own Reading Workshop text, use the ones in our Teachers Pay Teachers store, such as the example below, or work with a Shared Writing text from a previous lesson. Then, share the lesson objective if you have not already done so, check in with your Class Starter and Videographer, and any other student workers with whom you need to touch base, and begin the lesson.

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In Other Words

In this sample lesson, I use the French Class Expert Group Page (on the first subtopic, in this case the Grand Est region of France) from our materials.

Of course, in any Reading Workshop, you can always choose to use a text that your class wrote together in a previous lesson’s Shared Writing. But in this particular session, I encourage you to work with the Expert Group Pages that you will read as a class on the first subtopic.

By working with the Expert Group Pages during Reading Workshop in this session, you are pre-teaching - in a light, natural, unforced way - some of the concepts and language prior to the next session, Session 29, in which you will spend the entire lesson reading the Class Expert Group Pages on subtopic one as a class to set students up for more independent reading of their group’s Expert Group Pages, on subtopic two or three (or four, if you have that many subtopics).

Hand out (or project/display) the Reading Workshop text. Once the students can see the projected text, or they have it on their desks, you can proceed. First, most likely speaking in the class’s stronger shared language tell the class that today you will be focusing on teaching the meaning of “fancy” words using simpler terms. Add the phrase “in other words” (or an equivalent) to the anchor chart. Then, tell them what the topic of the reading is and read it aloud in the course language as you use the strategy, as modeled below.

Following the conventions of this book, the lesson notes are written in English. Words that are said in the course language (French, in this example), are in black text. The class’s stronger shared language is in this color.

“I will read this text about the Grand Est to you in French. We will continue using this list of words (point to the anchor chart) to say the ‘fancy’ words in simpler terms.”

Expert Group Reading

(Give the signal to start class, and have your Videographer begin filming.)

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(read the text in the course language)

(Speaking and writing in the course language) “Strasbourg is the ‘chef-lieu’ or in other words…” (perhaps give the class a check or a point for using the term from the anchor chart, if you want) “In other words, Strasbourg is the capital of…the region? Strasbourg is the capital of…the government?” (some students may call out suggestions)

(Speaking and writing in the course language) “In other words, Strasbourg is the capital of the government. Class, what is the capital of the government of the USA?” (some students may call out Washington! or Washington, DC! etc.) “Yes, the capital of the government of the USA is Washington, D.C. What is the capital of the government of Oregon?” (some students may call out Salem! or Portland (a common misconception)! etc.) “Yes, the capital of the government of Oregon is in Salem.”

(reread the next part of the text in the course language)

(Speaking and writing in the course language) “The Vosges are a ‘massif’ or in other words…” (perhaps give the class a check or a point for using the term from the anchor chart, if you want) “In other words, the Vosges are a group of mountains? The Vosges are a…chain of mountains? The Vosges are a…line of mountains?” (some students may call out suggestions)

(Speaking and writing in the course language) “In other words, the Vosges are a chain or a line of mountains. Class, what is a ‘massif’ or chain or group of mountains in the USA?” (some students may call out The Rocky Mountains! or The Appalachian Mountains! etc.) “Yes, the Rockies and the Appalachians are ‘massifs’ or chains or groups of mountains in the USA.

Repeat with a couple of other sentences, if time permits, using the term(s) on your Anchor Chart to restate the information from the Reading Workshop text. After a few minutes, move into the Guided Oral Input, with a short calendar check-in and then begin the Reverse Movie Talk.

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Quick Calendar Check-In

Move to the calendar for a brief calendar check-in to transition to the Guided Oral Input. Examples of calendar check-in are found in the previous instructional sessions, and there is no example here. Refer to Sessions 1-8 for more details on Small Talk (calendar and weather). See the graphics below for a demonstration of the sample lesson, a Reverse Movie Talk using a video called “Le Grand Est, une région à explorer grâce au sport!” produced by the YouTube channel “Region Grand Est.”

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After about 12 to 15 minutes of Guided Oral Input, you will move on to Scaffolded Oral Review.

Finish My Sentence

Move to your Review Spot. For more details on “Finish My Sentence” see Session 5.

“Time for ‘Finish My Sentence.’ I will say a fact in French, and then you will all speak in French as long as

you can, to finish the sentence and say more facts. I will listen and count to six on my fingers. If everyone is

still talking when I get to six, the class will get a point, but if not, point for me!”

“Number One (hold up one finger). The group was walking in the mountains and…(counting silently on your

fingers)…one, two…”

(The class speaks in French saying endings like, “beautiful mountains,” “eat in a restaurant” or other

statements according to their ability.)

“Six! Good job, a point for the class!” (Tally the class points, perhaps writing on the board.)

“Number Two (hold up two fingers). The group visited…” Page 454

(The class speaks in French saying various endings as you count the seconds.)

(Repeat, if time permits.)

You will continue to use the anchor chart that you added to during Reading Workshop today. See below for a

sample lesson based on the Reverse Movie Talk demonstrated in the Guided Oral Input above.

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The “Go-To” Daily Strategies

Shared Reading is not modeled in this lesson in detail, as you are simply continuing to use the “go-to”

strategies explained and modeled in detail in the previous sessions.

Read in the Language

“Now I will read to you in French and then we will read in English together.”

(reading with expression, and pointing to the words, read the text in its entirety.)

Choral Translation

“Now we will read together. Read with the class, not faster not slower, not louder, not softer, just say each

word as I highlight it. It might be in a strange order when we say the English, but that’s OK; it’s normal. Say

the words as I point. 3-2-1, go!”

Grammar Discussion

“Did anyone notice anything else about the French language, how it is spelled, or put together, that they can

teach the class?”

(Lead a brief class discussion and circle any students’ noticings on the text, ideally using a second color, and

perhaps writing the students’ name/initials by their contribution.)

To continue to Reading from the Back of the Room:

Since you have been doing the same sequence of Shared Reading strategies, most likely you can simply

move to the reading from the back of the room spot and begin asking questions, without needing to speak in

English to transition. Your specific questions will vary depending on the content of the class discussion.

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Q and A Game with Word Cards

The Q and A Game is explained in more detail in Session Five, where it was first introduced. Variations using

charts and cards to support students to use the language from the anchor chart were introduced in Session

25, and again in Session 26. This variation is a further modification, wherein students “play” word cards using

the same vocabulary that you reviewed in this lesson. See Session 27 for a more detailed description of this

variation on the Q and A Game.

Walk to your Quiz Spot. Review the Q and A Game, and perhaps set up a points system to track whether the

speakers say all of the phrases on their cards, or use a certain number of them. You might give students

paper clips, checkers, squares of colored paper, or other objects to mark their chart when their partner says

the phrases. Then proceed with the Q and A Game as previously described and modeled, giving a bit more

time for the speakers to answer, as they will most likely be saying more, using the charts and their word cards

to scaffold their responses.

At the end of the period, you might want to debrief with students, congratulating them on what went well, and

setting goals for future improvements.

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