Probably the best place to view these videos is over at SimpleEnglishVideosDotCom where they are available with a clickable transcript. Click here for all the language videos and here for the movie trailers. Otherwise they are available on my youtube channel (why not subscribe today!)
Or you can simple click below. Hope you like them!
With the press full of movie award ceremonies, it’s a great time to be encouraging students to watch English movies.
You might want to begin with four movies that won Golden Globe awards this week. Can your students guess which category they won? What have they heard about them and have they seen them? Here are links to the trailers with clickable transcripts.
(See here for links to versions that will play well on mobile devices.)
All four of those movies are up for Oscars too, along with lots of other movies such as:
Class activities:
Teachers can allocate different movie trailers to watch to different pairs or groups of students and then have them report back to the class.
In smaller classes, students could pick two or three to watch together and discuss.
Or it could be a homework task. Everyone chooses a movie to watch at home and then reports back on whether or not it should win an award.
Here is a .pdf worksheet with url links for all the videos: OscarTime2013
You can find all the movies that are up for Oscar awards and in what categories here: http://oscar.go.com/nominees.
Happy watching and may the best movies win!
Ever had a student whose told you they lost a flight, train or bus? Here’s a 90 second video English lesson and worksheet to help sort the confusion out.
Clicking on the picture should take you to the video with a clickable transcript over at my Simple English Videos dot com site. (Be sure to get your students to check out the latest movie trailers while they’re there.) The video is also available here on my youtube channel.
And here’s a worksheet.
Here are links to four more of my ‘minute’ video English lessons along with their downloadable pdf worksheets. These videos are available with clickable transcripts at http://www.SimpleEnglishVideos.com/language/
Don’t forget to show your class the movie trailers while you’re at the Simple English Videos dot come site. ( http://www.SimpleEnglishVideos.com ) It’s a fun way for them to get lots of exposure to lots of natural spoken English, and the clickable transcript and Google translate tool make them accessible for self study.
The videos are also available on my youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/vickihollettvideo
Sympathetic – Nice
By – Until
Interested – Interesting
Used to do – Used to doing
Interesting-Interested Worksheet
Used to do – Used to doing Worksheet
Click here for more ‘minute’ video English lessons
And be sure to check out my ‘Obama Who?’ video lesson.
Anyone for some telephone English? This 90 second video English lesson is very simple. It’s suitable for elementary or pre-intermediate general or business English English learners. It’s available with a clickable transcript (along with lots of other video English lessons) at https://www.simpleenglishvideos.com/language or directly by clicking the image below.
It is also available on youtube just here.
Click here for a downloadable classroom worksheet to go with it. I didn’t include a role play in the activities, but perhaps your students can think of celebrities they’d like to call them, what they might want to talk about and then role play the event? Enjoy!
Here’s a video we shot at last year’s celebrations in Philadelphia. It addresses the questions:
‘What do Americans do at Thanksgiving?’
and
‘What does Thanksgiving mean to Americans?’
The comments of the people we interviewed are particularly topical in the light of a controversy that’s broken out this year. Thanksgiving occurs on the fourth Thursday of November and it’s followed immediately by ‘Black Friday’ – traditionally the biggest day of the year for retailers. It’s when shopping for the holidays begins and large retailers such as Walmart and Target are now requiring employees to come in the day before so they can open the stores at 8pm or midnight. You can read more about the protests here. Just how soon is it OK for stores to start Christmas/Holiday promotions, and what workers rights should be sacrosanct in these times of austerity?
Simple English Videos dot com is two months old today! Wehey! As well movie trailers with clickable transcripts, we’ve been making one minute video lessons and someone suggested worksheets would come in handy. So we’re celebrating with some pdfs with simple follow on exercises – traditional homeworky-style things for jogging memories.
These links will take you to the pdfs and the pictures underneath will take you to the videos and clickable transcripts. Enjoy!
In Case Worksheet
Remember and Remind Worksheet
Raise and Rise Worksheet
Lend and Borrow worksheet
Last and Take Worksheet
High and Tall Worksheet
Hard and Hardly Worksheet
Fun and Funny Worksheet
Fall and Feel Worksheet
During and For Worksheet
Concentrated and Concentrating Worksheet
Check and Control Worksheet
Alone and Lonely Worksheet
In case
Remember – Remind
Raise – Rise
Lend – Borrow
Last – Take
High – Tall
Hard – Hardly
Fun -Funny
Fall – Feel
During – For
Concentrated – Concentrating
Check – Control
Alone – Lonely
P.S. Don’t forget to show your students all the movie trailers with clickable transcripts while you’re over at the Simple English Videos site. They’re a cool way to see natural spoken language in context.
P.P.S And if you’re think you might like to use one of the movie trailers in class, there’s another worksheet here.
P.P.S Come back soon because we have more of these lessons in the works.
It’s www.simpleEnglish.com ‘s one month birthday tomorrow. Yay!
So far the site has had around 2,738 hits from 106 countries. I’ve no idea how good or bad those stats are but I love the idea of people from 106 countries being able to access the site. We’ve been adding new movie trailers steadily so there are now 60 available with clickable transcripts. (I think movie trailers are great vehicles for teaching – here are some generic lesson ideas to go with movie trailers. And for some homework tasks see here.) Plus – as of today – there are 10 one minute video English lessons. (More on that in a minute!)
We’ve learnt a lot this month. Dark colours might be cool in Europe, but Japan likes bright and cheerful. (Thank you Mrs B!) We now plan to build a separate section of the site for young learners. Also importantly I learnt that you may think you’ve switched off Google Adsense adult ads, but you need to double check. Eeek! Thank you for putting me right about that Charles! If anyone has any feedback, suggestions or thoughts about the website, please pass them along! What do your students think of it? We’re grateful for all suggestions.
So anyway, we thought we’d celebrate our one month birthday with some one minute English lessons. You can watch them with clickable transcripts here and I’ve also added them to my youtube channel. They’re low budget movies made by us, mostly in our living room. Ha! I feel uncomfortable seeing myself on camera, (understand how my camera-shy students feel) but I love the extra possibilities video provides for being able to site language in context. So overall they were fun to make and if they seem popular we’ll make more.
But here’s the puzzle – if we make more, what should they be about? We’ve targetted some easily confused words and expressions in this batch, but they could be about anything really. Time is the only constraint.
So imagine you have the full attention of your class – but for only one minute. What would you be able to teach? Any suggestions?
‘Rubrics’ seems to be a word that’s generally used differently in British and ‘merican. In British English (as I understand it) we generally use it to refer to the written instructions you find in textbooks. In ‘merican it’s the marking criteria for tasks and assignments.
I’ve never been a fan of long rubrics (in the British sense) and have always admired authors who can keep them short and sweet. But if the rubrics can be videos, then I feel rather differently about them. Here’s a discussion lesson that my business English students have enjoyed and found useful where the rubrics are delivered via video of a somewhat frazzled boss. I think it’s pretty self explanatory, but do drop me a line if you’d like more guidance on how it works. And if you use it, please tell me how it went.
