2.6 movie reviewers - reading between the lines - practium project

paginas.ufrgs.br/revistabemlegal REVISTA BEM LEGAL • Porto Alegre • v. 2 • nº 2 • 2012 37

Movie Reviewers: Reading between the lines

Practicum Project

This article aims at problematizing some activities as well as their results,

which were developed during a Practicum Project for English classes of two High

School groups in 2011. The state public schools in which this project took place are

Colégio Estadual Farroupilha and Instituto Estadual Coronel Genuíno Sampaio, located,

respectively, in Farroupilha and Sapiranga - RS.

The idea of working with a similar practicum project at the same time in

two different cities occurred during some discussions held in our High-School-

Practicum classes, advised by Professor Cristina Gibk. After discussing the profile of

students from this level, achieved throughout observations of classes we had

performed, we realized that there were similarities between the groups we would

teach: they were at the same level and had great interests in common.

However, we had to manage with some differences when designing the

project: while the group from Farroupilha studied in the afternoon, had English classes

once a week (a 50-minute class), and was constituted of 31 students aged between 15

and 17 years old; The group from Sapiranga, was a night-shift one, had a 90-minute-

English class a week, and contained 36 students, aged around 16 and 20 years old.

Taking all these aspects into account, we decided to create a project in

which both groups, with their own peculiarities, would be able to learn English in a

different way, taking advantage of a common topic. So, the project topic was films and

was applied with the objective of showing the students how to understand different

genres, such as synopsis, trailer and reviews, likewise learn their specific

characteristics.

Thus, during the project we worked with reading and listening strategies,

which were presented and discussed through different tools, such as texts (synopsis

about the films Rio and Hangover II, and reviews about the films A Walk to Remember,

the trilogy of Saw and Alice in Wonderland) and videos (trailer about the film Fast and


Furious Five). In addition, using the sources mentioned as modeling, we worked with

key vocabulary related to films and, also, showed the use of superlatives when giving

their opinion about what they had watched as well as the use of the basic relative

pronouns when describing the characters. Hence, we also instigated students to think

critically about the importance of the messages contained in the films.

As the outcome of the project, the students were supposed to write a

review about a film they liked that should include a brief summary of the film as well

as their opinion about it (the opinion should include grammar aspects worked during

the classes). It is important to highlight that, all the reviews were going to be used to

design a leaflet with the goal of distributing it to other groups from their school

likewise to a second-year group from the other city.

First of all, our concern was to provide students resources to be able to

produce this review at the end of the project. Thus, in our point of view, a good way of

starting was brainstorming the purposes of reading texts related to films, their

elements and vocabulary. It was also a good way of investigating how much they knew

about the topic. As an example of it, at the very beginning of the project, students

were distributed flashcards containing different types of movies; some of them got

cards with words and some got cards with posters of recent movies. They had to

match pictures and words walking around the room.

After the groups got together, they were supposed to act a small scene out

so that the rest of the class guessed what type of movie they had. One agreement we

made was that if they used any word or dialog it should be in English. They were also

asked if there were any other kinds of movie that were not in the cards.

Although the activity described seems and it is very simple, it allowed the

students to have their first contact with some vocabulary related to films. It was a

funny task, very different from the exercises they used to do in their English classes,

which offered them the first input of language to be used in their final production,

since it incorporated the type of films they were going to talk about. And, as a surprise,

for the teachers and the students (who used to say they did not know anything about


English), almost all the groups created a short dialogue to represent the kind of film

they had selected. Really simple structures were used, such as “Help me” or “I love you

so much”, however, it motivated the students to use English in class not only through

this activity, but while performing other ones too, always putting into practice what

they already knew linked with the new content studied.

Another very significant activity was the one with a movie trailer. Students

were challenged to watch a whole trailer in English without any subtitle. In order to

prepare the students to do so, before watching it, students an teacher had a

discussion about the content of a trailer and its importance at the time of choosing a

movie to watch. They were also questioned about the similarities and differences

between a movie review and a trailer.

The poster of the movie Fast and Furious Five was projected on the wall

and students had to list the words that this title reminded them. Even if they said the

words in Portuguese, the teacher would write them in English on the board. The

activity was necessary since it activated students’ schemata about the series of this

film and helped them to remember things which were going to be presented in the

video, such as the genre of it, its main characters and the place where it happened.

After that, we had a pre-watching activity, in which the students were

given a handout with the key words to be presented on the trailer. Using a projector,

we showed the students photos which matched with these words. However, the

photos and the expressions were not in the same order. The students’ job was to

number the expressions in the same order as they appeared in the projector. We did

not translate any word. Instead, we discussed what they implied concerning the

photos, aiming at facilitating the students’ comprehension of the video.

Later on, they watched the movie trailer and put the words in order again,

but this time considering the order they appeared on the trailer. They were also asked

to listen to extra information of the movie and take notes in a chart. It was an

important activity, once it showed students that even not being able to understand

every single word used in the video, they could still get its main idea. Therefore, we


reinforced that when listening or watching something in a foreign language, we should

focus on understanding what is really essential and not everything. It was awesome for

them since it was the first time they watched a video completely in English during the

class and were able of completing all the exercises successfully.

As the text genre they had to write was a movie review, they were

subjected to the reading of three of them. This was an important step, since these

reviews would serve as a model for building up theirs. To start this task, the class was,

firstly, divided into two teams, with about fifteen students each. Due to the fact a

competition was going to be carried out, the students had to display their desks not in

rows anymore, but in two lines, facing each other. Using a laptop, parts of the

soundtrack of three different films were played. After playing each song the class was

asked three questions, one by one:

- Which type of film do you think it is related to?

- Can you remember the name of the film that has this soundtrack?

- What can you remember and talk about the story of the film and its

characters?

This activity aimed at making students remember key aspects about the

three movies, that is, our goal was to motivate them to think about previous

knowledge they had concerning these films. In consequence, the following activity, the

reading and interpretation of reviews talking about these films, was facilitated and the

students did not need to use dictionaries to translate the key words.

As a continuation, the students read the reviews and guessed what movie

they refer to. In the following activity, they looked for key words and completed the

table with information from the reading. As this table had sentences to be completed,

the students were divided into groups in order to write clues for a Movie profile game.

In fact, while the profile game was a pre-writing activity for one of the

teacher’s project, it ended up being the outcome for the other one, which was a little

bit disappointing for us and also for the students, who were expecting an exchange of

Movie Guides. The main may be pointed as time. Besides starting her practicum later,


one of the teachers had a shorter time in class and also a few unpredictable events at

the school. And, even though we were not able to do the outcome planned at the

beginning of the project, the Profile game was a good way of ending it.

Summing up, there is usually a tendency to believe that the only purpose

of teaching a language is to expand students’ linguistic knowledge and abilities.

However, as we could perceive during our practicum, the focus must be different,

promoting the education of the students in a wider way. With the learning of this

“new language”, students need to have an opportunity to understand better the world

in which they live and to interact critically in it, changing their perspectives of life and

existence.

This type of education comprises the development of abilities, such as the

awareness of the language heterogeneity, the social interaction through the language,

the support to criticize the society and live critically on it and, the confidence to face

life challenges in which the additional language is involved and necessary. In this

sense, students are exposed to activities in which the language is used as it really is: a

heterogeneous system.

Considering the language as a heterogeneous system, it is impossible to

support its teaching as a non-contextualized one and, mainly keep on focusing only on

grammar. It does not mean that the grammar teaching should be totally avoided, but

it has to be understood that the grammatical structures acquisition happens naturally

as long as the practice goes. The focus, in this perspective, changes and the language is

learnt by the contact with it, using authentic practices through distinct genres. The

grammatical system has to promote opportunities to memorize, analyze and reflect

about these practices.

Moreover, while developing our project we could notice how important is

to know about the entire environment when developing a task. In other words, when

we plan any kind of activity, we have to take into consideration not only the kind of

students we have, but also the school structure, condition as resources, the goals we

want to achieve and, essentially, the students’ interest and level.


Having the Practicum in High School was a very nice and rewarding

experience. It has changed our opinion about students at this age, which usually are

thought as rebel, lazy, not interested and difficult to engage in the activities, especially

the ones in night classes. It is possible to say that establishing rules and letting

everything clear is extremely necessary. It is important to communicate with students

because it is not possible to plan, design a class without them.

Therefore, we hope to instigate other teachers to think and really have

inspiration from our project to change their classes, promoting a real and effective

learning of languages.

Franciele Spinelli atualmente cursa o

último semestre de Letras-inglês na

Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos

(UNISINOS). Além disso, atua como

professora de Língua Inglesa e

Espanhola em uma escola de idiomas e

leciona inglês para alunos de uma escola

de Educação Infantil, ambas localizadas

na mesma cidade. Possui experiência de

cerca de 5 nos no ensino de Língua

Inglesa e Espanhola em diversos níveis e

idades.

Vânia Cezar Peixoto possui graduação em Letras-Inglês pela Universidade do Vale do

Rio dos Sinos (2011). Atualmente é professora de educação infantil no município de

Sapiranga, RS, e também atua como professora Língua Inglesa e Espanhola em uma

escola de idiomas na mesma cidade. Tem experiência de mais de 10 anos no ensino de

inglês em diversos níveis e idades e há 2 anos também leciona Língua Espanhola.

2.6 movie reviewers - reading between the lines - practium project

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