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
Colgio Estadual Farroupilha and Instituto Estadual Coronel Genuno 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-SchoolPracticum 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-minuteEnglish 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

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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

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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

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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
teachers 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,

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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

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and,

essentially,

the

students

interest

and

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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

ltimo semestre de Letras-ingls na
Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos
(UNISINOS). Alm disso, atua como
professora

de

Lngua

Inglesa

Espanhola em uma escola de idiomas e

leciona ingls para alunos de uma escola
de Educao Infantil, ambas localizadas
na mesma cidade. Possui experincia de
cerca de 5 nos no ensino de Lngua
Inglesa e Espanhola em diversos nveis e
idades.

Vnia Cezar Peixoto possui graduao em Letras-Ingls pela Universidade do Vale do

Rio dos Sinos (2011). Atualmente professora de educao infantil no municpio de
Sapiranga, RS, e tambm atua como professora Lngua Inglesa e Espanhola em uma
escola de idiomas na mesma cidade. Tem experincia de mais de 10 anos no ensino de
ingls em diversos nveis e idades e h 2 anos tambm leciona Lngua Espanhola.

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