Working with movies and serials.

How to work with movies and serials.

1)   Watch movies in order to practice listening skill. 

2)   Repeat after speakers in the movie in order to improve  pronunciation.  If the are subtitles in this movie it makes sense to read subtitles for improving pronunciation. 

3)  Collect new words and phrases in order to expand your vocabulary. Write them down into a Word file or a copy book or Google doc..

I think that it’s good to watch the movie 2 or 3 times(or more).  When we are watching it in the 1^st time we try to catch( understand) the general meaning of the film.  When we watch it the 2^nd time we pay attention on details( how they use words, what grammar constructions are used by the speakers, how they pronounce the words… and other details we usually skip while watching in the 1^st time.). It is also good to re-watch the movie from time to time in order to refresh the new vocabulary that we collected from this movie.

4)   After watching 5-10-15 minutes it makes sense to put the movie on hold( to make pause) and re-tell  what you have just seen in order to practice speaking skill.  Or we can re-tell the whole movie after watching it.

In my opinon,  it makes sense to focus on the  series (serials) that show everyday life in English speaking countries.  In these serials we can see how they use conversational( spoken)   English in real life situations.  The second reason is that series usually consist of 25 minutes episodes and it’s easier to work with them than with 80-90 -120 minutes movies.   The 3^rd reason is that series consist of 15-20-25 episodes.. and often there is the 1^st season, the 2^nd season…and so on..so we can work with one serial for a long time.  For example  “The Big Bang Theory” series consists of  12 seasons,  20 episodes in each season that makes 240 episodes.  So, it’s a huge material to work with.

The examples of such series are: “Friends”, “Sex and the City”,  “The Big Band Theory”,  “Mike and Molly”  and others.

Of  course,  we can combine working with series with working with full length  movies.  It’s good if there is an American( British, Canadian, Australian)  movie that we watched in our native language earlier  and we liked it. Now we can watch them  again but in English .  

For example  I  really like the movies:  “Star Wars”,   “Forrest Gump”,  “The 5^th element”,  “American Pie”,  “Starship troopers”,  “Pulp Fiction”.  Now I  can watch them again in English +use abovementioned techniques in order to improve my  English.  So, I can combine learning and fun.