I think this is a great way to get students motivated to use the language, as well as a nice group project idea. The fact that the characters in the "movies" have conversations gives students a nice chance to practice Q & A forms and conversational, authentic language, as opposed to more "presentational" oral expression. Students can think creatively, and the movie assignment can be as free or controlled as the teacher wishes. It would be great to incorporate movie-making as a homework assignment after spending the class brainstorming plot lines, or learning about expressions or vocabulary to use in writing your scripts. Script-writing could even be a multiple-step process, with the teacher proofreading a first draft and correcting or encouraging elaboration where needed.
I've used similar technology in classes with young learners, and they loved it. I think it would work extremely well for high school students, and could be adapted to any level. This website produces extremely professional looking short movies, much higher quality than other similar websites I've used.
How could I describe my happiness from getting to know this website?
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing this wonderful resource for language teachers, Betsy! This is really neat and easy to use and the characters are very cute. I love this site. I will definitely try this in my class. This site just makes writing activities fun and engaging.
This looks like a great resource. Students would really enjoy a doing a project with this technology...it's new and innovative, and gives students room for creativity. Good find.
ReplyDeleteI am all for using movies and media is language classes!This is a great resource for getting young learners interested in languages. Although using this resource might be a little challenging in my context for all my students may not be very comfortable using advance level technology, but I love the idea of getting students involved in creating their own narratives.
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