Movies for Motivation and Inspiration

Is there any teacher that has not felt that their students were sad or with no energy? Have you felt that your students do not want to work, do not want to write or learn, because they think that those things are worthless? If you have tried a motivational speech under those circumstances, my dear teacher here you have a new option. If you want to show your students how great learning can be, how many wonderful things they can achieve as students or you just want to cheer them up in the middle of a depressing day by showing how important is not to give up, a movie might be an interesting and attractive way to do this.

We have already talked about how children and teenagers (and adults of course) love stories. Consequently, sharing a motivational and inspirational story with your students can help them see new perspectives and open their eyes to new ways of seeing their lives. In order to illustrate how magical a movie can be I would like to share a personal experience. It was my first year in High School, and our Language teacher tried to explain how necessary and important writing was for us as students. I have to admit that for us, writing was not an activity that we loved (at all! ). The worst thing of all at that moment was that our teacher warned us that throughout that year we would have to write A LOT (Imagine our faces when he said that).

In our next class, after this speech, our teacher came back with something new: a movie. All of us felt very enthusiastic about it, and we silently watched the movie. It was a very inspirational story about a teacher that was just starting to give classes in a school were students had very serious problems at home and with their lives. Thus, they did not care about learning and they were very disrespectful with this new teacher. In despite of this, the teacher kept trying, and in the end she was able to gain their students' confidence in a very special way: she showed them Ana Frank's story and she invited them to start writing a diary just like she did. At first, the students were not very interested, but after a few days, they starting writing every single day! Through this diary, the new teacher knew all the problems her students had, and everything change from that moment on.

The movie I am talking about is called "Freedom Writers" (2007), it was based on a real story, and our teacher made us write a diary too after watching this movie. Amazingly, our teacher had the same effect on us that the new teacher in the movie had, and we wrote in our diaries every single day. In the end, we ended up writing better and facing this task with more energy and love.

"Freedom Writers" (2007) is just one of many inspirational movies we can find out there. Just to give you a couple of them, here you have a list of the TOP 10 INSPIRATIONAL TEACHER MOVIES according to AboutEntertainment
Additionally, here you have one of most touching scenes from this movie. Enjoy! and start believing in the power of stories.

Music for Classroom Management

As it was previously mentioned, music in the EFL classroom might be used for multiple purposes such as teaching new vocabulary, grammar, idioms, or pronunciation. Today we will be discussing about how music can be useful for one specific aspect that worries all teachers: classroom management. 

Every now and then, teachers need to calm down their students a little bit to carry out activities in a proper way. However, it might also be the case that teachers need to energize their students because they are feeling a bit down or just because they are bored or sleepy. Music is a perfect tool to help teachers cope with these situations!

For example, if your students are misbehaving and you need to lower the level of energy they have try with a soft rhythm, and for sure your students will feel calmer with the peacefulness of the music you play. Generally, it is very common  to notice that after Physical Education classes, students enter their following class (eg. English class) being filled with energy! So all you need as a teacher is to manage that level of energy that your students have through music, and you will have a much nicer teaching/learning experience.

On the contrary, if your students are bored and sleepy, you as a teacher need to increse their level of energy, and music is a powerful tool to do this! Thus, try to play music with a fast beat, and with cheerful melodies, and surely your class will feel happier and willing to work.

Would you like to have examples to see what kind of songs can you use for these classroom management techniques? Here you have two, especially for little children :) The first one shows a song to help your students focus on the class and be quiet, and the second one offers you a song to motivate your student and make them feel more energetic (additionally, it is a very appealing video with some characters that are specially loved by children!)

Novel Based Films in the EFL Classroom

Over the last two weeks, we have been talking about why music and films are highly useful tool when teaching English as a foreign language. This week an specific and very popular type of films will be analysed: Novel Based Films

Undoubtedly, there are huge advantages when using films based on novels in the classroom. First, teachers can use them to reinforce the work that has been done with a novel read in the class. For example, if the novel is too complex in terms of content/English for students, it would be extremely useful to share some of the most important passages of the novel depicted in the film, in order to make your students understand what are the most important events in those passages/scenes.

Secondly, using novel based films can enriches the introduction to a new reading in the class. Supposing that a teacher had to introduce a new novel to his/her students, a good way to do it is by sharing a few scenes from the filmed version, in order to contextualize and motivate your students to feel involved in the story.

Thirdly, and as one of the most important advantages of using novel based films, teachers can motivate their students to read. Bearing in mind that many children and teenagers and becoming really interested in novel sagas, teachers must take advantages of this, and use films to encourage their students to keep reading. Definetely, students love seeing the stories they have read on the big screen, so they will definetely enjoy activities, in which maybe the teacher asks for recognizing differences between the novel version and the filmed version of the movie.

This week's example will be one of the most beautiful film adaptations of Jane Austen's classical novels. If you are working with teenagers that are very into love stories, share this film adaptation with them. Enjoy this clip!