Teaching English using movie trailers

Materials

photocopy
video or dvd with trailers

Instructions

1 Ask students what was the last film they saw.

Did they enjoy it ?
Why/why not ?
What kind of film was it ?

2 Write the word "genre" on the board and explain what it means. Elicit different kind of film genres and examples.

3 Give out handout (see below) and deal with any language problems in section 1

4 Students match films and categories.

5 Ask students to think of any other not included on the list and examples to go with them.

6 Explain to the students that you're going to show them some trailers and that you want them to fill in the grid.

7 Show video once and ask students to check their answers in pairs.

8 Go through the answers and be ready to discuss any ambiguous ones.

9 Students then decide, in groups, which film they'd like to see and why.

THE SILVER SCREEN

A MATCH THE FOLLOWING FILMS AND CATEGORIES.

1 Star Wars
2 Seven
3 Kate and Leopold
4 Bowling for Columbine
5 The Saw
6 Black Hawk Down
7 Fight Club
8 Scary Movie
9 Ice Age
10 The Constant Gardener

a drama
b comedy
c science fiction
d documentary
e horror
f thriller
g cartoon
h action/adventure
i war
j comedy

B Can you think of any other genres (and examples to go with them) ?







C Watch the video and fill in the table below.


NAME CATEGORY YOUR OPINION

1:_______________________________________________
2:_______________________________________________
3:_______________________________________________
4:_______________________________________________
5:_______________________________________________
6:_______________________________________________
7:_______________________________________________
8________________________________________________


Which of these film would you most/least like to see and why ?


For more sophisticated exercises based on trailers (see here).