Sometimes an idea just grabs your imagination and won't let it go. This happened to me when I heard about the Life in a Day project on Youtube in which people are invited to submit clips that show something of their lives during the course of one day, 24th July 2010. The videos will be made into a movie by Kevin MacDonald (director of the Last King of Scotland) and produced by Ridley Scott (of Bladerunner, Gladiator etc, etc fame).
Actually, this is not the first time that such a collaborative framerwork has been used to produce a video. Placebo's version of Running Up That Hill used clips from fans miming the lyrics of the song to produce a video (you can even see my EFL/ESL lesson plan based on it).
I'm looking forward to the 24th July though to tell you the truth I still don't know what I'm going to shot. Whatever happens, it's great to have a project to focus on during the dog days of summer. For details of the Life in a Day experiment check out their Youtube channel.
OK. This teaching idea is particularly off the wall but I just think it might work given enough encouragement by the teacher. I've just seen Placebo's video for Running Up that Hill. It consists almost entirely of their fans lip syncing to the song and in a strange way, it is really effective. It got me thinking if maybe we could do something similar on our EFL/ESL classes.
Lesson plan
1 Ask students to write down five English language songs they have listened to recently.
2 Students then work in groups of four and choose three songs they all like.
3 The groups then get together and come up with a song that is acceptable to all the class. A time limit on discussion might help focus minds.
4 For the next lesson print out lyrics for the song and make sure you know where it is on Youtube or Radio Blog so you can post it on the class blog.
4 Hand out the lyrics and deal with any possible vocabulary issues. Ask student what the song might mean or if it has a message of some kind.
7 Now explain to the students that they are going to make their own video using the song they chose. For the sake of practicality it might be best to divide the class into two/three groups and assign each group part of the song.
8 Students can use the use the song off the blog to lip sync to and can record themselves using mobile phones, digital camera, video cameras or web cams. They then give you the raw material and you use it to make a CD which each member of the the class uses to make their own version of the video using Windows Movie maker or imovie.
9 The class then posts their videos on their class blog and the class votes on the top three.
