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Short Films to Use in the ESL Classroom (Ages 9-11)

6 films
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This playlist is fabulous for learning in a second-language context, providing the opportunity for learners to switch their brains to English in a fun and engaging way. .Films in This Playlist Include At Home with Mrs. Hen How Dinosaurs Learned to Fly I Want a Dog Harry Jerome: The Fastest Man on Earth Flawed Film Club

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Short Films to Use in the ESL Classroom (Ages 9-11)

This playlist is fabulous for learning in a second-language context, providing the opportunity for learners to switch their brains to English in a fun and engaging way.

.Films in This Playlist Include
At Home with Mrs. Hen
How Dinosaurs Learned to Fly
I Want a Dog
Harry Jerome: The Fastest Man on Earth
Flawed
Film Club

Playlist

  • At Home with Mrs. Hen
    At Home with Mrs. Hen
    Tali 2006 7 min

    Beginners of all ages / very young learners:
    This animated short film features beautiful images with soft pastel colours. Mrs. Hen has two young children, one of whom has temper tantrums. She does her best to raise the children by herself. Because there’s no dialogue in the film, it’s suitable for ESL students of all ages. I’ve created an activity in which students demonstrate their understanding of the plot while building their vocabulary. After the first viewing, we create a list of words that are needed to talk about the film. The next step is to describe what happens in the film. Another activity focuses on feelings by matching words to the corresponding character. The final component is to imagine what happens next to this family (in story, diary, comic strip, vlog or song format).

  • How Dinosaurs Learned to Fly
    How Dinosaurs Learned to Fly
    Munro Ferguson 1995 5 min

    Elementary school:
    This fun depiction of how dinosaurs may have evolved and not become extinct is hilarious. The film is perfect for a fill-in-the-blanks activity, since the pace is not too fast and it’s easy to follow the plot. I give students the script of the film to follow along. They practice pronunciation and record their own version of the voice-over. Students then discuss the validity of the hypothesis presented and come up with other creative or extravagant answers to explain what happened to the dinosaurs. The end product is a seminar where “experts” present their theories to fellow scientists.

  • I Want a Dog
    I Want a Dog
    Sheldon Cohen 2003 10 min

    Elementary school:
    This film introduces a character who knows what she wants and perseveres to reach her goal. She’s willing to pretend she has a dog to prove her point that she’s ready to own a pet. This is a good starting point to talk about personality traits and to teach adjectives (adjective word order, compound adjectives, comparatives and superlatives). Students create posters presenting a desire they have and examples of what they’re willing to do to demonstrate how serious they are about it. They add pictures of themselves and a personal description with adjectives.

  • Harry Jerome : The Fastest Man on Earth
    Harry Jerome : The Fastest Man on Earth
    Ileana Pietrobruno 2011 10 min

    Middle school:
    This short film introduces the audience to a Canadian hero who overcame racism in the 1960s. It includes original footage of Harry Jerome himself combined with recently filmed commentary from teenagers. Students draw a timeline of the major events of Jerome’s life or write a short biography outlining why he’s a Canadian hero. They research other Canadian heroes and create a wall of heroes with pictures of the different people selected and their biographies. This becomes part of a unit on heroes, famous and unsung, or even on the everyday heroes around us. Students do a survey among themselves to identify people they consider to be heroes in their community. They write texts to praise and celebrate them (poem, thank-you letter, rap, speech, eulogy).

  • Flawed
    Flawed
    Andrea Dorfman 2010 12 min

    High school / adult learners:
    Flawed is a beautiful time-lapse short film about accepting one’s uniqueness. The narrator falls in love with a surgeon and starts a long-distance relationship based on postcards. When he tells her he operated on a young boy’s ears, she’s brought back to her own childhood and her struggle to accept her difference and learn to value it. I use the film to initiate debates about plastic surgery in our society or about standards of beauty and their impact on young people. The bonus short on the making of Flawed offers an interesting way of teaching students how to do time-lapse animation. They can create short films to present their arguments for or against the issues before holding debates.

    I hope teachers will be inspired to use short films in their classrooms. I believe they have many benefits. They provide authentic material and are often less overwhelming than texts to some learners. I believe they’re useful even when teaching little ones who can’t yet read. No matter what level you teach, it’s worth a try.

  • Film Club
    Film Club
    Cyrus Sundar Singh 2001 44 min

    This documentary brings together a group of long lost classmates who used to belong to an after-school film club. Formed at the initiative of a Grade 8 teacher eager to pass along his love of cinema, the club attracted a klatch of immigrant kids eager to embrace their new country. Stimulating and creative, the club was a complete departure from anything they had known and provided a safe haven from the harsh world around them. Together, they made a tiny 8mm award-winner called Ohh Canada. Twenty-five years later, the group looks back to marvel at their childhood dreams and the bond they share with the teacher who brought them together.

    This film was produced as part of the Reel Diversity Competition for emerging filmmakers of colour. Reel Diversity is a National Film Board of Canada initiative in partnership with CBC Newsworld.