Movie and teaching listening

Last Friday my boyfriend and I saw a movie called “Inside Man.” Staring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, and Jodie Foster, the movie portraits a plan of a bank robbery occurred in Manhattan Trust. It’s not an action movie but one that need the audience to figure out its meaning implied. At the end of the movie, I heard some audience kept asking “what did the title ’Inside Man’ relate to that movie?” and I was confused too @_@ Thank for my boyfriend’s explanation! (I won’t tell you because you need to figure it out yourself!)

After seeing this movie, I start to think the connection between movie and teaching listening. I found that watching movie is one of the numerous ways to increase students’ listening ability as long as the material is used properly. I remembered in my language drill class last semester I used Friends as one of my teaching materials. But, I just played the film and did “NOTHING!” How “nice” was I! At that time, I kept a notion in my mind that they were just freshman and didn’t put too much pressure on them. Now I realized I was wrong, and totally wrong. As an English teacher, I should, and can, do more than just seeing a movie. There are many activities after the file that I can provide for students. For example, group/ pair discussion about the file, learning some useful expressions from the film, fill in the blanks (for some words appeared in the film), and etc. Alice’s teaching makes me understand my potential to be a creative teacher through more and more exposure to the teaching activities, materials, and ideas.