Teaching English with the use of movie speeches

Park, Young

Article

Journal of English Teaching through Movies and Media 2014;15(1):57-81.
Published online March 30, 2014.

Teaching English with the use of movie speeches

Young Park

영화 속 스피치를 활용한 영어 교수

박영

Abstract

Most real-life speeches are prepared by an educated speaker and thus set an excellent example for foreign students seeking to acquire the knowledge of English grammar and vocabulary. Also, real-life speeches are perfect for providing the learners with the background information on English-speaking countries. Yet real-life speeches sometimes prove to be unsuitable for pedagogical purposes since they are often too long and monotonous. Movie speeches emerge here as a viable alternative. This paper explores the potential of using movie speeches as a teaching material. Responses from participants suggest that movie speeches are especially useful for expanding advanced vocabulary and background knowledge as well as the skills for listening comprehension. Students were very satisfied in that the movie speeches show the situation in which a particular expression is used. One of the drawbacks of classes dedicated to teaching movie speeches was that students easily got bored. It is recommended that the teacher mix the use of romantic comedies with that of movie speeches. Most romantic comedies deal with less serious issues than movie speeches do while featuring adorable characters students can readily relate to. Romantic comedies could be a nice complement to a class designed to teach English through movie speeches.

Key Words: movie speeches;listening comprehension;speech writing;vocabulary acquisition