Introduction to

a didactic exploitation of

The DVD

Dead poets society                                                              

INTENTIONS

The intention of this exercise book, based on the DVD  Dead poets society, is  to offer students some  motivating material to improve their English.

In particular  it contributes to increasing  the  student’s confidence in himself for seven reasons:

1.      students usually like this film: it is easier to learn when you enjoy what you do;

2.      the student has an active role: he guesses, looks for information, classifies, compares, thinks over, and writes  developing all language skills;

3.      he can easily recognise his mistakes himself, and correct them, using the DVD or simply reading the solutions;

4.      there are  a lot of pictures (students usually like them and they could support their learning style) ;

5.      it is necessary  to rewind the video at least thee times: this helps a lot in memorizing words and structures;

6.      learners  can also remember the characters who use a certain expression and fix the intonation and stress in their mind;

         7. the four basic skills ( listening, speaking, reading and writing) can be practiced in an integrated way, that is, they are not isolated but coordinated. All learning styles can be met.

THE STRUCTURE

     This Exercise book is divided into ten  chapters, each one is about a scene.

     Each chapter is divided into three parts:

BEFORE WATCHING ACTIVITIES (predictions about what is going to happen in the scene

                                                              and/or  vocabulary exercises to facilitate  

                                                              comprehension and to enlarge vocabulary.)

WHILE WATCHING ACTIVITIES  (graded exercises that guide students from a general to a more

                                                             and more precise comprehension.)

AFTER WATCHING ACTIVITIES (activities that provide a personal response to some

                                                           topics/ideas, emerged from the video scene.)

     At the end of the exercise book there is the complete list of poems quoted or read in the film. If  students are interested in reading them they can easily find them surfing the Internet. That could be an interesting  further activity.

ABOUT  TIME

Each scene, in the DVD, lasts about ten minutes.

The BEFORE WATCHING ACTIVITIES could take you about 5/10 minutes.

 Probably you will need to listen/watch the video three times, at least, this means about 30 minutes and more if you consider the time that the exercises  and the pair work require (WHILE WATCHING ACTIVITIES) .

As far as the AFTER WATCHING ACTIVITIES are concerned , some of them must be performed together, in the classroom, with all students, some  can be done as  homework.

Each chapter may require at least one hour, or one hour and a half , it depends on the students .

WHY THIS FILM?

One day I was talking with my pupils (aged 13/14) about their favourite films, books, singers and songs.

Most of them loved this film and we started from it to discuss about  school, teachers and students.

It was a very interesting discussion and from that moment on I started thinking about a didactic exploitation of it.

This is the result and I hope it could enjoy students and help them  improving their English.