Boldly Taking Movie Quotes Where They Have Never Been Before

Happy Friday one and all. Just a few more hours 'til the weekend and for many of us the promise of a nice or two off.

Reported Speech is something well covered from about B1 level. After getting to grips with the grammar I have a two stage activity. Partly to get used to reported speech and then partly just for the fun of it and to see if my students have managed to remember some of the world’s most famous movie quotes.

There are a myriad of games to allow your students to practice their new found skill. One I was introduced to a couple of days ago tests your student’s movie knowledge, their ability to translate from the language they first saw the movie and then how to convert some of the most famous quotes in movie history into reported speech.

Your student´s level will, obviously, dictate the difficulty of the task, the reporting verbs they use and whether they chuck a few adverbs in there as well.

The first step is to get onto the fantastic  Movie Quotes then run through each of the images to identify which movies the quotes come from.

Step two, hit the timer and get the students to take turns in giving you a quote to one of the movies on the screen. 

Seven minutes later the time will have run out and all the missing quotes will be revealed and the students will have a chance to take the famous quotes and report them to their classmates.  

This works as a wonderful cooler after going through the "rules" of reported speech or as a warmer in the next class to make sure they still have it down.. My students really enjoyed it.

 This was a big first step for a lot of my classes. A huge number of them had absolutely no clue as to the original quotes due to the fact Spain has a reputation for dubbing films. Even to this day 90% of cinemas don't have original versions of films.

After the students have got their heads around the fact these quotes exist outside their own language give it a weekend or so to digest. 

When they come back what I have done, taking the lead from my good friend Neil, is taken these quotes and misquoted them from a film with a similar name. Students have to then match films to quotes and correct them for their original. 

You can find the worksheet with misquoted lyrics here Or just copy and paste these below.

1.       “This Boat is too small.”

2.       “Luke, you are my son.”

3.       “Say hello to my small friend.”

4.       “Are you speaking to me.”

5.       “Johnny is here.”

6.       “Houston, we appear to be having some technical issues.”

7.       “I can see Ghosts”

8.       “You deal much better with lies.”

9.       “Hi I’m James, James Bond.”

10 “I’m going to make him an offer to which he can’t say no.”

11.   “My favourite.”

12.   “Can I call my house.”

13.   “Home is the best place.”

14.   “To infinity and past it.”

15.   “Don’t walk Forrest, Don’t Walk.”

16.   “You’re good at Magic, Harry.”

17.   “I’m a monarch of the Earth.”

18.   “Why are you being so serious?”

19.   “Until the next time, darling.”

20.   O’ boss, my boss

And here are the wrong movie names.

a.       War of the Stars

b.      Bus Guy

c.       Henry Porter

d.      The Ring Man

e.      Apollo 15

f.        Royal Casino

g.       Another Sense

h.      A Story about Toys

i.         Woodsy Gumble

j.        The Father of God

k.       Boat vs Iceberg

l.         The Alien Chap

m.    Terminationer

n.      A Society of Dead Writiers

o.      Some ok Blokes

p.      The Magician from Australia

q.      Cutface

r.        Batbloke: A gloomy evening

s.       Shark

t.        The Brightness

Right that's all for today.  Have a great holiday where ever you may be. If you don't have a holiday just go ahead and have a great weekend.

For regular updates why not follow me on twitter @thefluencyfella

ANSWERS

1.s 2. 2.a 3.q 4.b 5.t 6.e 7.g 8.o 9.f 10.j 11.d 12.l 13.p 14.h 15.i 16.c 17.k 18.r 19.m 20.n

The Mind Boggles as does the game

Have you ever played boggle? It's a wonderful game to use in the classroom. you have a set of 16 dice each with 6 different letters on them. you shake them up and have to find as many words as you can. In the traditional games the letters have to be conected. In the classroom version I just get students to find as many words as they can. Or for the longest word they can conjure up with the letters on show in the time limit.  You can buy your own game then you can use it at home on those long cold rainy winter's nights or you can simply use an online generator.  I find the real game
engages my students more as they can be the ones in control of what letters come out and if there are 6 e's then they can blame Pablo and not just say it's impossible.
After the students have made a list or two I then ask them to use those words as the basis to a story or a dialogue between their teams. 
I tried this with my elementary adult class at the start of the year and saw they were porducing short sentences which often made very little sense. By the end of the year the students were trotting out bizarre and unique and often fairly racey stories. This game can really add to the studentes spontinaaity and helps them think on their feet about what to write. You can get students to keep a boggle folder and play the game a few times throughout the year. Your students will be able to see how much they've improved by the end of the year. Not only at writing but also at spotting hidden words within the game.

I trust you'll have as much fun with it as I have. Probably the best investment in a board game since buying Trivial Pursuit.

Higher or Lower

A super simple game I use in class is Higher or Lower. It takes no time to prepare, gets students really engaged in an activity and can be used to practice a wide range of skill sets.
To start with numbers. The is a myriad of numbers you can practice all. Prices, times, dates, weight, height, number of people at a place. The list is endless. If it has a number you can use it.
You can also use it to practice modals of deduction and some simple language chunks that will be useful both in life and when the students goes in for their dreaded Cambridge exam.
I tend to arm my students with the chunks of language they are going to need at the start of the game.

I think it could be....
I don't reckon it's more than....
I can't be sure but....
I'm guessing it's about.....
Well, it's obviously more than.....
You said Claudio was close so it must be around...
It's clearly between ..... and .... so my guess is....

Ok, so the number must be....

Then I draw a simple grid on the board. 2 columns and two rows.

In the title row I put the comparatives necessary for the activity. If I were doing the price of a car one side would read:

More expensive than....   and the other.              Cheaper than....


I'd put a picture of the car up (google images) and I'd get the students to start guessing. Asking each students in turn to provide me with a number.


I'm not sure how your students are with numbers and the different ways in which we use numbers in English but after just 5 classes which have included the height of a mountain, the price of a car, the time of my alarm on my phone, the age of a painting and the number of tourists to visit The Alcazar in Sevilla. I've seen 90% of my students being able to use "Big" numbers with almost consummate ease. It's a fun way of drilling numbers and it gives everyone in class a chance to practice.

Right then. That's it for today. Coming soon some fun musical ideas and post-it notes galore.

Til the next time.