英语影视教学-Teaching and Learning English Through Videos

kground in different countries besides language. They can also enjoy many activities such as role-play, group discussion, debates and so on. While other students who are used to spoon-feeding teaching method are worried about the video, they think watching videos will waste their limited learning time and large class size brings about great difficulties in oral practice activities. Teachers also have their opinions on it, some think that videos can help them motivate their students’ activity, encourage them to practice their oral English and provide a lot of cultural information. However, there are also some teachers not good at using machines and are uncomfortable with using new equipments. They just play the video from beginning to the end in class.
    Therefore, in video course, if the students just take watching video for fun or entertainment; if the students lack in due attention or anxiety; if the time of watching is so little that they cannot thoroughly understand the plot; if there is even no activity or exercise after a video sequence and teachers let it go at that, video becomes totally an entertainment rather than serving as a teaching aid for certain purposes, whichever will cause a great waste to the basic modern appliances or equipments in the facility, and teachers should pay more attention to English teaching through videos, as they are not only widely used in English teaching but also their advantages out weight their disadvantages.

3. Advantages and disadvantages of using videos
3.1 Advantages of using videos
Even though a great number of media have tried to improve students’ English especially their speaking and listening ability, there are few that can be compared to videos. This effective media can be seen in the following reasons:
3.1.1 Videos provide motivating materials to both students and teachers
“Motivation and attitudes are important factors, which help to determine the level of proficiency achieved by different learners.”[3] An original video can be very motivating and interesting if it describes real-life situations, real-life people and real-life language. During the learning process, if we employ films as the teaching material, language learning will become enjoyable.
The materials that films provide are both audio and visual, which help students learn English more easily. That’s because while students are watching a film, students not only listen to the characters’ speech but also watch their movements, beautiful heroines and handsome heroes, appreciate beautiful scenery and listen to pleasant songs and fluent dialogues. These can really motivate students’ initiative and enable them to learn in a relaxing and cheerful atmosphere. In addition, the scenes, the lines or other aspects that films bring will probably influence learners’ capacity as they do in real life. When they finish the film and return to the real life, they may think of some topics related to the film and speak out the language more spontaneously. For example, when they watch Kramer vs. Kramer, they may think of the women problems in present society: Should a woman’s place be limited to her own home or not? After they watch Saving Private Ryan, they may think about the problem between war and humanist: Is it worthy of risking eight soldiers’ lives to save Ryan for the purpose of booting morale on the homefront? [4] The teachers c