5 Movie ESL Lesson Ideas

Movies is a topic that always shows up in ESL textbooks. With such a huge topic, it can be hard to know what activities to actually do in class. Here are a few ideas that your ESL students will love in a movie lesson!

1) Share your favorite movie

This activity is perfect for any class, regardless of their English lesson. It could be something as simple as quick warm-up conversation or a bigger part of the lesson. Have students share their favorite movie with a partner. Tell them to ask and answer questions like:

• What is your favorite movie?

• Why is that your favorite movie?

• Who is a famous actor in that movie?

• What is the movie about?

• How many times have you seen that movie?

• How did you feel the first time you saw that movie?

2) Summarize a movie

Summarizing is a skill that I’ve found most students struggle with. They have to organize the events of the movie and communicate the plot clearly. They also have to be careful with verb tense while they’re telling the story. Ask students to summarize their favorite movie with their partner. You can even push them to use adjectives to describe the movie, the characters’ emotions, or what the scenes look like.

3) And the Oscar goes to . . .

First, of course, make sure your students understand what an Oscar is. Then have students pair up or group up to discuss which movies to give Oscars to. Give the students a few categories, such as: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best CGI, Best Director, or Best Plot. Then, have them discuss what movies deserve an Oscar. This is basically another twist on “What’s your favorite movie?” but it forces students to use specific vocabulary words (like plot) and explain their opinions in more detail. Depending on the size of the class, you could even take each group’s nomination and have the entire class “vote” to choose which movie wins the Oscar for each category. You could give each group a handout to fill out with movie names and when you read off the nominations, have the class cheer or clap to determine which movie is most popular.

4) Titanic: The Sequel

I can’t take credit for this idea. This comes from CJ Reynolds of the Teach Your Class Off podcast, but it’s a great chance for students to practice their verb tenses and organization abilities, all while being creative and having fun. Tell students to come up with a plot for a sequel of an unlikely movie—for example, Titanic 2. Separate them into groups, and let the creativity run wild! For a second activity, you can have a group present their plot to the whole class or just to another group. You could also have them perform or act it out for extra fun, which leads us to our last point.

5) Time to Act

Have students pick a scene from a movie or give them a scene to act out. Depending on your time, it’s probably faster to give students a scene, rather than having them hem and haw over which scene to choose. Ones about romance or fighting are always more fun to watch and perform, and choosing a movie most people are familiar with makes it easier and more enjoyable for everyone involved. You could remind students of the main events of the scene with a few key lines, or you could actually give students the dialogue from the actual scene. (I’ve found that if you give students the actual dialogue, this activity tends to move a little slower because they’re worried about pronouncing and learning new words or some students feel pressured to memorize their lines.) While giving the actual dialogue could be a great chance to practice pronunciation with the whole class or learn new vocabulary, you could encourage students to write their own lines to make it more natural. The “If you jump, I jump” scene from Titanic or the scene when Iron Man dies are two good choices.

Hopefully this helps give you some ideas to make your ESL music lesson plan tons of fun! Choose one of these activities, or choose multiple and mix them all together.