The common advice to "just watch English movies" for language improvement is incomplete because it often leads to passive, distracted learning. To effectively learn from movies, active engagement strategies are necessary.
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How often have you heard to improve your English? Just watch English movies. This advice is given by
other English learners and by English teachers just like me to students like you. Now, this
is not bad intentioned advice. We give this advice because I genuinely believe that movies are a good
way to help people improve their vocabulary, their pronunciation, their grammar skills. There are
many, many benefits to watching films, to watching media in your target language, in this case,
English. However, this advice, just watch movies, is not really complete. There are two reasons for
this. Uh number one, when you watch a movie in your first language, it is a passive practice,
right? You don't watch movies when to hyperfocus on something because you want to learn something.
You watch movies because it's pleasurable, it's entertainment, and you want to be taken on an
emotional journey or to experience a story. The other issue with this is that today's modern movie
watching is much different than it was in the past. Most people today when they sit down on the
couch to watch a movie usually have their phone in their hand and they might have a bag of popcorn in
the other. So they're not really focused 100% on the movie unless the movie is really good.
Uh, so does that sound like a good way to improve your language skills in a second language,
to be passive and to be distracted? I don't think so. So, the point of this video is for me to teach
you how to watch movies the right way. And today, I really want to show you why just watch English
movies doesn't work unless you do these things. First of all, if you are watching a movie or a
show, you need to give it your full attention. So, this means remove distractions, right? Put your
phone away. Put that granola bar away so you're not focusing on chewing and eating. Focus on the
content. Listen actively to what characters are saying and pay attention to the context.
what is happening in the movie? What are the relationships between the characters? Basically,
don't just have it on in the background while you are washing the dishes or vacuuming the floor or
if you're doing something else around the house. You need to give a movie if you are using it for
learning, you need to give it your full attention. Next, you need to pause and rewind. Remember,
you are engaging with the movie not as a source of entertainment but as a learning resource. So,
think of the movie as a text. If you read the text and you don't understand something, usually you go
back and you read it again. Maybe you use a translator to figure out what was said. So,
when you pause and rewind, you can use this as an opportunity to listen. actively and repeat
what you heard. Repeat what characters say. Um, I do this when I watch Stranger Things on Netflix,
for example. I will pause, I will go back and I will try to say what the characters say because
I heard something that I understand the majority of, and I can try to figure out what they mean
first through context. So, yeah, learn through context. that is the next point. Uh, I kind of
understand the situation and I think, "Ah, maybe this word means this," and if I don't understand it then
I grab my phone, not distracted but using it as a tool, and I look up the translation of a word
for example. "Oh that's what that means. Okay, let's watch this scene again," even if it's just 5 seconds
or 10 seconds of a conversation. Basically, when you are watching movies in a new language, you
try to get the big picture. You won't understand everything and that's okay. It is not realistic
for you to understand everything in a new language. It's a new language, right? So, there
is something else you can do. If it's really tough for you to understand what characters are saying,
use subtitles. If you have to. So sometimes the material that we are watching is honestly too
difficult for us. Uh this is a separate problem. I can address this in another video, but you should
be watching stuff that you mostly understand. If you don't understand 90% or 95% of a movie,
it's the wrong movie. Okay? So try to find something where you understand the majority of the
context and the majority of what is happening even if you only understand 50% 60% of the language. So
if you use subtitles, I love subtitles by the way, especially at the beginner, low, intermediate
level. You still have to listen to how people speak. This goes with my third point. Subtitles
help you link text to sound. Right? So don't just read. Keep your ears open and try to basically
make the connection. Ah wait this person is saying this word but it doesn't sound like this word.
Maybe they are using a reduced pronunciation. Um maybe they are eliminating a letter in casual
pronunciation. So for example the word sandwich instead of the word sandwich, right, with the D
for example. Okay. So basically, subtitles or subs, they boost comprehension. They help you understand
better what is happening. Most of us are better readers than we are listeners when we are learning
a new language. This is definitely the case for me. I mentioned that I am watching Stranger
Things. I am watching it in French because that's the language that I am trying to learn and slowly
succeeding at. Um, and I find that subtitles are a great way to, you know, improve my comprehension
of what's going on, but also to see how sentences are structured and what common phrases are used.
So, I'm still though listening and trying to repeat what characters are saying as they say them
or right after they say them, for example. Okay. So, we use subtitles and we are actively listening
and all of this stuff. We are pausing, we're rewinding. But what what can we do with that to
make sure that we remember this information and we can review it again in the future? You take notes.
So, wow, magic. You have a journal. You can use a translator to tell you the meanings of new words,
of new phrases that you don't know, and then write them in a physical notebook or you can open up a
digital file. If you use the cloud, you can always just write things in a digital document as well. I
like the old school um paper and pencil approach, right? And you can also review and rewatch. So
you review your notes and you rewatch the things that you took the notes from. So for me, I have
uh Stranger Things in French in here. I have Peppa Pig. I have Llama Llama,
which is another kids show on Netflix. So I write stuff that is interesting to me.
even if I know what most of the words mean, it's just good just to practice the flow, to
practice the sentence structure. So, uh, Stranger Things season 4, episode two, I wrote it at the
top of my this journal page. I just wrote random stuff. So, now I will read some French for you.
[speaking French]
Very dramatic. This is a very dramatic scene. I know exactly where this is from in the show. So,
um, write things like this down and then rewatch those scenes in English,
uh, that you, you know, took that stuff down. And please let me know,
uh, how is my French? Okay, one more piece of French. Peppa Pig. The narrator says,
Peppa aime bien s'occuper de son petit frère George. Allez, George! On va chercher un autre flaque de boue!
Good? Not bad? Okay, tell me in the comments. Uh, Peppa is actually a great show for something
like this and it's a great example of my next point. Just watch three to five minute clips.
You don't have to watch a full 2-hour movie. If you use a manageable learning chunk, right, a chunk
of 3 to 5 minutes, you can greatly reduce your stress level and you can reduce your fatigue and
frustration. If you watch a 2-hour movie and you don't understand, you don't understand, you don't
understand, you will feel tired. And when you are tired, you are not paying attention anymore.
So this actually benefits your learning. You don't have to watch the full movie. It's okay if you
don't watch the full movie and if you just use a 3 to five minute chunk as a learning resource. If
you want to watch movies and use them as a source of learning, you need to remove distractions. You
need to pause and rewind. Use subtitles if you have to, especially for beginners and intermediate
students. Take notes, have a journal, and watch short sections. You don't have to watch the whole
movie. Now, one more important point before we finish this video. I said, you know, watching
movies is a passive practice. And this is true. There is a benefit to passive listening, right?
Passive listening does have benefits. It does keep your connection with the language, right?
It it helps you to still hear English even if you are not actively watching. And that's good because
even if you hear like basic sentences that you know, you're still keeping that connection. You're
still keeping that language closer to your heart, your spirit, your ears, your mind. And that is a
good thing. So passive listening, it helps you keep the connection to the language. It can help
you, you know, review the stuff you already know. But if you actually want to use movies to learn a
language, try using these strategies. Uh, let me know if they work for you. They have been working
for me with my French. So until next time, saloo. Goodbye. Keep learning and keep practicing. Bye.
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