Speaking and listening

The activities are arranged under the headings below for convenience only. Any activity can cover a range of oral skills with overlaps between the prescribed triplets. This will depend in part on the ways activities are structured as well as the ways in which assessment is focused. Similarly, this arrangement is not to imply that students need to demonstrate each skill-set in each context. As all specifications make clear, students need to have opportunities to cover each triplet and each context, not each triplet in each context. You should therefore modify and adapt what is offered here to meet the assessment needs of your students.

• Extended individual contribution
• Group discussion and interaction
• Drama-focused activites

Extended individual contribution

As defined in the inter-board speaking and listening guidance notes, 'individual' implies a solo effort of some kind, a contribution in which attention is centred on the candidate. 'Extended' does not have to mean uninterrupted, but rather 'a contribution of some significance, not necessarily defined by time but perhaps by the depth of detail or the extent to which ideas are expanded.' An example for this is not necessarily the five-minute speech to the whole class from the front of the room. Moreover, it is legitimate to use questions and comments to encourage a substantial personal response. Therefore, while many of the suggestions here perhaps tend towards tasks which imply a degree of preparation and rehearsal on the part of the individual, opportunities for assessing 'extended individual contribution' within larger group work should not be overlooked.

• Explain, describe, narrate
• Explore, analyse, imagine
• Discuss, argue, persuade

Explain, describe, narrate

• Narrate the story presented in a film.

This can be of varying degrees of challenge, depending on the film. Individual story events might be presented in chronological order, for example the chronology of events in About a Girl. Alternatively some of the stories could be narrated as flashbacks. In The Little Things what would George make of her 14th birthday ten years afterwards? Or the girl in About a Girl? Students could construct voice-overs, or back-stories to the films. Attending to the narrative techniques of film may require the student to attend to clues on the soundtrack or on the screen, and infer the events that are taking place unseen. In a variation of this you could expose students to the soundtrack alone (perhaps by preventing them from seeing the screen) and then ask them to offer a possible narrative. This approach helps to develop listening skills as well as the ability to infer or create narratives for themselves to make sense of the sounds.

• Describe a location or setting used in a film.

A thinking or planning grid might be used in the preparation for this, so that students are encouraged to look and listen carefully for indications of the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile properties of an area. Additionally, if a film with contrasting locations is chosen, or the same place shown at different times, this kind of work can tie in neatly with preparation for the kinds of writing task popular with some boards in the written exam. How is London represented in Accident or Jus' Gaps, how Manchester in About a Girl? What aspects of New Zealand are presented in Two Cars, One Night or The Little Things?

• Explain the behaviour of a particular character or group of characters.

This could be approached in a variety of ways. Students could speak as themselves; or be in role as a character seen, heard, or referred to in the film. The role of director, writer or actor might be adopted, and an extended contribution might take the form of the commentary often included as a 'bonus feature' on a DVD. If adopting a role however, you need to make a professional judgement as to whether this becomes a drama-focused activity. The distinction is not a clear one: one exam board views speaking in the role of a character from a dramatic text as drama-focused, but speaking in the role as the writer of a dramatic text is not drama-focused.

• Present a photo-story using PowerPoint, or the frames from a storyboard, for a film inspired by working with films in the compilation.

This might be fashioned in a way which highlights one or more particular skill. For example, students might be asked simply to recount the narratives of their films to the class or a group. Alternatively they might be asked to pitch the movie to a board of executives, requiring them to respond to questions designed to tease out more extended explanations and descriptions.

• Comment on a sequence from a film using appropriate descriptive and critical terminology.

The requirement to use terminology appropriate to film study encourages the student to think further and provide more detail in their description, explanation or narration. A presentation could involve more than simply describing what the characters are seen to be doing by: freeze-framing on an image or a series of images in the film and discussing the mise-en-scène, such as the moment in Accident at the end where the young guy realises who the man is that he met at the start of the film; or considering the contribution that sound makes to the overall meaning of a sequence. Students aiming for the higher marks in speaking and listening should be made aware of the need to demonstrate ability in communicating complex content with confidence, and also to show that they can adapt their delivery to task and audience. For this purpose, you could ask them to adjust their talk for a younger year group; or to play the role of a teacher introducing an aspect of film language to a group for the first time, using a particular sequence from a film to illustrate it.

Explore, analyse, imagine

• Imagine a location or a character that is referred to in a film but is not shown, then create and deliver a presentation based on it.

Students could take on the point of view of any of the 'absent parents' in the compilation - George's estranged parents in The Little Things; the parents of The Man with the Beautiful Eyes; the mother in The Most Beautiful Man in the World. This activity links with other skills triplets, but if the emphasis on reference is sustained, then the task is rooted more firmly in this particular triplet. As marking schemes make clear, underlying this triplet is the ability to infer, deduce, interrogate and empathise. Describing settings, such as the homes or workplaces of characters, if based on what has been observed and reflected upon, and consolidated perhaps through questions to encourage analysis, is a good way to develop this skill set.

• Compare the representation of young people (or another group or theme) in two of the films and explore this in a discussion forum such as a television or radio interview, for example George in The Little Things and the girl in About a Girl, or the respective men in the eponymous The Man with the Beautiful Eyes and The Most Beautiful Man in the World.

By focusing on comparison, the skills of analysis and exploration are highlighted.

• Interpret an enigmatic beginning or inconclusive ending of a film in a one-to-one discussion with a teacher or peer.

What is the outcome of Accident or The Man with the Beautiful Eyes? Did the parents burn down the house of The Most Beautiful Man in the World? The attention on interpretation of key ideas or moments, showing awareness and understanding of a range of possibilities, locates the task within the parameters of this triplet. Peer assessment might be facilitated by a prompt sheet based on the assessment criteria given in the exam specification.

• Introduce and chair a discussion or debate of a controversial issue raised by one of the films, such as the depiction of violence or the use of proscribed language.

While this task implies group discussion and interaction, extended individual contribution is assured by the introduction. Similarly, analysis and exploration might be further encouraged by requiring the chair to summarise the key points of the discussion, and then offer his or her own view based on a consideration of the points raised.

• Arrange a sequence of stills from a film not yet seen; explore and analyse the images and then suggest the genre or narrative of the film.

Ask students to present their work to the whole class as a way of capturing and assessing the extended contribution.

Discuss, argue, persuade

• Participate in a balloon debate to determine which film or films should be included in a compilation aimed at a younger audience.

The skills of arguing and persuading would be highlighted in this context.

• Assume the role of the director of a particular film and persuade a representative of a funding agency to finance a future project based on the merits of the earlier work.

This might include a question and answer session to extend further the student's powers of argument and persuasion.

• Contribute to the creation and presentation of a television or radio advertisement for one of the films.

The initial preparation would clearly involve discussion and argument; the finished product should exhibit persuasion.

• Participate in a mock television discussion programme debating an issue arising from one of the films, for example child safety, teenage pregnancy, suicide bombers, racism.

These activities always seem to work better if the programme is not The Jerry Springer Show, or anything similar, and if the participants are given time to prepare a particular viewpoint.

• Assume the role of a censor and try to persuade a director to remove particular shots from the film, such as the final shots of About a Girl, or the expletives in Accident. Similarly, students might assume the roles of scriptwriters, directors, producers, television executives and so on and discuss, argue and attempt to persuade the others to add or delete a particular scene in order for a film to be made more coherent, less controversial, suitable for a different audience, or simply play to a particular running time.

Group discussion and interaction

Here, the emphasis needs to be on engagement in discussion, reacting to the contributions of others through exploration, negotiation and resolution, rather than altercation. Many of the suggestions in the other categories offer opportunities for assessment in this, as long as the focus is on interaction with others, rather than lengthy, isolated contribution.

• Explain, describe, narrate
• Explore, analyse, imagine
• Discuss, argue, persuade

Explain, describe, narrate

• Separately show individual groups different films and ask them to report back to the rest of the class an account of the films.
• Ask individual groups to focus on a particular aspect of a film - and then agree within their group what they will say about that aspect, incorporating description, narration and explanation. Then regroup the students, so that the new groups contain one member from each of the original groups. They take it in turns to report their ideas and findings to the members of their new groups.
• Use the 'jigsaw' method of grouping the class: give each member a unique number-letter combination (A1, A2, A3, A4, A5; B1, B2, B3, B4, B5; C1, C2…). Before showing a film, instruct all the 1s to note aspects of editing; all the 2s to consider sound; all the 3s, light and colour; all the 4s, the use of the camera; all the 5s, mise-en-scène. They watch the film, making independent notes on their given area of investigation; then groups are formed of all the 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s; and they explain and describe their ideas. These become 'expert' groups. Then regroup the students as As, Bs and so on, where they share their findings, narrating the results of the discussions carried out in the expert groups. See also references to working with Tell Me grids.
• The use of 'listening triads' can be effective in encouraging explaining, describing and narrating with group interaction. The class is divided into groups of three; each group then divides up the roles of 'talker'; 'questioner' and 'recorder' amongst its members. The talker is then given an appropriate task, for instance, to explain a 'reading' of a particular film; the questioner then asks for any points to be developed or clarified. Throughout this the recorder is making notes, so that at the end she or he can report back what has been discussed. The roles are changed for the next activity.
• A common drama strategy that can be used in this context, without straying into a drama-focused activity, is to put students into groups of three or four; and blindfold one member of the group, while the others examine a film still showing a particularly evocative location. The blindfolded student is then returned to the group and 'led' around the location as the other three provide a guided tour. The student wearing the blindfold should ask questions to elicit as full a description as possible. When the blindfold is removed, the student then narrates the 'tour' as she or he visualised it from the commentary of the others.

Explore, analyse, imagine

• Give a small group of students a short sequence of film to analyse, or scenes which share some point of commonality to compare. Groups could use a prompt sheet to facilitate their analysis; or you could give them a focus to encourage depth, such as the techniques used to create tension or a particular atmosphere.
• You could make up descriptions of deleted scenes for a particular film to hand out to students. Working in groups they imagine what the scenes would have added to the film, or speculate how the narrative might be altered by including them. Since the emphasis of the group work needs to be on inference and deduction, the scenes should be designed to encourage such exploration and analysis of what is already in the film. Appropriate scenes might develop a particular aspect of a character, highlighting or contradicting an apparent trait. With some films interviews with directors are provided. These may provide useful insights into a director's plans for a film, and why some scenes may have been deleted. See the Films menu.
• As detailed in the common marking scheme, in order to access the higher marks in this context, candidates need to 'show sophistication and originality in applying and cross-referencing ideas'. An ideal way to do this would be to adopt the 'generic translation' technique, one of the basic teaching techniques. Essentially there are two ways of approaching this: either give students a print text, such as a poem, and ask them to translate it into a filmic form (presented perhaps as a storyboard); or show them the film or an extract from it, and ask them to present it in a printed form, such as a short story, poem or newspaper article. The preparatory discussions before the work, or summative analytical explanations afterwards, should provide appropriate evidence for this triplet.
• Similar to the suggestion above is the 'cross-media comparison' technique. Many of the films in this compilation touch on controversial issues - suicide bombers, teenage pregnancy and racism, for example - which often appear in other media (such as the press), handled in very different ways. You can usefully compare the ways different media treat similar themes and discuss whether the medium used influences what kind of messages (information, points of view and so on) are conveyed.
• Before screening any of the films from the compilation, give a film title to each group and a collection of still images taken from all the films. Give them time to consider both the titles and the still images, and then ask them to search stills from other groups which they believe have been taken from their film. Once they are satisfied that they collected all their stills, they arrange them in the order they imagine they might appear in the film and present their findings to the class. (For how to create stills for this activity see basic teaching techniques; some stills are already provided for each film.)

Discuss, argue, persuade

• Organise a debate centred on an issue suggested by one of the films.

While formalised speeches in class debates would be considered 'extended personal contributions', unrehearsed responses within an open question-and-answer session during the debate would constitute 'group interaction'. Therefore, this would provide ample evidence for assessment in this area.

• Ask students to prepare a group sales pitch, promotion or advertising campaign.

While this might feature prolonged contributions from individuals, the interaction between the presenters and their audience would allow participants to discuss, argue their cause and attempt to persuade others to see matters as they do.

• Another way of organising a sales pitch is to give each group a collection of folders - each purporting to come from a different production company - containing such items as treatments, cast lists, CVs, stills of locations and so on; and then set a task which requires them to determine which company will get a particular commission, be it to make a short film, advertise an existing film, or make a trailer for a television series featuring short films.
• Present groups with a detailed synopsis and/or review of the films (one for each group) and ask them to edit it down to meet the requirements of a particular publication, such as Sight & Sound, a local paper or The Sun.

A word limit might be imposed along with the restrictions already implied by the readership and house style of the publication; you could also invite students to select an image from a range of stills to illustrate the article. Not only does this kind of task elicit appropriate speaking and listening skills, it can consolidate points about a film already covered in a lesson and provide an opportunity to practise important writing and reading skills.

• Once students have viewed all the films, ask them, in groups, to suggest how they would order the films for a film screening, and offer some rationale for it. Alternatively, in role as members of an awards panel, they could decide which film(s) should receive the award for best director and best screenplay, and who should be chosen as best lead or supporting actor and actress. Groups could be invited to advocate particular films, to persuade the panel to choose their particular film, cast or crew.

Drama-focused activities

In these activities students assume dramatic roles, for example taking on roles of characters in the films in the compilation. Participation in a discussion is dramatised, with the students representing the views of others through sustained role play. Additionally, although attention is necessarily focused on an individual for the purposes of assessment, the contribution can be made either through solo performance or within the context of group work. Teaching strategies familiar to drama teachers, such as 'hot-seating' and 'forum theatre', can become the basis of an activity for assessment in this category. This provides extensive opportunities for work that connects English and Drama. It is also possible to address aspects of the Media Studies curriculum here.

• Explain, describe, narrate
• Explore, analyse, imagine
• Discuss, argue, persuade

Explain, describe, narrate

• Ask students, in turn, to assume the role of a character from one of the films and conduct a telephone conversation.

The audience might be presented with both sides of the conversation - another student providing the other voice - or perhaps more interestingly, just hear the point of view of the character. This provides a way for students to convey the narrative of a film without just telling the story. The second approach can maintain something of the narrative methods of particular films, where events are not seen directly but reported, or communicated through reaction shots or sound effects.

• Ask students to describe the film location of any of the films as if they are being used in a different context, for example, presenting the setting as it might appear on a holiday programme or Crimewatch.
• Ask them to role-play news reporters or the voice-over in a documentary and explain or narrate the story events journalistically.
• Students can be hot-seated in assumed roles taken from, or suggested by, one of the films. They are questioned by members of the group in role and respond as the character.
• They could assume roles that allow them to relate and reflect upon imaginary overheard conversations suggested by a film sequence. The situation in the film can be examined and developed through speculation, the exchange of gossip, and generation of rumour.

Explore, analyse, imagine

• Give students roles - as employers, teachers, parents or actors: for example psychologists watching Killing Time at Home, police officers watching Accident, teachers watching Two Cars, One Night, social workers watching The Little Things or About a Girl, or actors watching any of the films - that enable them to explore and analyse a particular dilemma or problem that is suggested by a film. The relevance of the assumed roles to the action of the film will influence the degree of exploration and analysis.

• Through 'forum theatre' activities students could explore the consequences of actions in a film: a situation is played out by a group of students as others sit and watch it. The observers - and the actors themselves - can stop the action to replay it and explore alternative directions. Members of the audience can take over the roles of the actors, or make suggestions to them, to influence the shape of the improvised piece.
• Students could enhance or deepen their understanding of characters in the films through the 'thought-tracking' technique: the student playing a role is assisted by other members of the group voicing the character's thoughts at a particular moment in the action. Alternatively use the 'conscience-alley' technique: members of the group form two parallel lines - an alley; a student, in role as a character from the chosen film, walks down it as the others articulate the workings of the character's conscience, perhaps suggesting reasons for and against taking a particular course of action.
• Students might assume the roles of the production team to a film, meeting to discuss a sequel or prequel. They should make reference to the original film and restrictions need to be built in to the task to prevent the improvisation drifting off course.
• Setting up scenes in law-courts, inquests and review panels, as long as these are relevant to the film being studied, creates a context for whole-group role play that enables students to explore, analyse and imagine. (7.35 in the Morning and About a Girl would be particularly appropriate films to link with this activity.)

Discuss, argue, persuade

• Improvised situations which explore such questions as 'Whose fault was it?', 'Who started it?, 'Who should be punished/rewarded?' work well to encourage talk in this skills set. For example, an event might be acted out from the viewpoint of different characters, with discussion then taking place as to whose account is the most truthful.
• Dramatic monologues are also useful in this context, particularly if the character is trying to justify a course of action or an attitude. A selective and personalised account of events, with appropriate persuasive devices, can be the starting point for a question-and-answer session to develop the piece further.
• Students may take on the roles of director, camera operator, actor and so on, to discuss some aspect of performance and filming. The important consideration here would be to create a situation that allows oppositional views to be adopted - the choice of actor, the inclusion of a scene, the mood of a scene, for example - so that consensus can be reached through negotiation and persuasion.
• Students could play the roles of film critics representing different points of view, debating a film on a TV or radio programme. They could be encouraged to discuss the quality of the film, how they interpret it, whether it sees to express a 'truth' about the world, and whether it is suitable for particular audiences (such as children).
• Media Studies students could role-play film distributors and exhibitors to encourage them to learn about film industry. They could role-play a distributor persuading an exhibitor - from a chain of multiplexes or an independent art house cinema - to show a short film as part of their regular programme. They should consider where the chosen film would fit best - as part of the sequence of trailers and advertisements, or immediately before or after the main feature - and explain why.