Teaching with short films

Children engage with texts on many levels and their immediate responses vary enormously. Film texts may produce similar responses from a group as a whole, as is often observed in cinema sessions or group viewing when children all laugh, shout or boo at the same part of the film. Often children will talk through a film and if children are engaged their talk will be about the film. Listen out for children

• describing events
• questioning a character's actions
• questioning the time or place
• predicting what happens next

All this talk is meaningful and can be harnessed to help children develop their analytical skills.

Specifically with film learning in mind, teachers can introduce language to help children focus their talk. In this guide we offer a vocabulary to help children develop their use of language specific to the moving image in meaningful contexts, enabling children to talk confidently about a text and begin to use appropriate words to refer to elements of film language when analysing a text.  For example

• Describing events by identifying use of close up or long shots;
• Describing how a character is re presented visually and how they behave or perform;
• Discussing the time or place by talking about the setting;
• Predicting the story by analysing a sequence of shots.

These examples begin to explore the key concepts for working with film particularly in relation to literacy but also in opening up the wider appreciation and analysis of film texts.