Most films directed at this age group have excellent soundtracks which are another great resource for improving their English. You can find some colouring pages here and comics in English can provide more reading practice on a now familiar theme. Colouring pages can be used to describe the characters. It’s important to talk about what the kids have understood after the film has finished and if it’s a film which has a lot of related merchandise like comics, cartoons or books, you can also use this to maintain further conversations about the characters in English. The fact that they have already seen the film will help them to feel less stressed because they will understand what is going on without needing to understand every word. These movies can be a really good introduction to watching in English for those kids who are not so keen. Of course there are other 'classics' you can watch in English, for example, Disney's 'Frozen' or Pixar's 'Shrek' and 'Toy Story' so don't rule out movies that your children have already seen. These experiences will already be familiar to many children. Her emotions help her in her new life and the situations she experiences. The storyline follows Riley, a girl who has moved home because of her father's job. Experts say that it's easier if we start with something we know to then build on this learning, 'Inside Out' does this for you. This means that they will immediately be familiar with some of the vocabulary.
It's full of basic emotion vocabulary that children learn from day one of class.
One of the most important topics for learners of English is talking about themselves and there's no better recent movie than Disney/Pixar's 'Inside Out' for this. So even though having subtitles or not clearly depends on the age of your child (it may not be an option for kids in lower primary who may struggle to keep up with fast moving script) if the kids are not bothered with the subtitles being there, I’d recommend leaving them so that they get used to having them on screen while watching films Which movies? Having the subtitles in English, on the other hand, is a great way to see how much vocabulary you actually know and although many people say that listening and watching movies is a passive skill, it’s actually the case that, when your child is watching and listening in English there is a lot of brain processing going on which is really important to help them remember what they hear and see. If you have tried viewing programmes and films with subtitles in Spanish yourself (and I bet you have) then I’m sure you found that you end up just reading the subtitles so all your efforts are wasted because you don’t practice fully your skills in English. I have met many parents who insist on their older children viewing films with the subtitles in Spanish and the sound in English. It can be a good idea to watch the trailer in English to allow the kids to see if this is a movie they're interested in watching. But don’t give up because there are loads of movies to try. This can be due to the plot, the combination of accents or even the music. There will be some that just don’t work for your kids. You may even find that they get so engrossed that they ask you to leave it on for longer! If you can’t find a short film, try breaking the film into shorter viewing sessions of perhaps 20 -30 minutes.
There is an excellent selection of free short films at kidsloveshortfilms or try 6-fabulous-short-films-from-childrens-books. It’s unlikely they will want to sit through a 2 hour movie the first times they watch so begin with something relatively short so that they have a chance to get used to listening in English. Starting with short movies is important if your son or daughter is not accustomed to watching programmes in English. What and for how longįirst of all, let’s look at the type of things primary kids will want to see, especially if they're watching in English. But there's no getting away from the fact that the English spoken in movies is authentic and has a clear context which means that original versions of films can help primary children improve their skills as long as we approach this resource in the right way.
Many of us, in our search for ways to improve our language skills, have turned to TV shows and films to help us, only to find that it doesn't seem quite as useful as we'd thought. Surely they’ll learn to pick up some English while they watch? Nowadays our children are exposed to a lot of English from the internet, youtubers and influencers so why not encourage them to watch movies in English.