There are many sources of Extensive English Input.

One of the best sources is the teacher herself. If the teacher is explaining
how she spent her Christmas holiday, it is likely she is doing it at a
comprehensible level or slightly above (i.e.: i+1). Compared to the way she
speaks to her friends from her own country, when she speaks to her class she
brings the speed down and uses a simpler vocabulary.

There are a lot of readers designed for learners at different English
levels. The Extensive Reading group is a good source of information and
interaction with teachers around the world on this subject.[1] You can also
find some free audio books for learners developed by Richmond Readers.[2]

For the past several years I have been experimenting with movies. My
students seem to always be interested in movies whereas it has been rather
difficult for me to get them "hooked on books". My students are already
hooked on movies. Movies can really captivate the students. They reach out
and grab the students and drag them into the drama. If the movie is only in
English, the students will make tremendous effort to understand the English.
They often do not make a tremendous effort to understand their English
course books, vocabulary drills and grammar rules.

However, there are a few problems with using movies.

1. Characters speaking too fast.
2. Characters have unfamiliar accents.
3. Too many unknown words.

We can deal with these problems by choosing movies where they don't speak so
fast, have more familiar accents and use more basic vocabulary. One good
example of such a movie is The Matrix. The vocabulary is fairly basic.
Characters speak almost like they are making pronouncements, a little slower
and clearer.

To further assist in our students' understanding we can use English
subtitles.

As part of the experimenting that I have been doing with my students, I have
been learning how to manipulate the subtitles in a movie. I have learned how
to find, download and change subtitles in such a way as to increase my
students' comprehension.

One problem with normal subtitles is that they usually appear very briefly,
about six seconds, and are sometimes too small or unclear to read easily.

The subtitles that I use are marked with a time code for each line. This
time code indicates the exact millisecond when the subtitle should appear
and disappear. By manipulating or changing these time codes, I can make the
subtitles remain on the screen longer giving my students more time to read
them.[3]

I can also add my own comments to the subtitles. I add some text in yellow
to offer some explanation of vocabulary or to rephrase a sentence to make it
easier to understand.

You can download a clip from the movie The Matrix which has my modified
subtitles to see how this works.[4] This clip needs a little more
fine-tuning but it will give you a good idea. Notice some important elements
of this clip:

1. How captivating the drama is.
2. How large and clear the subtitles are.
3. How the subtitles remain on the screen until the next line is spoken.

I won't say movies are the perfect way to teach. Some speaking still passes
quite quickly. But I have some suggestions about this.

To further assist our students we should know about the concept of
"skipping". I'll discuss this in another message.

Dave Kees


[1] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extensivereading
[2] http://www.richmondelt.com/spain/english/resources/richmond_readers.htm
[3] Subtitles from a portion of The Matrix:

{18794}{18869}Thomas Anderson?
{18869}{19095}Yeah, that's me.
{19095}{19157}Great.
{19157}{19588}Have a nice day.
{19588}{19722}Hello, Neo. Do you know who this is?
{19722}{19770}-Morpheus. -Yes.
{19770}{19824}I've been looking for you.
{19824}{19906}I don't know if you're ready to see what I want to show you.
{19906}{19988}But unfortunately, you and I have run out of time.
{19988}{20083}They're coming for you, and I don't know what they're going to
do.

[4] http://www.davekees.com/file.php/1/the_matrix_escape_clip.avi