Author Archives: kierandonaghy

Winner of Film in Action Competition

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To celebrate the publication of Film In Action which is now available in book shops and on Amazon, we announced a film-making competition in which your school could win the following fantastic prizes:

  •  A license for Camtasia Studio 8 which helps you create professional videos easily  (value 250 US dollars).
  • A licence for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 which allows you to edit, organise and share digital images  (value 150 US dollars).
  • A  copy of Film in Action.

Our competition used an activity from Film In Action in which students had to make their own ‘how-to’ videos using a mobile phone or other mobile device. We had a wonderful response from teachers and their students throughout the world, and deciding on the winner was very difficult because of the high quality of the videos. However, we have finally decided that the prize should go to Nick Caine and his students Takahito Tomonaga and Atsuhito Nishimura at the University of Nagasaki in Japan.

Here Nick tells us about himself and his student’s video:

“Hi! My name is Nick Caine and I have been teaching in Japan since 1997. I currently work at the University of Nagasaki. The production of “How to…” videos have been a component of our classes here for the past two years, and this year it was nice for students to have the opportunity to enter their work into the Film in Action competition. We aimed to explain very simple tasks around a Japanese theme that would hopefully appeal to a worldwide audience. Here is a video made by 2nd grade students that we would like to enter into the competition:

How To Make Miso Soup by Takahito Tomonaga and Atsuhito Nishimura.”

And here is the winning video.

 

 

Congratulations to Nick, Takahito and Atsuhito. We would like to thank all of the teachers and their students for the wonderful videos they have created. We will post all of the videos on the site in the coming weeks.

Film in Action Now in Stock!

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Film in Action is now in stock and can be bought at book stores and on Amazon. Remember that to celebrate the publication of the book there is a wonderful film-making competition in which your school can win state-of -the-art video-editing software and a signed copy of Film in Action. i would encourage all teachers who use Film English regularly to consider buying the book as the royalties which I receive from my books help me to keep Film English completely free. As you probably already know, maintaining the site costs me a lot of money and takes up a many hours of my time. If you can’t afford to buy the book yourself, why not ask your school to buy a copy.

 

I hope you enjoy the book and look forward to hearing your opinions on it. If anybody would like to write a review of Film in Action, please post it on the Amazon page or send me a copy and I’ll post it on this site.

 

Thanks for your support.

Film in Action Competition

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To celebrate the publication of Film In Action which is now available in book shops and on Amazon, we are delighted to announce a film-making competition in which your school can win the following fantastic prizes:

  •  A license for Camtasia Studio 8 which helps you create professional videos easily  (value 250 US dollars).
  • A licence for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 which allows you to edit, organise and share digital images  (value 150 US dollars).
  • A  copy of Film in Action.

Your students are almost certainly creating their own videos and short films with their mobile phones outside school. We think it’s a fantastic idea to bring this creative video and film-making into the language learning classroom. In Film in Action there are lots of activities which encourage students to create their own videos. To help you get your students creating short videos in your classes our competition uses an activity from Film In Action in which students have to make their own ‘how-to’ videos using a mobile phone or other mobile device.  Follow the activity as outlined below:

 

make_a_how_to_video

Their videos should be no longer than 5 minutes and they have to upload them to YouTube and, you, their teacher, should send a link to the video to kieranthomasdonaghy@gmail.com before Monday 1st June. You should also briefly (in less than 100 words) describe your teaching context, name of institution,  the names of the students who made the video, and any other relevant information. All of the videos would be published individually in short posts on the Film in Action site. The winner will be announced on Thursday 4th June.

Here’s an example of the type of video your students could create.

 

I hope you and your students enjoy the activity and the competition.

Branded Shorts

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film_in_action_coverJPGTo celebrate the forthcoming publication of my new book Film in Action for DELTA Publishing in April, I’m going to share some activities from the book in a series of  posts over the coming weeks.

Choose a branded short (a film which has been created for a company, organisation or product) which you think your students will like. Here’s a branded short which has worked well with my students.

Dove: Real Beauty Sketches from John X. Carey on Vimeo.

 

Use this film or choose your own, and then move onto the activity as outlined below:

branded shorts

If you try this activity with your students, do please let me know how it goes (in the Comments box below)!

 

Kieran

One-second Films

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To celebrate the recent publication of my new book Film in Action for DELTA Publishing, I’m sharing a number of activities you can try out with your students. This activity encourages students to create their own one-second-long films about something which is beautiful or important to them and to then talk about why they chose this moment to film.

If you can’t find a compilation of one-second-long videos, here’s a compilation which has worked well with my students.

 

Seconds Of Beauty – 1st round compilation from The Beauty Of A Second on Vimeo.

 

Use this compilation or choose your own, and then move onto the activity as outlined below:

 

one-second

 

You might like to hold an awards ceremony for your students’ films. You might also like to create – or even better, get your students to create –  a compilation video of all their films.

If you try this activity with your students, do please let me know how it goes (in the Comments box below)!

Kieran

Viral Videos

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To celebrate the recent publication of my new book Film in Action for DELTA Publishing, I’m sharing a number of activities you can try out with your students. In this activity students are encouraged to discuss why films become viral, and analyse a viral film.

Choose a viral film which you think your students will like. Here’s a short viral video which has worked well with my students.

 

 

Use this film or choose your own, and then move onto the activity as outlined below:

viral videosIf you try this activity with your students, do please let me know how it goes (in the Comments box below)!

Kieran

Three Ss and Three Cs

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film_in_action_coverJPGTo celebrate the forthcoming publication of my new book Film in Action for DELTA Publishing in April, I’m going to share some activities from the book in a series of  posts over the coming weeks. Here’s the first.

This simple activity gets students thinking and talking about the multi-facteted and multi-modal nature of film and generates a huge amount of discussion and language with minimal teacher preparation.

I suggest you use a dramatic scene which has quite a lot of tension. Here’s a scene from American Beauty which works very well with this activity. However, the activity can be used with virtually any scene which has interaction between two or more characters.

 

 

Once you have selected your scene move onto the activity as outlined below:

Three Ss

If you try this activity with your students, do please let me know how it goes (in the Comments box below)!

 

Kieran

Film in Action

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I’m delighted that my new book Film in Action has been published . It’s a great honour to join all the wonderful authors in the DELTA Teacher Development Series and I hope that Film in Action will fit seamlessly into the series and enjoy the prestige that the other books enjoy worldwide.

Film in Action offers guidance on taking on the challenge of the digital revolution; insights into how learners engage with film inside and outside the classroom; advice on effectively bringing film into the language classroom; and guidance on how both teachers and students can create their own moving images.

It has over 100 highly practical activities which require little or no preparation that can be easily added to the repertoire of any busy teacher. All the activities have the common aim of helping learners practise and improve their English, covering all four language skills.

It highlights the educational benefits of not just watching moving images inside and outside the classroom, but also of creating moving images. It also looks at innovative ways of integrating moving images into the school system.

This is the website which supports this book. It provides examples of the classroom activities and learner-generated films Film in Action, a glossary of film language terms, and advice on where to look for online for resources and lesson plans.

 

Here you can watch a short video trailer for Film in Action.

 

 

I hope you enjoy the book and the website.

Kieran