Here are a few of my favorites plus an old one I made for a friend:
6 Billion Others
This beautiful video actually inspired one of my students to download and mash-up into a new version for his brother's wedding, adding interviews from the rest of his family on what love means.
The Break-up
Satirical look at marketing practices in 2010 - a good one to show to Business students who you perhaps don't want to do something mushier with.
Valentine's Day, the trailer
Cheese. Pure cheese. Use with teenagers.
Ah, L'Amour
A short, sweet and engaging film on modern love.
Plenty of Fish
Um, yea. I made this last year for a friend who got divorced after 15 years of marriage and was my way of cheering her up. It's actually a poem so if you read it aloud, you'll have more fun with it than just watching! :-)
More videos
- What is love? (series on The Big Think)
- How to Flirt (How stuff works)
- How to find your soul mate (by Guy Kawasaki - yea, the entrepreneur guru)
- Up in the air (movie trailer)
- The JK Wedding Dance
- Parisan Love, a search story (hat tip Anne Hodgson)
- I don't like flowers (a video activity, Jamie Keddie)
Each video chosen should be significantly poignant that it will generate conversations, dogme 2.0 style, in your lessons so I've not added any questions of my own, however, here are some useful links:
- Ozge's list of tech tools and tips for Valentine's Day
- Lesson Activities for Valentine's Day
- Larry Ferlazzo's Best Sites to learn about Valentine's Day
- Breaking News, Valentine's Day Lesson Plan
- ESL handouts, advanced lesson plan
- Free English Lessons Online
- ESL Handouts (scroll all the way down to download)
- GuardianWeekly: The languages of love
- FoxNews: Beauties and their boy toys
Best,
Karenne
p.s. Did you find or create a material / read or write a blog post for teachers with ideas for Valentine's day? Don't hesitate to add the link below.
p.p.s. Not to be all bah-humbugie (that was Christmas, right) but ya kno' I, personally, despite having gotten married on Valentine's Day myself, think it's all a bit materialistic and plastic. What do you think? In Ecuador, they made the day a celebration of friendship too and I quite liked that! So... dear readers, Happy Valentine's!
Posts
Hey Karenne,
thanks for these great videos and links.
Check out more great ideas for Valentine's Day on Free English Lessons Online:
http://www.esolcourses.com/topics/valentines-day.html
My absolute favourite is "Cupid by A. Winehouse" - it's a video listening quiz that I could listen to for hours on end ...and do the quiz as many times as it takes :-) http://www.esolcourses.com/content/topics/valentinesday/listening/listening.html
All the best
Arjana
Thanks muchly, Arjana - am adding Sue's links to the main post above, great addition!
K
Hi Karenne,
I loved most of the videos, I've already favourited some of them. I have "prepared" a lesson plan for Valentine's Day, but I haven't posted it in my blog because it is just a combination of things I have taken from different sites. It is not my own creation. However, you may download it and have a look at it here http://www.eslprintables.com/printable.asp?id=365223#thetop . Hope you find it useful. Kisses
Sabrina
Hi Sabrina,
Thanks! Added the link - tried to download the lesson and had to register, still awaiting confirmation but looks really thorough!
K
Thank you for the solid selection of different video options. The strongest - and safest - for most American ESL classes would be the "breaking up conversation" between the advertiser and consumer. Obviously, it holds more appeal for Business English students but it also avoids the inevitable collusion between commercial cheering for "love" on Valentine's Day and the actual experiences of adult and young adult students.
For whatever reason, many intelligent adults have not found "pure love", and many singles are already feeling a tad defensive. Therefore, this year I'm just giving a nod to Valentine's Day as a "holiday of the heart" on Sunday and noting that classes are canceled on Monday because Presidents' Day is a national holiday. Guess which is more celebrated?
And that's my entire Valentine's Day lesson. Two minutes, a gentle nod, and let's focus on more tips on effective paraphrasing. Boring, safe, and perhaps even a tad cold.
Teaching Valentine's Day, however, would be far more fun with teenagers and more hopeful romantics.
Thanks karenne, those videos are great. Especially 6 billion others, very ... global ;-)
I think that, done judiciously, a blog post with video links is always a winner. Well done!
Hi Karenne,
I did a drawing activity with my students yesterday 'Reasons for buying flowers' from TEFLclips. It's great cos it's not too mushy! I even got people saying their person (in the drawing) was buying flowers for a funeral.
This is the link: http://www.teflclips.com/?p=251
Worked quite well - though I left till last thing in the lesson, so couldn't juice it fully for the language generated, and it's also best to focus on a form for the students to produce (present perfect, say). Needless to say, I'm going to try and make a video for the class to revisit over out half-term :D
All the best
Mike (I don't really like Valentine's either)
Lindsay,
It is an incredible video - I've been meaning to do a blog post about the site (this video is a teaser, really) for absolutely ages but that draft has yet to see the light...
for a truly global tip for students using your book, Global :-) I highly, highly, highly, recommend popping over to the main website:
6 Billion Others
Aside from the stories told there on many, many themes, philosophies, complaints (in a word: humanity), students can also contribute with their own testimonies!
p.s. Tissues next to the computer, right.
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Hi ya Eric,
Funny, isn't it:
Valentine's and the sadness set-up for those of single situation, but like everything what's taboo is so cultural!
To be honest, I wasn't really planning on doing too much with mine (I have German IT students) - other than having a general conversation based on the 6 billion others video (because it deals with so much more than just love) however Mike's suggestion above has me reconsidering, especially with my A2s...
Thanks Mike!
A very sweet gift to a friend, Karenne.
Sue's is lovely, can't get Cupid out of my head.
Eric has a point. It's tricky to do a Valentine's Day lesson with people who are hurting.
I don't deal in plastic "pure love", either.
The commercialism of the holiday is an excellent topic, but a separate lesson; it could also be called "Halloween" or "Christmas".
If I do romance, it's to focus on the adventure of opening up to new love. These videos are very nice for that focus:
1. Signs (12 min) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy0HNWto0UY – moving from indirect/written to face-to-face/spoken flirting
2. Parisian Love/ Google search http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsSUqgkDwU (handout: http://tinyurl.com/ygolgwb) – history + logistics of developing a bi-national relationship
3. The note (3:45 min) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g28O0NhTWbE – can be used for predicting "what happens next", humor saves the day
Have a good one, everybody!
Oh Anne,
I totally forgot about Signs - such a modern day comment on life and love: one of my absolute favorite short films ever!
Sigh.
Interesting twist on the Note!
Remind me to tell you the full story of my grandparents one day... Briefly though, my grandfather proposed to my Grandmother via a note on a serviette at a tea party - before he had ever spoken a single word to her!
:-)
Karenne
I will not be dealing with Valentine's Day first because I have no classes from Monday-Wednesday (woot!) Second, as Eric implies above, if one student tells me that his/her V Day is going to be awful because of a recent break-up, etc., it kind of ruins the whole idea for me...and this has happened, so...
BUT I really loved the "Break Up" video -- always on the look-out for good videos with a link to Business English, so will certainly use it with or without a Valentine's Day theme :)
On Thursday, I did 6bn others with my students and I just wanted to share some of what they shared with me:
I chose not to take out the "taboo" questions but instead copied the questions directly from the video and added some of my own (you can copy and paste these into your platform if you're running an e-community or put them into a word doc) if you would like to:
Your opinion of the project
Which testimonial did you enjoy the most? Why?
Was there anyone that you disagreed with? Why?
What do you think is the point of the project?
Share your own testimonial
answer one (or more) of the following questions
1. What is friendship?
2. What is love?
3. What would you most like to change in your life?
4. What is your greatest joy?
5. What is your first memory?
6. What is your greatest fear?
7. What do you think happens after death?
8. Do you believe in God?
9. Have you got a special message, an idea about life to share with others?
10. What is the meaning of life to you?
Felicitas
1. Friends are the lights on the side of a dark way. 4. My greatest joy is skiing on a cold, sunny winterday. Downhill with high speed and nobody, who is crossing my way. 5. In my first memory I sat on my grandpa´s knies and he gave me one of his pencils from his big desk as a gift, I was so happy. 6. I´m afraid of losing one of my children.
Jens
3. What would you most like to change in your life?
I wouldn't like to change anything in my life yet. I'm very happy at the moment, so nothing has to be changed until now.
I have a wonderfull family and two lovely (sometimes stressy) children. I'm happy in doing my job and I'm able to support my family with the earned money. I think there are lots of people, which lives not so well as I do.
For the future I have some plans and dreams, but answering this is not the topic of this question ;-).
Sonia
1. What is friendship?
A real friendship is more precious than gold. And how easy is it to find some? Or how precious is gold, if you have some?
2. What is love?
Love is when you cannotbe with and without the other. Like the man who live with his wife for over 40 years. Love is when you know the other person and 'you can handle it'. Like the example with the egg. Love is, wenn your love has different errors and you are with him/her for all that.
Uli
1. What is friendship?
>>>Friend are like stars in the sky. You can't see them always, but they are always there.
2. What is love?
>>>A special form of friendship
3. What would you most like to change in your life?
>>>To work 2 days a week with my head (for example developing software), 2 days a week with my hands (for example as a farmer) and 2 days a week with my heart (for example in social project for children)
4. What is your greatest joy?
>>>To share my joy with others
5. What is your first memory?
>>>It's very unclear...
6. What is your greatest fear?
>>>I think, to be alone
7. What do you think happens after death?
>>>You will be born again
8. Do you believe in God?
>>>Not as a person
9. Have you got a special message, an idea about life to share with others?
>>>I think a couple. Hard to choose one...
10. What is the meaning of life to you?
>>>As Dalai Lama said: To reach happyness (a true one...)
Florian
1. True friendship is a slow growing plant.
2. Love is like an egg. If you can´t grap tough enough it will fall down. But if you grap too hard it will be destroyed.
4. Learning English on an online platform and writing blogs.
7. Bad people will go to hell, where it is hot an flesh will burn - there will be pain forever. And the good ones come to heaven.
Wilfried
Which testimonial did you enjoy the most? Why?
The mam who was married with his wife for over 40 years. Over the years they had many troubles, but they always knew that they belong together. This is love
What do you think is the point of the project?
To learn from and about others.
1. What is friendship?
To help each other in every situation.
2. What is love?
The intensive feeling of knowing that one belongs together
3. What would you most like to change in your life?
I would like to travel more.
4. What is your greatest joy?
I like to see the children growing up and getting more responsable for themselve.
5. What is your first memory?
I can't remeber in the moment.
6. What is your greatest fear?
To have a very long and bad time beeing sick before dying.
7. What do you think happens after death?
Time goes on.
8. Do you believe in God?
A little bit...
9. Have you got a special message, an idea about life to share with others?
It is important to be tolerant and to have respect for other people.
10. What is the meaning of life to you?
To spent a nice time, doing good things to the family, friends, company a.s.o..
Sonia
10. What is the meaning of life to you?
Love! Love gives meaning to our lives. I think if you love, if you have love in your heart, you are able to do/reach everything. With love you can feel better, independent of the situation in your life.
The meaning of life can be everything that makes us happy, as a friendship can do or a special passion for something. For a lot of people to serve and believe in God is the meaning of their life.
If you did this video as well, would you like to share some of the things your students wrote?
Lovely exercise - I was so touched by Florian's:
What is your greatest joy?
4. Learning English on an online platform and writing blogs.
:-) K