Movies and Videos Can Help an ESL Student

Learning another language can sometimes be daunting especially if you don’t feel confident about speaking to strangers because you are afraid you will say the wrong thing and embarrass yourself – or even worse insult someone! Learning English is no exception but people of all ages have found that watching movies and videos can help.

Movies in particular are telling us a story in pictures and words – and sometimes actions speak louder than words – making it very clear what is happening even if you don’t completely understand what is being said. Obviously movies that have subtitles in your native language will make it easy for you to understand – but it also defeats the purpose of learning English.

The best thing to do is go online or rent a movie and just keep repeating scenes and watching carefully to see body movements and actions which sometimes say it all without a word being uttered. Body language speaks volumes so you can easily tell if someone is angry or is in love by the way they act and the movements they make. Listening is the key to this -listening carefully to understand the nuances and together with the actions you can make sense of what is going on.

Generally music videos can help as well because they have put together a video that puts their words into dancing or other emotions making it easier to know what they are saying in the songs. The key is to improve your comprehension by improving your listening abilities so that after awhile you will be very adept at improving your English.

The best part of watching movies or videos is you can be entertained at the same time that you are learning making each lesson easier and more fun!