Boosting your English with short stories

Movies? A Short film? Should I use subtitles? If you are learning English or want to learn, you are probably thinking about the different things you can do to make this happen. Boosting your English with short stories is here to help.

We all love movies, but normally they last 2 hours or more, and sometimes you do not have enough time to use them as a tool to enhance your level of English, but guess what? You can use short films instead and on this blog, I will give you some tips to boost your English while you are having fun watching some interesting stories.

But first, let’s define what a short film is

A short film is a short story that has to be told in no more than 40 minutes. Usually, it is produced at a low cost and has a powerful message that will invite you to reflect on some important aspects of your existence.  It is completely different from a feature film that normally lasts about 1 or 2 hours, which will lead you to drop attention and motivation. 

In short films, we can find a subgenre called Filminute that normally the average length is 1 min to 5 min. 

How Short stories can help you improve your English?

That is an excellent question that you probably are asking yourself now and the way is simple: They are short and productive. If you do not have enough time to study, this definitely fits your needs. 

Less energy and less time holding attention could be a perfect combination, and you will be learning without noticing. 
Basically, you just have to play the video with the subtitles (In English), follow the story while you are reading, and learn new vocabulary by guessing the meaning through the context shown. This is an excellent way to learn about pronunciation and on top of that, you will have a superb experience and also an excuse to share some thoughts with your friends and/or classmates.

Conoce: Club Conversacional

What else can you add to have a better experience and understanding?

After you watch the short film, you can do an enormous quantity of activities such as forums, debates, or even play games using one of the themes shown in the video itself. Basically, you are the one who sets the limits.  

For example, the most common way to practice after the projection could be a forum where one of the topics treated can be exposed and discussed among all the participants in order to have a real opportunity to speak and debate on the different perspectives and points of view each person can have. There may be questions set from the beginning and also spontaneous ones that will appear along the way.   

Another scenario is the use of debates to create a comfortable environment to make participation easier for all the participants. This could be used with a thematic already traced by the person conducting the activity. For example, if the topic that I want to debate about is love, all the short films will show that in their stories, so I can create a healthy debate about some aspects of love in this case. 
The last one that I want to show you, could be games where all the participants can impersonate different short film characters and perform a little play where you can practice speaking and have fun while learning new vocabulary and enhancing your communication skills.

All you need to have is a beautiful story and disposition: Just have fun and learn!

So we can say that this is a good way to improve your English and continue your studies not only in English could be applied to any other language. 

I invite you to try it! Be creative, the sky’s the limit.  Give it a chance. I’m sure you won’t regret it!

Finally, I will give you some good examples to start on this cinematographic adventure, sometimes we just need a good way to start. Below you have some short films to start this exercise

Idiots

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I Forgot My Phone

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The Present

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Otherhalf

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At CAC-Eurocentres, we include the use of movies, T.V. Series, and short films to make our students understand the language in a real context. We are convinced that there are many different ways to practice a language, and we are in charge of finding the best way to learn it. If you want to know more about our methodology, join one of our specialized programs.