Adventures in MovieTalks & Clip Chats: EdPuzzle Edition

November 2021 – 

MovieTalks, Clip Chats… what are they and why do people keep talking about them?! Well, for starters, they are ‘technically’ two different ways to do a similar thing. MovieTalks are when you use a film, with silent audio (or muted) and narrate the film in the target language while the film is playing. Clip Chat is when you do the same, but with a clip of the movie or photos from a movie instead of using the entire piece as a whole. Now – either way, your goal is to take something that is interesting and relevant to your students and target specific words as you narrate this adventure. 

There are lots of ways to tackle Movie Talks or Clip Chats… and there is not a right or a wrong way to modify these for your needs. The most common way is to do it true movie talk style and use a film that you play silently and pause as you narrate. Personally, this stresses me out and makes me over think what is happening and what I’m doing. I can’t handle that way. I prefer to use the other common method of taking images (screenshots) from the film and using them as pictures as I narrate so I can move along at my own pace. (Yes, this can be managed by pausing the video, but that’s complicated for me…)

Alright, now that you know how to perform a Movie Talk, what’s the process look like?

Step 1: Choose your “movie” or “clip”. I like to use YouTube short animated films because many students have seen them and it’s a nice connection point. 

Step 2: Decide if you’d like to show the movie & pause or if you’d rather have slides of pictures. If you’d like to have slides of pictures, download a Chrome extension like YouTube Screenshot and install it first. This particular extension makes it SO easy to take screenshots. Then you need to upload the screenshots to your slides. I like to upload mine to Google Slides via the Google Slides Add-On Slides ToolBox. This Add On will make all your images their own slide in about 5 mins instead of you having to insert them. 

Step 3: Decide which images to use (I go back and start deleting screenshots until I have about 30-40 slides left)

Step 4: Write your script (or find one online!) Click here for a FREE MovieTalk Script & Slides

Step 5: Present to your class* (if you don’t feel comfortable presenting, continue to Step 6). Remember to pause and repeat and ask questions in make sure your students are with you and are understanding. You might find it helpful to add new words on the slide with the picture. 

*Step 6: Make an Edpuzzle! How? I like to record myself doing the presentation using QuikTime Screenrecord. I make my “screen” my slide so I can read the script and I click through and read the script. I circle as I read. Typically, my videos are 15-20 minutes long. Then I upload the video to EdPuzzle and add even more comprehensible checks with questions and notes on the video as kids watch. I love using EdPuzzle for this because students can re-watch portions of the video as many times as they want! If you plan to add in questions, be sure that you pause in between sentences so you’ll have the “empty space” in the video to add questions 🙂 

If you are interested in using Edpuzzle and you don’t have an account, click here to create a FREE EdPuzzle account & earn free space!