Film making as a form of project work.

Film making as a form of project work.

Project-based learning is not a new phenomenon. But nowadays digital technology makes it easier than ever before for students to conduct serious research, produce high-quality work, keep a record of entire process and share their creations with the world.

Before I started my work on project I had read the teacher’s guide to project based learning “Work that matters” (2012, Alec Patton)/ According to the information from this book I divided the process of the execution into four steps.

Step 1. Get an Idea

The first question for me to answer was if the project would engage my students and what my students would learn from it. And I suggested them to make a film (for students of the 11^th form). Filming is an accessible and beneficial tool for engaging young people, giving them a voice and affording them the opportunity to share their stories with others. The collaborative nature of filmmaking also serves as a valuable tool for bringing young people together. Overall it is a great learning experience for young people. They noticeably develop their confidence in proposing ideas to the group and acting in character. Furthermore, filmmaking is a great tool in showing the different skills and qualities.

And it needs to be said that this idea was new for all of us. I mean for our school, for me and for our students, too. They liked it very much.

Step 2 . Design the project.

After making the decision to shoot a film, it was time to get serious about designing it. Our task was to write an interesting script and to give parts to each member of our group. The students found several scripts on the Internet, among which there were classical stories from English literature, plays and even fairy tales, but most of all we liked a love story “Teen Angel”. They had found it at Freedrama.net website. We agreed that this topic was interesting for teenagers and that the story was rather modern. Of course we rewrote it a little adding something and adapting it for us. We divided the parts and ran over the script a couple of times before actually filming to image the result and to avoid mistakes while performing in front of camera.

Step 3. Do the project

Of course this step was the most difficult. First off all we needed to have all the necessary equipment for filming. Secondly we needed to plan our filming process, because the script was rather long. And we arranged that the only appropriate time for shooting our film was at weekends. Then our task was to design decorations for each scene. All of us make something useful. And the main tasks and the most important ones were to learn the text by heart and to speak fluently. It took 7 weekends to record our creation. But it was only the first part of doing the project.

The second one was setting up editing. We used Pinnacle (this is a programme for making videos) and set it up choosing the best stills. But when everything was ready, we looked over our film before finishing and made sure that everything was done as it had been planned.

Step 4. Exhibit the project.

Here I can say that the result of our project is a 40 minute film, which is interesting and cool. The exhibition was held in our school for senior students. They said they had liked it. Now you will have the opportunity to watch the film.

After having shown the film the group of the participants shared their impressions in our school-news at the school website and the girl Tania, who was going to become a journalist, wrote an article to our local newspaper.

In conclusion I would like to highlight the main achievements which we have gained:

-         Students could speak English fluently, they proved it;

-         They worked as a team;

-          They felt like real actors;

-         We joined our knowledge of English (all skills) and new technologies and made an interactive project.

At the end each participant got a copy of the film as a remembrance. That was their award. And the students got good marks for their work

And this video was made by me and my students of the first form for our ABC party  at Scool 4 in Novyi Rozdil, Lviv region (2013)