I don’t know how I missed this comment by Judy but it really fits in with the recent discussion about reading:
Ben, for many years I used films as a way of making my classes more interesting for my students. Not just sitting and watching, but studying them scene by scene. Since I discovered TPRS, I’ve continued to use certain films, the ones that I know will work, but my technique has been evolving, and I recently realized that what I do is very much like reading a novel. I use the English subtitles so the kids are hearing and reading the same thing, it’s simultaneous visual and auditory CI, and we translate every phrase. They do it if it’s easy, and when there’s a pause because it’s too difficult, I step in and do it. When it’s interesting, we talk about what’s happening, what the characters are thinking, what’s going to happen next, etc. When it’s appropriate we work in some PQA. After each important scene, I give them a reading which I’ve prepared which is a summary of the action and when we read it together, they know almost all the vocabulary already, because they saw it in the subtitles. I’ve started making these summaries into embedded readings, and I really feel that the kids are absorbing it like sponges. After all, few things are as compelling as a good film.