My institution maintains the Library of Foreign Language Film Clips (LFLFC), an online database of 16,000 film clips drawn from 400+ feature and documentary films in 24 languages. Each clip is tagged for linguistic features, speech acts, and the cultural content of the clip, enabling instructors to search for clips containing, for example, “idiom” or “metaphor”, “greeting” or “persuasion”, “foreigners” or “crime”. Each clip is also tagged for the dictionary form of all spoken language in the clip, which is presented to the student when viewing the clip. This vocabulary list, together with an audio file that has been slowed down by 50%, facilitates comprehension of the clip without resorting to subtitles.
In this hands-on workshop I will go over the main features of the LFLFC: how to search for clips in the database, how to order clips for your students to watch over the Internet, how to annotate clips, how to create lesson plans, how to add a transcript for student viewing, and finally how your institution can obtain access to the LFLFC at no charge. Participants will explore the LFLFC database and order a clip or two for their students to watch. Finally, the workshop will include a discussion on how clips might be integrated into the curriculum.
