Music Videos as Movie Talk

One of my favorite aspects of my classes is teaching with music, and nothing makes me happier than to hear students say they downloaded the songs I taught them in class!

I spend about 6-8 class days on each song, and it is usually our warm-up/bellringer each day.

Another great way to incorporate music into class is to use a music video as a story. I like to “movie talk” the music video. Look for a video that is like a mini-movie, one that tells a story. I LOVE Darte un beso, Con quién se queda el perro, Cuando me enamoro, and just about any video by Lasso for movie talks.

For movie talk, you simply need to find a music video that tells a visual story, play the video, and describe what is happening in the target language. If you are familiar with TPRS, you can use the “circling” technique to ask questions, and also “PQA” to connect the events in the video to your students.

After we have movie talked (this can easily take a day or longer depending on how much you milk it.), I give my students a reading that I have prepared in advance. I simply write up what happened in the music video in story format. I often embellish it to make it more entertaining, or use names of my students as characters. We read together, translating anything that they are unfamiliar with. We then discuss the reading. I ask comprehension questions, what if questions, and questions comparing things from the story to things that are personally relevant to the students.

Often, I will then show my students some screen shots from the music video and ask them to use them to do a “story retell” with a partner. (I take screen shots on my laptop and then crop them into a powerpoint.) Finally, I may ask them to do a written story retell as an assessment.

By the end of the 3 days or so that we spend on these activities, the students have acquired several new words/structures, are able to narrate a fairly detailed story all in Spanish (both verbally and in writing), and have a song stuck in their heads!

I highly recommend that you try this type of lesson. It is very engaging, you are using authentic resources in a comprehensible way, and students walk away with a big dose of comprehensible input!