Fun Free French movie talk – Last Shot and detailed lesson plan

My kids always love doing movie talks! This French movie talk freebie one is about a little girl who loves her camera – at least, until it gets broken! This freebie includes the target vocabulary, instructions, story script, a partner comprehension activity and quiz. You can get the freebie here.

If you’ve never done a movie talk, the concept is pretty simple. First, you need a short video that has interesting content. I find that animated videos work well, although you can use any video you like. I pick videos that are fairly short. Once you’ve chosen your video, determine what vocabulary and structures you will need to tell the story of the video. Those will be the target new structures, and you will want to use them repeatedly.

Try it out with this free French movie talk

I start my French movie talks by introducing the target words/phrases, then I tell the story of the video. If it’s a video that has a surprise ending, I will tell the story up until the surprise ending. But if it’s a pretty “normal” video, I’ll tell the entire story. I’ll circle the vocabulary again and again, ask questions, and then move on to the next step. If I’ve had time to prepare, I’ll use screenshots from the video and then ask students to choose which description is correct – they’ll match it to the video.

Next, we’ll watch the video. I will tell the story again as we watch with the sound turned off. We’ll pause a lot so I can ask more questions and add details. Once we’re done watching the video I’ll often play it straight through without pauses so students can get the feeling that they’ve watched the video – they seem to get uncomfortable if they haven’t watched it without the pauses!

Finally, we’ll read the printed script and answer the comprehension questions. If we have time, we will do the story retell. You can download the French movie talk freebie for Last Shot to get a better idea of how this all works and give you a chance to try it with “training wheels” – see how you like it!

More French movie talk activities