In this project I wanted students to have fun making something in english, and work on try to be persuasive in english. I did this with one of my best classes, that is a small group of students. I allowed students to work in pairs or groups of 3.
I started off by having students watching a collage of American commercials I had put together via this link: https://youtu.be/N7Jzm8wG0_A. While they were watching the video I had students write (they were allowed to write this in Japanese) the good points of the commercials and what could’ve been better. I do this to get them thinking of how they want to make their own commercials. I give them an entire class to watch the videos, leave their comments, and to explain the project to them.
The next 2-3 classes I allow them to brainstorm what they will do for their commercials and have them start making a script that they can show me and the JTE. I have provided a worksheet I used to help guide my students, to help them to better explain their product and get them thinking of how to convince someone they want to buy this thing. I also try to help provide some ideas of how to be more convincing, or make the commercial more interesting. By the time they start writing their scripts I also give them the rubric I will grade them on, so they can better meet expectations.
The next 2 days of classes I allow students in class time to film their commercials. And if needed one day of in class editing. The last day is for the presentation of their videos to their classmates.
I just wanna say that this sounds like so much fun and the kind of class that the kids will remember forever. I'm gonna show this to the only JTE I have that wants to do non-textbook classes and see how it goes.
This is a brilliant idea! Thank you for sharing... :)