【正文】 the performance of students and teachers, but also depends on how much time the film takes. In this perspective of time, we’d better not choose those films which take too long to finish.5. Some methods and activities to be used in video course The book English Through Movies intends to help learners go through the journey of learning English through movies in 4 stages. It has 4 units. Each unit is a movie. There are 4 parts in every unit. Part one: understanding of the movie, which includes the cultural background of the movie, the genre of the movie and the summary of the movie. Part two: close study of the movie, which contains excerpts from the movie. Part three: reflection of the movie, which includes recordings of interview. Part four: act out the movie. [20] Learning from the design of this book, we know something must be done before we start a video course. On one hand, we can conduct a questionnaire to know students’ specific needs. Questions can be raised in the questionnaire like this: Do they really like watching a movie in class? If they do, in what ways can it motivate students? On the other hand, teachers should check up whether the teaching facilities are available or not. A film class needs certain facilities like a TV set, a videocassette recorder (VCR) or a videodisc player, videotapes or discs. Now, it is time to consider how to fully use films to teach. There are three stages for preparing and teaching a video course. Prewatching [21]The first stage is preparation. Both teachers and students should well prepare. For the part of teachers, all the equipments and other facilities should be checked to be in a good state. Teachers also need to get all the teaching materials (the textbook, pictures, or poster etc.) prepared to help students get to know anything about the movie. Then teachers can design some exercises to be presented and activities to be worked out in class. As for students, they should read the reference materials or they can look for other related materials to understand the film better.Prewatching activities:If the students have already known something about the film, they will not be so tense, so activities also should not be neglected in prewatching stage. They can be designed as following:(1) Introduce the topic and cultural background of the video.(2) Vocabulary guessing: Give students a list of words and let them guess which word will be appeared in what context. If there are some words they don’t know, ask them to look up in a dictionary immediately or turn to the teacher for help.(3) Set one or two general questions to meet the main content points in the film.(4) Discussion: Discuss what the film will be about according to the title of the film.These activities serve as a warmingup exercise before watching the movie. It is a good previewing activity for different levels of students in class, and it aims to help students have a better understanding of the film. Whilewatching [22] The second stage is watching the film. When students have a basic idea of the film, it is time to view the movie. The film can be played twice or more to strengthen their impression of the movie. Students watch the film straight through at the first time to strengthen their understanding from their preparation. The second time, teachers only choose certain episode of the film. During this process, teachers can suddenly stop and ask students to do the exercise given in advance. As for the third time or more, students can pletely appreciate the film without any exercises.Whilewatching activities: (the first time)(1) Gapfilling.Provide some key sentences and paragraphs based on the video with blanks. This exercise requires students remember key words, slang, phrases or important information to fill the gaps. This activity can be easy for some advanced students. However, it can help those elementary and intermediate students to practice their spoken English.(2) MultiplechoiceList words with four explanations. Among these explanations, certain or all could be possible for answers. Students are asked to choose those, which are fit to the meaning appears in the video.(3) True or falseGive students worksheets with some statements. Ask students to decide whether it is true or false according to the film (with information available in the video).(4) Check the answers and give explanations as well.In these activities, students are given a worksheet while viewing at the first time. This activity needs a little writing, so the film will not be interrupted.Whilewatching activities: (the second time)(1) Complete a sentence or a paragraph dictation.When it es to a sentence dictation, teachers play the disc twice. For the first time, students are asked to watch only. When playing the second time, students must write down what they have heard to plete the whole sentence. When it es to a paragraph dictation, teachers play the video three times. For the first time, students must watch and listen only to get the general idea. For the second time, students take down the notes. The last time, students must write down the whole paragraph as much as possible based on the notes they’ve taken.(2) Sound off Play the video through once with the sound turned off. Ask students to watch the screen only to predict the verbal content of the film. This prediction may include who the characters are, what they are talking about, etc. [23] (3) Play the video again and check the answers.In these activities, teachers just choose a part of the film (3 to 4 minutes) and present it to the class. The purpose of a sentence or a paragraph is to help students focus on key words and phrases. It is particularly effective with both elementary and intermediate students. And the sound off exercise is to help students to use extra linguistic clues to understand what is being said. Postwatching [24] The final stage is the advanced stage. To have a prehensive review of the adva