Materiales audiovisuales y subtitulación para aprender vocabulario en el aula de inglés como lengua extranjera

Films or video clips are rarely presented in the EFL classroom as the main source material for the exercises students complete at school. Traditionally, the materials students use in class are the course book and the audiotapes that come with it. As it is explained in this paper, there are many voices that advocate in favour of bringing clips in the class routines. One of the reasons why teachers should use audiovisual materials in their lessons are the need to adapt to modern trends such as the growth of online multimedia platforms. In addition, it is worth noting the motivating aspects of bringing new formats which students already use in their free time. In terms of vocabulary, subtitled clips provide students with immensely rich input as they offer information in three different formats: aural information, images and text. This paper is centred around the inclusion of audiovisual materials and subtitling into the EFL classroom. Specifically, the essay delves into how such materials can be used to learn new vocabulary and offers a three-lesson proposal following the principles of Communicative Language Teaching and Task-Based Language Teaching. The different activities have been designed for a group of students in 3rd year of ESO and revolve around the topic of food. The selected videos consist in two clips from the film “Ratatouille” (directed by Brad Bird and released in 2007) and another clip taken from a video tutorial in YouTube. These clips serve as the main driving force of the lesson plan and are structured in such a way that allow the students to familiarise with the use of subtitles for educational purposes