Using the Holstee Manifesto Video to Practice Expressions of Opinion

When I saw the Holstee Manifesto video on Sandy Millin’s excellent blog: (Almost) Infinite ELT Ideas I knew the timing was perfect.

My favorite kind of homework task is one involving a video. Such videos have to be short, suitable for teens and, of course, don’t require any listening.

Such videos aren’t a “dime a dozen”!

This one not only fits the bill but ties in nicely with the topic the strongest group of students is working on – writing opinion essays. I wanted them to practice using other phrases besides “In my opinion” or ” I think”.

This video is full of statements to agree/disagree with so I prepared a worksheet for it.

The students have begun handing it in and it’s great fun. These are 17 and 18-year-olds. They seem shocked at the idea of not looking actively for the love of your life. They agreed, in theory at least, that if you don’t have enough time you should stop watching TV. They also supported the idea of trying to change things. One student thought that “sharing your passions” was a bad idea, passions should be kept private. I’m going to ask him and see what he understands “passions to mean”. “All emotions are beautiful” was criticized and jealousy was cited as an example of an ugly one.

One statement seemed to strike most of the students as stupid – “Getting lost will help you find yourself”!

You can find the film clip on Sandy’s blog, on Youtube and on our class site, with my worksheet here:

http://englishcenterlakash.wikispaces.com/Reading+Videos (bottom of page).

Thank you Sandy Millin!

 

 

4 thoughts on “Using the Holstee Manifesto Video to Practice Expressions of Opinion”

  1. Thank you both, Sandy and Judy!
    I think the video would also work for practicing the first conditional, hmmm…
    I must admit, I love creating materials!

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