Professional Development

for English Teachers

The 28th P.A.R.K. Conference

Making Lessons Meaningful with Documentaries

Zuzana Paseková, Ida Bauerová

KEY WORDSdocumentaries, critical thinking, expressing opinions, meaningful tasks

AGE GROUPSyoung learners, teens, young adults, adults

CEFR LEVELSA2, B1, B2, C1, C2

AUDIENCEmixed

Do you want to make your English lessons meaningful?
Explore the benefits of teaching with documentaries. Using films, you can open important topics of today's world. Students will not only gain the ability to communicate in English, but you also help educate responsible young people, who approach information in an open and critical manner.

In this workshop, we will show you some effective methods of working with documentaries in practice.

Zuzana Pasekova is an English teacher and Prevention methodologist at Karlín business academy in Prague. As a film lover and passionate life observer, she discovered the unlimited field of benefits in using documentary films in school classes. She has witnessed many beautiful moments of sharing, discussing, personal growth, and emotional opening-up as well as contemplative silence, astonishment, and deep consciousness.

Ida Bauerová is an English teacher and a school counselor at Secondary Nursing School in Usti nad Labem. Ida believes that watching documentaries together motivates students to learn to discuss and explore important topics, share ideas and also work together. Working with documentaries also helps them learn to understand themselves and the world.