Movies and Television for Social Language Learning

 At the ASHA convention there was a class entitled "Movie Time Social Learning: Watching Movies to Build Social Understanding" by Anna Vagin, Ph.D.


This confirmed what I had thought before when I used popular programs such as Full House, Saved by the Bell, and Boy Meets World to help teach my students about how to use social language appropriately. I selected these shows because they are family friendly, deal with real teen scenarios, and have characters that are relatable to middle school children.

Vagin writes that movie time social learning helps children to improve their ability to identify feelings, thoughts, and motives of characters. They can practice their perspective taking skills, discern feeling states and expand their ability to reflect empathic understanding.

She also classified children into three categories: Junior Mindreaders, Moving Up Mindreaders, and Varsity Mindreaders. Students fit into these categories based on their Language, Perspective Taking Skills, and Understanding of Emotions. 

She also presents different tasks that can be used while watching social language clips. The students may use their eyes to identify nonverbal skills characters are portraying (sadness, happiness, anger) or they may use their minds to interpret why they feel that particular way. The speech pathologist may ask them questions such as "Have you ever felt the same way as this character?" or "What would you say in this situation?" Visual aids such as social relationship maps may be helpful for the student to organize complex information and aid discussion. I'm definitely going to think about incorporating more visual modeling clips into my lessons because it is highly motivating. However, I will be sure to include more visual aids to organize the information better.