BOMBAY TV

What is the Link?
http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/index.php?lang=uk

One of the more fun sites we discovered is Bombay TV. This website is a fun and creative way for students to learn English. Basically, users must create their own captions/subtitles for clips from a collection of Indian movies. With this website students can develop their communicative skills by simply observing the movie clips and applying their understanding of it.

Depending on the clip, the users will have 3-5 subtitles to work with. Here’s an example.

Once a Bollywood Movie is Complete, you can email it to friends, embed it in a blog, or post it as a URL on a website. Below is my own Bollywood Movie.



How to integrate Bombay TV into the classroom?

First, the instructor can have the students pretend they’re working for a film production company and they need to write English subtitles for an Indian film. The students will then have to guess what they think the characters are really saying and type it on the provided subtitles. However, to utilize this site in a more creative way, instead of having students guess what the characters are saying, teachers can give the students a scenario and come with dialogues for it.  Teachers can also use this website as an advertising assignment. Using the movie clips, students can be assigned to come up with catchy dialogues or captions to advertise a product or a company.  Furthermore, to make this activity more interactive, the students can present their dialogues by dubbing it into the movie clips. 

Advantages:

To me, Bombay TV is a website that students can easily gravitate to. First of all, it’s amusing, interactive, and entertaining. It gives students the chance to be carefree and comical in a classroom setting. Moreover, instead of turning in a written work, students actually get to show a movie clip for their assignment; thus creating a fun learning environment for language learners.

Disadvantages:

Because only a limited amount of words can be typed in the "subtitle" box, this Bombay TV is only catered to the beginners level.  In order for this website to cater to more advanced language learners, I believe it needs more subtitles or longer movie clips.  Furthermore, culturally, this website is only entertaining if the language learner doesn't understand the language spoken (Hindi) in the clips.