A City Love Story

Today's activity is about talking about your city and the things you love, and was inspired by a YouTube video that tells a short love story. The Story is set in Beirut in Lebanon and tells the story of how two young people meet and fall in and out of love. The video though is also a tribute to the city that they both love and the things that they like about it.

The wonderful thing about the video is that it shows you the inside of a city from the perspective of two people who live there. So in this task you will watch the video and then see how you can make your own tribute to the place you live.

Task:

• So, first here is the video. It isn't in English, but it has English subtitles, so it will be easy to follow. Just pause the player if you need more time to read the subtitles.
• The first part of the story shows the two people meeting and what they like about their city and what they like doing there. Watch and decide which of them has the most similar likes to your own.
  

• Were you more similar to the girl or the boy? Were you surprised by what you saw of Beirut? Was it as you expected?
• Think about the things they like about their city and the things that you like about your city.
• Now take a camera and go round your city taking photographs of things that you like, places that you like to go and things that you like doing.
• If you don't want to go taking photographs you could search for images on Flickr.com. Use the Creative Commons section where you can find images that are free to use without copyright restrictions as long as you aren't selling what you create. Just search for images of your city or things that you like doing.

• Once you have collected your images you will need to make them into a video. You can do this using a free product called Photo Story 3, which you can download from here It is for use on PCs running Windows.

• Photo Story 3 enables you to create projects using images music, your own voice and text and then covert them into video.
• Here you can find a short video showing you how to create your photo story.
  Photo Story 3 Tutorial

• Create your project, add some music from your city and narrate the video in English, telling people what you like about your city. You can also add text to help people understand.
• Once you have finished you can upload the video to YouTube and share it or you can keep it as part of your English digital portfolio.

I hope you enjoy making this video and please do share a link in the comments below once you have made one. Also be sure to post any comments if you need help or if you get stuck making your video and I'll try to help.

Related links for teachers:

• Creating multimedia stories
• 12 Second Video Clips for EFL ESL
• Tutorial: Using Videos from YouTube
• Sending Bubble Joy to your EFL / ESL Students
• Great Video Commenting Tool
• A Picture's worth
• Picture phrases
• Personalised flashcards
• Exploiting Image Sequences

Best

Nik Peachey