May 7, 2012
iPads, iMovie & Foreign Films – Thoughts from Greg on iPad Integration in Foreign Language Classes
I recently visited a French foreign language class and the teacher asked if I had ever hear of Henri the Cat. I take a tiny bit of pride in attempting to know everything that is on the internet, but I had never crossed paths with Henri. The teacher quickly pulled up Henri and we watched and laughed out loud with the students. If you have never seen Henri, I suggest you take a few minutes to watch part one…
Before I left the class, I asked the teacher if she would be interested in having her students create similar style films about our high school. With our fresh set of iPads with iMovie installed, I quickly described how we could have students shoot video throughout the school and later edit with English subtitles and French voice-overs. She was game for the project, and we started the the following Monday.
The pre-iPad Process (2 class periods)

- Students worked in pairs and determined a theme for their films.
- Each group picked 10 scenes for their film and wrote 10 lines.
- Each line was translated into French
- Students shot footage of each scene using the native video camera application (1 period)
- Students edited their footage in iMovie & started inserting subtitles and voice-overs
- Students completed the editing, subtitles & voice-overs
- Finished videos were exported from the iPads to YouTube
