Oscar-winning films are not usually known for experimenting with narrative genre.

However, the opening of Argo , the film that won the Oscar for 2012 Best Picture, is extraordinary in the way it plays with our expectations of plot, jumping from fact to fiction. The film begins with a storyboard describing the events leading up to the 1979 Iranian revolution. You feel that you are attending a contemporary history lecture as the images are playful and cartoon-like. Then, there is grainy stock footage of rioting and protests on the streets of Tehran; you are now watching a documentary. These then combine seamlessly with the dramatic reconstruction of events. You are now watching a Hollywood suspense film. Fact or fiction? It is hard to decide in those opening minutes, but it is precisely the experimentation with narrative that captures your attention and makes you want to keep watching.

Analysing what makes a viewer keep watching is not so different from analysing what makes a language learner stay glued to the screen. Tension, curiosity, mystery and a desire to reach resolution and the end of the story are ingredients that make up a great narrative.

What I hope these activities share is that they will make learners either curious to discover the story or wish to tell their own version of events. Whether it is a funny domestic drama (Activity 2.2: One-minute story ), the trailer for an adventure film (Activity 2.5: Narrative errors ), a classic or contemporary love story (Activities 2.6: Screenshot storyboard and 2.7: Turning points ) or a sporting event (Activity 2.9: Penalty shoot-out ), I have chosen narrative sequences which I feel will capture a learner's attention in the same way as those first few minutes of Argo . The tasks themselves are designed to tap into that curiosity and to send learners off into a different world.

Video narration and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

Combining storytelling and video is nothing new, of course. With the arrival of the communicative approach and active viewing, using video in this way became part and parcel of classroom practice. When I first started using video in class, I recall getting learners to narrate the moving image in a number of different ways.