Piggybacking L2 on L1 movies

Since L2 time is so precious, I rarely watch anything with J in English when we are alone together, but today I made an exception for Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. J was very excited about this film. He loves owls! 

Owl in Boots

We tried to watch Guardians last year, but didn't get far because J found it too dark. This time he was the one who suggested it. We got all the resident owls out to watch with us.   

Mitzchen, Käuzli, Wol, Nuhura, Butch Butchy

Whenever J watches any new film in English, I always try to do prep and follow-up in German, both to exploit the heightened receptivity occasioned by the excitement of a new film, and also to make sure that J always has exactly what he needs in the L2 to talk about any new experience right when it is happening. In my experience, this significantly reduces code-switching when anything to do with the movie comes up in subsequent discussions. 

For prep I go to Wikipedia, where one can usually find a plot summary in German. I read the opening paragraphs, introduce the main characters, and drop one or two suspenseful details about what happens in later parts of the film. For follow-up (usually as bedtime reading that evening), J likes it when I read through the entire plot summary and we reminisce about our favorite parts.

In years past, before J's German was up to speed, I would copy the plot summary of a film we were about to watch onto a Googledoc, then spend a little time simplifying the German down to his level before reading it to him. Here are links to a couple of those texts, which anyone should feel free to use:

Ice Age 

Ice Age 2 jetzt taut's

Das große Krabbeln (A Bug's Life)

NB: These are not the original edits, but rather represent two or three stages of progressive revision. Unfortunately I always revised the original document instead of retaining copies of all the versions, as I should have done.