Using Video

Using video in class is a great idea for all sorts of reasons - it brings novelty and interest to the class, learners get visual paralinguistic clues to help them with listening comprehension, and if they are learning in their own country, it may even help them to assimilate culturally to English speaking environments.

I remember the days (and it's not that I'm old - although I am!- it's not that long ago!) when using video in class meant booking out the TV and video, lugging it through to the class, and then finding that someone had gone off with the remote and you couldn't use it anyway!  Mostly I didn't bother.   The IWB has revolutionised this and now it is a matter of a few clicks to a wealth of resources on the net.

You Tube is, of course, a brilliant site, with such a wide range of material that most of us don't ever look any further, but this website has a list of other video material that is also good for a change.

One example is the How Stuff Works website. This has lots of great text as well as video clips, on a wide range of factual stuff.    This example is about bullfighting in France (who knew?!).  The French version doesn't kill the bulls and they are the star of the show, which is quite nice.  It's a nice little video - only 2.5 minutes and with lots of opportunity for discussion of animal rights, risky sports, etc.  There are loads of other videos about different countries and cultures - you're bound to find something that will appeal.

Another good video site is CNN Student News. It sells itself as:
'CNN Student News is a ten-minute, commercial-free, daily news program for middle and high school students produced by the journalists and educators at CNN. '
and it really is good.  Although it is aimed at teenagers, it's also very good for adult language learners.  Each show has a transcript, which is great, and a daily discussion and newsquiz, so all of your materials are there for you. What more could you want??!!  As with any topics that might be upsetting, controversial or sensitive, you will, of course, have to make your own judgement about what will work with your class.

Finally,of course, don't forget the TED site (see other blog entry on this) - if that doesn't make you think, nothing will!
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Language Plants

This is a link to a blog called Language Garden, by David Warr, which has a whole collection of 'word plants' in it.  They're hard to explain, so the easiest thing is to show you a one!  Have a look at this one - how could it fail to brighten up your class?

There are lots of others, some very thought provoking, using lots of different kinds of texts.  This one is one that stirs me.....

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Martin Niemöller,
a German anti-Nazi theologian

I think that they are a really nice way to introduce a text for further work on vocabulary or structure, or for further productive work on  the same topic.  What's particularly nice for lower level adult or teenage learners is that a lot of the texts are quite profound or thought provoking, but quite accessible due to the repetitious nature of the texts.  The visual aspect may also help to add motivation, and comprehension.

Limitations?  I guess you might have to be a bit sensitive to your learners in terms of some of the content (the one above, for example, might be upsetting to some), but apart from that I think they're great for a five minute filler, or for basing a whole lesson around.  Let the garden grow!

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English Central

This site is an amazing one for listening skills, learning vocabulary and practising pronunciation.  It has a really wide range of video material at different levels, (indicated easy, medium and hard) that you can listen to and transcripts below them so that you can read along as you listen.  That in itself would be helpful, but this site goes a whole lot further!  As you watch each video, you can go back a line at a time and listen again (helpful), you can slow down the speed of the speaker (very helpful - I particularly love this feature) and you can click on the more difficult vocabulary in the transcript and it will give you a definition and a pronunciation guide (how much help do you need?!!).  Fabulous! There is such a wide range of material it should appeal to adults with a wide range of interests and to young learners.  You can register on the site and it will keep a track of your scores, but you can also use it without registering, and in either case it's free.

After you've watched the video, you can also use a microphone to record yourself reading each of the lines and the site gives you a score.  Most of the videos have American accents, so you won't get 100% scores if you don't mirror that, but it's quite forgiving of other accents and even when I put on my most RP voice (ie quite different to an AmEng accent, but perfectly acceptable) it gave me a high score. 

I think that this is something that you could set as a homework task, allow learners time to listen, understand the vocabulary, practice some of the pronunciation, and then come to class prepared to discuss a video that they have watched.  It may be that you want to give them all the same one or they could each choose one and describe theirs to a small group as a jigsaw activity.

This is a really inspirational video. Check it out!

Limitations - I'm stuck to think of any! 

Breaking News English

What is this?
click here for the site

This site is a teacher's dream.  It has an enormous amount of topical material on it, prepared in a manner that means it is very easy to 'download and teach'.  The site consists of an archive of news items, to which a new story is added every three days.  These are all current affairs stories, but are on a wide variety of topics such as politics, sport,  news, health, celebrity.  It would be hard not to find something that would be relevant to your learners.  Each article is also available as a podcast for listening practice.

This side of the site is its main focus, and you could be forgiven for using only that, but in fact, there is a wealth of other material here, too - interactive quizzes, dictogloss activities, matching, hangman, flashcards.  The are also links to Sean Banville's blog which has some great ideas for classroom activities and methodologies, and to his other websites which include News English. com (a site with easier news items) and Listen a minute.com, which has easier listening activities. And all for free - the man deserves a knighthood!

Why is the content good for language learning?

The content is generally of quite a high level.  However, the texts are generally quite short (some are marked 'easier') and so, with preparation it isn't unreasonable to think that this could be used with intermediate level students or above.  As has been noted - the content is authentic newspaper text and as such, with repeated use, will help learners to develop the vocabulary they will need for reading text of a more formal genre.  This might be particularly applicable to learners who are aiming to use their English in a context of academic study or business.

How might you use it in a language teaching context?

How you use this will depend on the facilities available to you.  Even in a class with no computers, the text and some of the activities can be printed off and photocopied for use in class.  If you have access to computers, the possibilities are more numerous.  Possibilities include predicting content and checking against the text, written or aural and using the games and quiz software to increase learner's awareness of vocabulary, collocation and structure.  It would also be easy, given the amount of material on the site,  to set up a jigsaw reading/ listening exercise where each pair int he class have the autonomy to choose a text that interests them, read/ listen to it and subsequently report back to other learners what they have found out.  Tasks could usefully be set for homework, and there is sufficient variety of material and activities to help to maintain learners' interest and motivation.

Limitations

As the text is all newspaper based, the themes are largely of interest to older teenagers and adults, so the site is not so useful for teachwers of yound learners.  Also, as has been noted, the level makes it less suitable for learners under intermediate level.  Apart form that, the only difficulty in using this excellent site is in being selective abot the material you use - there is simply too much and it can be a little overwhelming!  It is perhaps a little churlish, though to be ungrateful when confronted with such riches!
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LoudLit.org

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What is this?

 

This site (you can access it here) has a range of classic literature, that is available in audio form.  Either the site can be used to simply download the stories onto an mp3, or you can listen to them on the computer, whist simltaneously reading the text.  There is a range of material here - classic novels such as Huckleberry Finn, poetry, children's stories such as The Little Matchgirl, short stories and even a couple of historical American documents such as the Declararation of Independence. 

Why is the content good for language learning?

 

In terms of the relevance to language learning, there is a wealth of material here, and it has the advantage of it being possible to use the dual coding of reading and listening at the same time to aid comprehension.  Dual Coding was originally proposed by Allan Paivio in 1971 as an explanation of memory of words and pictures, but has been subsequently developed in the sphere of multi-media teachnlogy by Richard Mayer and Roxana Moreno (2005)  A Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning: Implications for Design Principles. You can read this paper here. Put simply, it helps to processing new  information aurally and visually at the same time helps.

How might you use it in a language teaching context?

You could use this in class to practise either reading or listening - it would be possible to do a small amount of the listening as a dictogloss, for example, possibly after reading and listening independently, as the level of text is very high.  I think it is most useful to promote extensive reading outside class.  Learners can read the text free of charge and can be encouraged to download the mp3 file for extensive listening practice whilst they are tavelling to school/ college etc.

Limitations
I was initially very impressed with this tool, and had planned to use some of the content with my upper intermediate learners in class. The idea was to read/ listen to the first couple of pages of a short story in class, and follow this up with them reading/ listening to more for homework.

When I looked more closely, however, I decided that this wasn't going to work.  The difficulty lies in the cannonical nature of the texts available.  They are, without doubt great literature and great stories, and were certainly chosen for this reason as well as the fact that they are old enough to avoid copyright infringements and royalty payments.  But herein lies the difficulty.  The level of language is high, much of the vocabulary used is poetic, literary and in some cases a little archaic and on reflection, I felt that, even for the upper intermediate group that I have, this would be too difficult to be motivating.

As an example, I had hoped to use the short story 'The Gift of the Magi' but looking at the first page disuaded me....(I've underlined all of the vocabulary that I felt they might not know)

'There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.'


Not to be overcome without some resistance, I looked at teh children's stories, hoping that this may be easier.  This is from 'The Little Matchgirl'.

'One slipper was nowhere to be found; the other had been laid hold of by an urchin, and off he ran with it; he thought it would do capitally for a cradle when he some day or other should have children himself. So the little maiden walked on with her tiny naked feet, that were quite red and blue from cold. She carried a quantity of matches in an old apron, and she held a bundle of them in her hand. Nobody had bought anything of her the whole livelong day; no one had given her a single farthing.

At this point I decided that 'urchin, to do capitally, maiden, the whole lifelong day' and 'farthing' were just too much to expect, and gave up!