TE714 Robyn Moallemi's blog

This week’s focus was on the use of video in the classroom, which I initially felt quietly confident about as I use video in almost every lesson. I use videos from BBC language website, the coursebook, occasionally YouTube and from TV5 Monde, the international educational arm of the French TV channel. I also create videos of students producing dialogue in role plays and then use them the next lesson as a learning resource, for revision and re-visit language and pronunciation where they made errors.

I enjoy using videos because they are dynamic, multimodal resources that offer an authentic contextualised window onto the target language. It not only presents the spoken language, as in audio formats, but the visual element of video allows for so much more subtle representations of the culture, the language and non-verbal communication. With access to online videos there is choice – so much choice that sometimes it is overwhelming and I am perhaps accustomed to using the same website because I am familiar and confident with the videos, knowing they are appropriate for my teaching context. Using video in a target-language removed class, I hope encourages learners to use videos extramurally in their independent learning and that they see the value in doing so.

The pre-seminar reading and class discussion made me think that perhaps I don’t use video as well as I could. I don’t exploit authentic videos and use them as a raw material, which could afford much greater, genuine discussion in the target language than what I am currently doing. Furthermore, when I use video, I don’t always use it to its optimum communicative effect but mainly for a listening comprehension exercise, exploring vocabulary and pronunciation. I don’t exploit the visuals for vocabulary building. This made me acutely aware of my inefficiency and I set out to research and attempt to create an exercise based on a video that engages, motivates and allows for all students to engage in active and authentic communication.

Jamie Keddie’s (2014) videotelling example of “The Clumsy best Man” was an excellent and dynamic way to use a Youtube video as a stimuli for a highly communicative lesson, where the teacher, Jamie Keddie delivers the material. The whole lesson was aimed at storytelling, not exploiting visuals but learners’ imaginations and situational vocabulary. Learners had to guess what happened after the teacher introduced the establishing line: “There are people round the pool. What are they wearing?” The teacher prompted responses, asked key questions linked to developing vocabulary, responded to errors in pronunciation, grammar and verb conjugations whilst guiding the learners to tell the story as it actually happened. When they successfully re-told the story the teacher then and only then showed them the video to conclude the lesson and demonstrate that they had succeeded in producing language to describe a video.

I have never come across anything like videotelling before but think it’s a really innovative and interesting way of engaging a whole class in active communication where learners’ involvement drives the lesson and the learning. Interested, I tried to research French videos that could allow similar discussion but unfortunately they weren’t as easy to find as YouTube videos in English. That being said, it was only on reflection after I completed the pre-seminar task that I concluded that perhaps the origins of the video for a videotelling activity is potentially irrelevant.

The exciting factor of videotelling seems to be how the learners respond to storytelling; guessing what happens next and all of the language learning potential that the activity has, as opposed to the actual language of the video itself. In “The Clumsy Best Man” videotelling example it is the teacher who delivers the material but in a class with international students, where perhaps there isn’t one video that resonates with all learners, they could in fact each come prepared to talk about a popular/viral video from their country and the other learners could deliver a similar videotelling activity. I think this could be an exciting opportunity that is not only student-centred and communication focused but it promotes intercultural awareness. I as the teacher could still be the more knowledgeable other (Vygotsky 1978) in terms of supporting lexis, grammar and pronunciation but the learners will be creating the input and producing a variety of potential outputs. food for thought.

For the pre-seminar task I completed however, I used a TEDx Talk as a teaching material. I know of and have watched several TED talks and always find them really inspiring and interesting but I have never thought to use them in my teaching, again because I always watch them in English. Again, trying to find relevant videos and subjects in French for A1 and A2 learners didn’t prove as easy as finding a relevant video in English. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find a TedxParis talk by Djinn Carrénard, a French filmmaker who spoke about his filmmaking process, which ties in nicely with the media topic of my A2 class.

This is the TEDxParis Talk and this is the activity sheet: Ted Talk Activity-zn0phd

Here is my rational behind my materials’ design and use of the video:

The eight minutes video is media themed and the vocabulary and grammar are within reach of the students, having already studied the topic. However, new vocabulary and the speed in which Djinn speaks would represent “appropriate challenges” (Hattie 2003) and be within the Zone Of Proximal Development (Vygotsky 1978) of my learners who would learn more vocabulary, complex sentence structures and confidence in talking about film as a topic.

In order to complete this task I looked at a free version of a Linguahouse lesson plan for TEDs and used it for inspiration:

Task 1 allows for an open discussion in French on the film The Avengers, the opening reference to Djinn’s Talk and the antithesis to his filmmaking style and genre. Asking if the learners have already seen it (past tense) and what they thought about it (giving opinion, imperfect past and relative pronoun). Activity 1b then asks them to think of words to associate with the film (vocabulary building and application).

Task 2 instructs learners to work in pairs to match key film related vocabulary, from Djinn’s Talk, to its meaning as inferred by Djinn (vocabulary building). This task introduces leaners to the theme of the Talk, prior to watching it and therefore aims to help them better understand the Talk.

Task 3 asks learners to interpret a comment Djinn makes in the video about his filmmaking method, where he states he only writes 70% of the script and the rest is to be improvised by the actors. They are asked to suggest why he does this as well as the effect it could have on his film (demonstrate comprehension and creativity of response).

Task 4, the final task, is the only comprehension task for after having watched the Talk and asks one question based on the Talk and one question that asks the learners’ opinion (demonstrate comprehension, creativity of response and opinion).

This activity, similar to Keddie’s videotelling, introduces the video at the end of the activity, which is for me unorthodox but refreshing. Although the video is the driving material for the activity and the tasks are derived from it, the pre-video tasks allow for greater understanding in terms of content, vocabulary and meaning in advance of watching it. This approach could reduce affective filters (Krashen 1982) on learning such as anxiety, stress and self-confidence that my students have professed to feel when presented with listening comprehension activities. In doing so, this flipped activity could improve learners’ language learning.

I am really looking forward to testing out this activity with my A2 Elementary students and seeing how they respond to this approach as well as videotelling with my A1 Beginner students.

References

Hattie, J.A.C. (2003, October) Teachers make a difference: What is the research evidence? Paper presented at the Building Teacher Quality: What does the research tell us ACER Research Conference, Melbourne, Australia. Retrieved from http://research.acer.edu.au/research_conference_2003/4/

Keddie, J. (2014) The Clumsy Best Man (video) available from: http://lessonstream.org/2011/05/12/videotelling/ [accessed 1603/17]

Keddie, J. (2014) Bringing online video into the classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Krashen, S.D. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition (PDF). Oxford: Pergamon.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.