When it comes to the use of videos in English learning and teaching in my context, I have to mention the 3 types of teaching objectives required to achieve by the national English curriculum standards for full-time compulsory senior high school students in China. They are knowledge objectives, skills and abilities objectives and affection, attitude and value development. Knowledge objectives refer to knowing the information in texts and mastering the words and grammar. Abilities goals include skills needed for language learning such as skimming and scanning. Other than acquiring language knowledge and skills in English class, cultivating students’ interest in a certain area and a positive attitude in life need to be embedded in students’ learning process, which is the third teaching objective, namely affection, attitude and value development.

As far as I observe, videos are usually selected and used by teachers to achieve the third type of objectives. At the beginning of class, the video is played as a lead-in with the aim of stimulating student’ interest in a certain topic by offering information or target language. Normally, the video is very short, maximum 1-2 minutes because the entire class is only 40- 45 minutes long. Additionally, videos are frequently used in the last few minutes during a class. The videos may contain more information relevant to the topic in class. With its strong visual and auditory effects, certain emotions can be created to respond to the learning materials and develop attitudes and values in real life. For example, today’s reading is about how a disabled person overcomes his disabilities to live a colourful life as normal people do. After students get the key information by learning words and expressions and practising different reading skills, students are required to develop a positive attitude to life and treat the disabled equally. To achieve this goal, students may have a discussion first and then watch a video about other disabled people, making them value their present life and respect the disabled more.

When talking with other teachers in my school, they do realize the benefits of using videos in class, as research has found. First of all, videos compensate for the deficiencies in our course books. Learners can be exposed to realistic situations and real living language which provides a dimension that is missing in textbook-orientated teaching. (King, 2002) Secondly, the video uses modalities of communication which other materials don’t. Visuals and sounds can “provide a range of paralinguistic clues”, which facilitates successful comprehension and accurate understanding(Hill, 1999: 2). Nevertheless, from my observation, few language-related activities are created based on the video, except for speaking. The speaking activities are more based on the lesson topic than the video itself, which means teachers seldom make use of the language in the video as input. In this case, the students do not necessarily benefit from the video in terms of language learning.

This phenomenon may be caused by the following factors. Firstly, the video with appropriate language input is hard to get. Teachers in China have no access to video websites such as Youtube where English is the dominant language. Secondly, lack of technological skills confronts teachers with challenges of shortening the video, adding captions or subtitles, etc. Last but not least, most teachers have little knowledge or training of designing language-related activities based on videos.

However, with easier and more affordable access to video-making, especially the wide use of smartphones, some changes about video use have taken place. In my school, it has been a new trend that students are required to shoot a video in English to present the target language. For example, students learn the target language themselves, either vocabulary or grammar, and then record how they use the words or grammar in real-life communication. Students’ participation and involvement can contribute to a great enhancement of motivation and the learning autonomy. Nevertheless, the overwhelming study load in Chinese high school and the argument about the use of smartphones in school seem to be great barriers to promoting such video projects. Moreover, the principles of group organization and students allocation should be taken into account based on these elements, such as the participants’ levels and personalities、the content of the project and the language learning targets etc. But, from time to time, teachers make short videos to produce micro-learning for students. The one below was created by me two years ago.

All in all, there is much potential for the use of video in the language class. More collaboration among teachers in my context may make more use of video for language learning.

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