Ryeznik Maryna

Dnipropetrovsk National University

Using video in teaching English as a foreign language

Video is a valuable classroom tool. It is used for teaching a variety of language skills. Not only do the students listen to different people talking which helps to train the ear, they learn new vocabulary which is used in a context (and thus is better understood and remembered).

Video brings the outside world into the classroom. Students realize people speak this language and live where this language is spoken. It increases motivation, interest and active involvement of students.

Video provides students with a more effective, yet relaxing way of learning English. This, along with the fact that video is stimulating and very effective in triggering the imagination of students, makes them speak eagerly and willingly, thus eliminating the fear of making mistakes.

Video can be used in class for different purposes – for aural practice, for better understanding of grammar, to introduce new topics, to encourage a discussion, to provide interesting content to stimulate students’ writing, to stimulate the production of target vocabulary, to provide illustrations for various concepts. Thus, depending on the purpose, different techniques can be used, but in general the activities can be divided into pre-viewing, while-viewing and post-viewing tasks.

There are many activities we can do with the video clips. Here are some of them.

Getting the students to role-play the movie can be fun and motivating, allowing them to practice sentence stress in a context. The procedure is as follows:

- The clip is played once or twice with the whole class to get the gist and understand the setting.

- Each student is assigned a role (e.g. if there are 3 characters in the clip, each student is one of them).

- Each character is given a script corresponding to their part in the clip and a couple of focus questions for viewing their character. The passage is viewed again.

- The students are put in a group to practice their roles, using their scripts, then to perform without scripts.

- Students who are not keen on role play can be directors/prompters with the whole script.

It is an additional advantage, if this is an emotional scene with lots of gestures. Role-playing such episodes facilitates remembering, because the students' emotions are involved.

The dictogloss method, which is often regarded as a multiple skills activity, can easily be adapted to video. This method gives the students an excellent opportunity to work on grammar. If it is needed, a short review of the grammatical form being emphasized should be provided. The teacher also introduces difficult or unknown vocabulary that appears in the clip. Both of these should be done as a previewing activity. After this:

- Students watch the selected passage/clip a few times and write the main words and short phrases that a particular character says.

- Each group is given a character and is encouraged to listen and exchange information. This usually works better if there are two characters in the scene.

- Working with someone from a different group, they write the script for the scene, incorporating both characters. The students are reminded that they should try to reconstruct the scene as close to the original as possible in grammar and content.

- At least one group is selected to reproduce the reconstructed scene. Then the whole class is engaged in the discussion with particular focus on the grammatical form emphasized.

- The students’ scripts should be compared with the original clip. Learners practice listening, writing and speaking (by working in groups) and use vocabulary, grammar and discourse systems in order to complete the task.

Another good activity is to get the students to predict the language. This way they watch the selected extract more carefully, paying special attention to the vocabulary used in it. The emotionally charged scene with plenty of gestures will stimulate the imagination.

- The students are given the script with the key items removed, e.g. key words, expressions, verbs.

- The scene is viewed with the sound off and students use the visual clues to brainstorm the missing items.

- The scene is viewed again, this time with the sound on, to check predictions and complete the script. The students can be asked to read or/and role-play it.

The reverse technique is to play the sound only, and have the students discuss what the scene might look like. The teacher may also make good use of the freeze-frame option, particularly if the material is proving to be difficult, to check comprehension and to answer unanticipated questions.

Of course, these are not all the activities. The list could be continued. But whatever techniques are used, we should remember that using video in a classroom requires special preparation from the teacher. It is the teacher’s responsibility to adapt the video to the curriculum, students’ level and age, to enhance active viewing.

Integrating video into the methods of teaching English as a foreign language is inevitable, because it has proved to be effective. It supports communicative competence training and improvement. No doubts, we can add a whole new dimension to aural practice in the classroom using video. The setting, action, emotions, gestures, etc. that the students can observe in a video passage, whether it is a current news broadcast, a short documentary, a music video, a trailer for a film, a scene from a full-length film or a cartoon, provide an important visual stimulus for language production and practice. As they say, “A picture is worth a thousand of words”. Imagine the worth of a moving picture!