My latest article for the Korea Herald is now out and it is on using video in the classroom. Read it at the Korea Herald site or look in the extended entry.

I have previously posted several entries with materials for download on this blog. You can find them below.

• Smallville Pilot
• Smallville - Metamorphosis
• Lost Pilot
• Corner Gas
• Prison Break

There might be more, but I can’t remember everything I’ve written on this blog in the last 4.5 years. If you find these useful, please leave a comment and let me know.

At the bottom of the article I’ve included a reader question - the first on the column, if you can help out, why not leave a comment.

Korea Herald Readers

Welcome. Feel free to comment and leave your thoughts on this weeks column. If you would like to learn more about me visit my bio page. I have also been blogging at this site for 4 years so there are a lot of entries if you care to look through the archives. Some of my favorite or more popular entries are available on the classic entries page.

Teachers in all subject areas use video for teaching because as a species humans are primarily visual learners. However there are good and not so good ways to incorporate video into the language learning classroom.

This article will focus on the use of television and movies as opposed to music videos or YouTube videos due to the extended context provided by these media and their popularity with students, and teachers, for language learning.

Browsing various internet forums I have read that many teachers use video with their learners by inserting the DVD in the player, hitting play and watching the entire movie or TV episode in one sitting followed by a few discussion questions. I can only wonder what if any learning opportunity is provided with that method that the learner could not do by themselves at home.

The problem with the above method, and I speak from experience, is that many students will lose focus or even fall asleep during the video, thus not understanding everything (even with subtitles), and not be able to answer discussion questions due to lack of retention of the storyline.

Watching television and movies without subtitles is a goal that many language learners have, however most of them also say that it is too difficult and resort to watching with Korean subtitles. Clearly the average learner is not gaining much by watching programs without pausing.

With that in mind teachers should provide learners with instruction on how to best utilize video for language learning. This can be done explicitly through classroom instruction or implicitly through classroom activities; Personally I combine both of these approaches.

Often times I do not even complete a single, 40 minute, TV episode in one two hour class. With the lesson I prepared for the Prison Break pilot episode, students only watch eighteen minutes of the program over three hours.  Usually there will be some warm-up before the TV even gets turned on with discussion about the show in general or about the general theme of the episode.

Next I select several scenes and prepare a transcript for the students. For this I go to http://www.twiztv.com/ and then format the transcript to suit my needs. This involves deleting the parts of the script I’m not using and then placing it into columns in order to increase readability. I also watch the scenes in questions while reading the transcripts because there are often errors due to these being produced by fans and not professionals – doing so remains much more efficient than transcribing everything myself.

Editing the script reduces the size of handouts and also further focuses students attention on specific areas that the teacher has chosen – these could be related to material covered earlier in the course, interesting topics, cultural observations and idioms or colloquial language. 

My handouts typically run six to eight pages with each two page spread used to define the viewing time before discussion. I usually highlight several difficult words, phrases, or idioms in a box on with definitions, while on the second page there will be a list of questions related to the scenes just watched.

This approach keeps students focused as there are regular breaks in viewing with students aware that they will be required to discuss what they are watching. Students also have the script and questions for the scenes in question which allows them follow along even if their listening skills are not quite up strictly aural environment. As a further aid in this area I also recommend watching video with English subtitles rather than no subtitles.

Additionally by preparing video that is interesting to the students as well as questions that are personalized students will be more inclined to actively participate. A final benefit of not showing complete episodes in the classroom is that students may be motivated to finish watching on their own outside of class.

Movies can also be structured in this same way. I personally recommend using a TV series since students who watch entire seasons on their own will gain the benefit of extended context that isn’t available in movies.

The process is quite long for planning a lesson around video, it takes me about ten hours to prepare one episode, but it is well worth it. A well planned video lesson can be reused for many semesters. The benefit only increases when you can use it with multiple sections of the same class.

I have uploaded several sample lessons to my blog which can be downloaded in PDF and MS Publisher formats.

Joanie’s Question

Thanks for your article today in the Korea Herald. It is very timely for me! I am starting a university job and inheriting a “Film English” class with zero to go on. I have been unable to find your sample lessons on the blog. Can you please direct me.! I really appreciate knowing about your site. Do you have a text to recommend as well? Thanks.
Joanie

Joanie, I haven’t used a textbook for film. I try to use as many of my own materials as possible. However, unlike yourself I’ve been supplementing regular courses with film. In your situation I may look to using a text, but would probably plan to show 3-4 films per half semester with loads of discussions and presentations by students. With a 4 hour class (2 hours twice a week) and 16 weeks even that would be quite challenging to complete. good luck and I hope others respond to your question.