Institution: Sheredes School

“The Flip does only one thing - take short, spontaneous videos. Nothing else. No still pictures, no MP3 player, no phone, no GPS. Just short videos. But in less than a year the maker, Pure Digital, has sold more than a million in the US and last week launched it here. So what is its appeal?” Chris Partridge, The Guardian 19th June 2008

Context
Sheredes is a friendly mixed secondary school for students aged 11-18 in what has been described as “the leafy market town of Hoddesdon.”  The school first opened its doors in 1965 and was the subject of The Common Curriculum by Maurice Holt.
 
Holt was the school’s first Headteacher and his book details the thinking behind mixed-ability teaching and the core curriculum, and how the school management structure and the new school building reflected this. Teachers at Sheredes strive to make the pupils’ learning relevant, motivating and interesting.

Key objectives

• To improve oral confidence and fluency in MFL lessons by using a Flip Camcorder
• To engage the interest of those who may be less motivated to speak in lessons.

How activities are organised

• The class is divided into four ‘divisions’ and ‘quarter captains’ are nominated for each division
• The quarter captains then go to the teacher to collect ideas which revolve around speaking French while showing the rest of the class a short video which has been made using the Flip camcorder
• Two ideas that worked well: three pupils interviewed a member of staff about some Yves Saint Laurent designs. Two pupils were shown around a proud teacher’s new car
• At this point, what was a creative authoring task becomes a listening comprehension activity for the rest of the class
• Finally the video clip is played with the English soundtrack to check that what has previously been presented in French has been understood correctly
•  In order to be successful the children need to learn some of the French that is useful to presenting, reporting and interpreting
• The teacher should develop ideas using clips to model what we want the pupils to produce. It is important also to decide how to structure the lessons so that pupils know what to do when they are waiting to use the Flip camcorder
• Importantly, teachers will find that they can learn a lot from their pupils as they are often more proficient with technology and relish the opportunity for creativity.

Results/effect

• Asking the pupils to work out what they can say to a target audience of their own class promotes a sense of freedom and confidence and motivates and stimulates them
• The combination of words and moving images shot by the pupils themselves makes the others in the class listen with interest
• There is a purpose to remembering the French they are to say; it is a tool alongside their drama and media skills
• More pupils enjoy more of their work in MFL.

Future developments
If pupils are used to the idea of researching and presenting ideas in an interesting way in class, it will help them gain greater fluency for oral examinations and so the Flip Cam could be used to help them prepare for these examinations.

Author: Clive Hoare, Sheredes School