The motivational appeal of digital video cannot be denied and
students will always be keen to work with a camcorder or a mobile
phone with video capability. For the teacher of languages, digital
video can be much more than a way of motivating and engaging
students. Used with a clear purpose digital video can be effective
in improving language performance and changing the way learning
takes place.
Digital video can be used in many ways to improve target
language performance:
- Focus on pronunciation and speaking
- Role plays
- Point and speak
- News bulletins/out-and-about reports/weather forecast
- Celebrity interviews
- PowerPoint presentation to the class
- Reading poetry aloud to develop expressiveness
- Exploring GCSE topics such as home or pets, or leisure time
activities
- Drama: scripted with a simple dialogue
- Documentary: footage with a voice over on social themes such as
youth culture, local community issues, urban change and so. These
themes might be exploited successfully with video at AS or A
Level
- Interpretative: exploring a mood, or concept such as happiness,
or summertime
- Ads, information, promotion: Our school
- Instructional, guidance, reference. There is cross-curricular
potential here.
Digital video clips can be used when teaching the whole class
using the interactive whiteboard. Clips may be created on
camcorders or mobile phones and can be of holidays abroad, exchange
trips or the local community or area. They may also be obtained
from partner schools abroad as part of a resource-swapping
exercise, or created in school by Foreign Language Assistants and
stored on the school network as a resource or built into
presentations or interactive materials created with authoring
software. Examples of the latter can be found at Ashcombe Language
College. Digital video can be very effective in helping students to
improve language performance in a novel and engaging way so long as
the purpose of the activity is clear to all concerned from the
outset. The teacher should share objectives with students. The
teacher might want to improve one or more of the following:
- Pronunciation
- Language awareness
- Confidence in speaking
- Memorisation skills
- Learning skills
- Motivation
- Creativity
Additionally it may be important to
- raise the profile of modern languages in the school
- place target language use in a meaningful context where there
are goals to achieve
- develop collaborative skills
- promote critical skills, whether through self-assessment or
peer assessment
While video is a useful resource for a teacher to use, for
students it is a means to self-improvement in many of the areas
outlined above. For this to happen, students must be prepared
to
- draft and re-draft scripts paying close attention to
accuracy
- research for extended language to meet the needs of their
script
- re-take shots to improve pronunciation and intonation
- develop memorisation skills
- work collaboratively and stay within allotted roles as
director, camera operator, editor etc
- develop planning and organisational skills: clear storyboards,
planning and listing shots, organising props, checking
equipment
- be decisive when editing, sometimes sacrificing cherished
footage
develop technical skills
- accept that working with video is time-consuming and requires
extra effort and team spirit
For those who accept these demands the effects can be very
positive. Research has shown that working with digital video
- increases motivation and engagement
- develops literacy skills
- students understand better such issues as narrative, character,
genre, and plot
- students improve the effectiveness of their communication by
focusing so closely on language within the tight parameters of
video production
- students develop an improved understanding of the relationship
between language and image
- opens up the potential of cross-curricular uses
- develops literacy skills:
- working with text, image, and objects
- problem-solving
- negotiation
- planning and organisation
- collaboration
- prioritisation and decision-making