Málfríður - 15.12.1985, Page 6

Málfríður - 15.12.1985, Page 6
Jacqueline Friðriksdóttir: Video in the classroom — its use and limitations In this article on the use of video I will limit my discussion to the use of video-taped recordings (VTR) in the classroom; that is films specially produced for English language teaching (ELT) and authentic mat- erials, feature films, T.V. pro- grammes etc. I will not attempt to deal with the making of films or the value of video recordings of class- room teaching to the in-service and pre-training of teachers as those are issues that have to be dealt with as separate subjects. Video is a new and in many ways a very exciting teaching aid in Ice- landic schools. It is yet another valuable aid to the language teacher and should be exploited as such, but like all other teaching aids it has its limitations. There is a temptation to look upon video as something more than just an aid, something which can rival or overshadow the teacher or even replace him or her. This is simply within the nature of the medium. There are two major difficulties for foreign language teachers in using video recordings in the class- room. The first is a general one and pertains to all video materials. The students have a preconceived idea of what watching "the box" is all about. Programmes vary and like other people, students rarely react strongly to what they see (as can be shown by the number of times the television is kept on though no one is watching. The students knöw precisely what to do when the set is turned on (i.e. nothing) and won't easily be persuaded to do anything else. In this respect the use of video materials is very different from that of audio (tape-recorded) materials where the students have only to listen to the sounds they hear in the foreign language and are, thus, more prepared to accept whatever the teacher decides to do with that material. The cassette recorder has become an accepted part of the classroom furnishings and is Iooked upon as a teaching and learning aid to be taken seriously, unlike Iike T.V. which is considered, by teachers and learners alike, prim- arily as a means of passive enter- tainment. Therefore using VTR material actively is not easy. The second problem (which applies mainly to VTR materials especially produced for ELT) is that students are used to highly polished programmes and films on T.V. and are therefore very critical of the low budget projects produced by groups of ex-ELT teachers. Wooden char- acters, poor acting, bad camera work and language points often taught blatantly make the purpose of such films so painfully obvious that it is no wonder that the students feel cheated. A film which has all the promise of producing an exciting and interesting lesson turns out to be yet another excuse for practising the third person singular of the present tense, "that awful s". It's hard to accept, under these circumstances as Jack Lonergan suggests in Video in Langucige Teaching published bv Cambridge University Press page 4 that video t'ilms are able to present "complete communicative situations. The combination of sound and vision is dynamic. immediate and accessible. Communication can be shown in context and the many factors in communication can be perceived easily by the viewers." He mentions the value of seeing real people, their age, sex, social status, relationships, moods, feelings etc. in real situa- tions. This is certainly true of some feature films, but much less so in a Iarge number of commercially pro- duced video materials for foreign language learners. I’m not implying that all VTRs for language teaching are useless for Icelandic students, there are some excellent products on the market e.g. 'í'he Blind Detective by Jack Lonergan and Howard Thomas and The Visitor by Doug Case, both published by Nelson. However, a more useful part of specially design- ed ELT videos is often the work- book which accompanies the tapes. In these workbooks there is a wealth of ideas which teachers can adapt to use with ordinary films not specially designed for foreign language teaching. Using full-length films presents problems because of the time they take. Though the films can be split up into 15 — 20 minute units, students tend to react strongly against this, as they are impatient with any task that is set until they have seen the whole film. Not all teachers would agree with this statement and can rightly point out that since people are prepared to watch serials on T.V. a film can be split up into teachable units. Whatever method is chosen it is important that there is an intro- duction to the film, or a part of the film and that a task is set to help the students to understand what the 6

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