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
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