Humanising Language Teaching
Year 6; Issue 3; September 04

Motivating and Challenging Students with Four Video Activities

Paolo Torresan
piroclastico@tin.it
University of Venice, Italy

In this article I want to present 4 interesting strategies for keeping students' motivation and interest high when a video sequence is shown.

1.

Hedi Jobst suggests an intriguing writing task as a warming-up technique¹ . Before the lesson, the teacher extracts twenty photograms: ten of characters appearing in the sequence, and ten of objects (one could decide to use fewer items, depending on the linguistic competence of the class, the length of the sequence and the number of characters who appear in it).

1. puts students in pairs

2. hands out a list of ten items to each student:

In the gap at the top students A write characters, whilst students B write objects.

1. Students A are shown the sequence of the ten characters twice and have to take notes about each of them.

2. In the opposite corner of the same room (or in another class), students B are shown the sequence of the ten objects twice and have to take notes about each of them.

3. Each pair, made up of one student A and one student B, have to create a story, mixing the different characters and objects, according to the order in which they appear.

4. Finally, they compare their story with the original sequence.

2.

Mauro Rostagno has designed an effective activity to enhance the comprehension of a video sequence².The sequence is split into four or five micro sequences, which are jumbled. Then the activity proceeds as follows:

1. The class is divided into pairs. The class is shown the first micro sequence (sound on and vision on). After viewing, students can consult together about what they have seen and what they have listened to.

2. The class are shown the other three/four jumbled micro sequences (vision on and sound off), and each pair has to guess the right order.

3. The teacher hands out the script of the micro sequences. Each pair then matches each script to the right micro sequence and checks the hypothesis they have previously made about the order of the micro sequences. One of the scripts is incomplete.

4. The whole sequence is shown (vision on and sound on for all the micro sequences; sound off for the micro sequence whose script is incomplete) and students can check their predictions.

5. Each pair makes up the dialogue for the incomplete sequence and, after watching at and listening to the microsequence as many times as they like, they try to dub it.

3.

Christopher Humphris and Piero Catizone in Volare, a handbook of Italian as a Foreign Language, present two brilliant techniques. The first one is the Linguistic Puzzle by Counters and can be used to stimulate students to investigate the grammar of a conversation extract. Students will have already done some comprehension activities on the whole text (listened to on tape or video) the extract is taken from. They are encouraged to write down the text by listening to the tape many times. They are not supposed to rewrite the text by adding words in a "linear" way (the second word after the first one and so on), but they have to write down the words they catch each time, without considering the position the words have in the full text. In other words, linguistic puzzle means combining different pieces of language, according to the words one catches. The activity is split into two phases.

First Phase

1. Each student listens to the extract the first time, without taking notes.

2. Students listen to the same text many times and take notes.

3. When the teacher realizes that there is someone who is not adding any more words, he invites students to confer with the person sitting next to them.

4. Students are exposed to further listenings. After each listening, each student confers with a new partner about the notes taken. When there is no more information to exchange, the teacher invites students to recreate the text by using grammatical and contextual logic. Finally, they rewrite the text.

1. The class is split into groups. Each group is made up of three to six students.

2. Each student is given a number of counters (three/four).

3. The teacher announces that a game will start; the players are, on the one hand the class and on the other the teacher. The class will win if, by the end of the lesson, they are able to fill in all the gaps they have in their script; on the contrary, if they have no more counters and they have not reconstructed the whole text yet, the winner is the teacher.

4. According to the rules the teacher writes on the blackboard, each group can ask the teacher questions and use their counters to "pay for" the answers.

HOW MANY WORDS ARE THERE BETWEEN X AND Y? (TWO COUNTERS) WHAT IS THE GRAMMATICAL NATURE OF THE WORD BEFORE/AFTER X? (ONE COUNTER) WHAT IS THE WORD BEFORE/AFTER X? (FIVE COUNTERS)

5. The game starts.

After making sure that everyone has understood the questions, the teacher presents the free of charge questions. He/she writes them below the ones written before, so finally this list will appear on the blackboard:

• HOW MANY WORDS ARE THERE BETWEEN X AND Y? (TWO COUNTERS) ARE THERE #N WORD BETWEEN X AND Y? FREE - Max 1 TRIAL WHAT IS THE GRAMMATICAL NATURE OF THE WORD BEFORE/AFTER X? (ONE COUNTER) IS THE WORD AFTER X A VERB? AN ADJECTIVE, etc.? FREE - Max 4 TRIAL WHICH IS THE WORD BEFORE/AFTER X ? (FIVE COUNTERS) IS THE WORD AFTER X Y? FREE - No limits FOR TRIALS

4.

The second activity described in Volare is the Listening Quiz. It is worth using it with documentaries or movie sequences full of information. This activity is split into three phases.
First Phase

1. The sequence is shown four times to students. After each viewing, everyone exchanges the information he/she has grasped to a new partner. From the third viewing they have to take notes.

1. The class is divided into two teams. The sequence is shown at least three more times. After each vision, the team members consult each other about the notes taken.

2. Everyone works alone. He/she has to formulate at least two questions to ask to the other team about the content of the sequence.

3. Each team sit in a circle. A student reads his first question and his/her team mates help him/her to correct the form, then it is the turn of the next one and so on. At the end, each team has to have twice as many questions as the number of team members, and there should not be two or more questions which allow the same answer.

4. While students are engaged in the editing activity, the teacher writes the rules of the game on the blackboard, without giving the score:

1) IF THE QUESTION IS NOT GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT... 2) IF ONE CORRECTS THE GRAMMAR OF THE OTHER TEAM'S QUESTION... 3) IF THE ASWER IS RIGHT... 4) IF ONE SPEAKS IN HIS/HER MOTHERTONGUE...

5. When both of the teams have finished the correction phase (and not before, so as to avoid distraction), the teacher recalls their attention to the blackboard, explains the different rules, and assigns a score for each item:

1) IF THE QUESTION IS NOT GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT -1 2) IF ONE CORRECTS THE GRAMMAR OF THE OTHER TEAM QUESTION +1 3) IF THE ASWER IS RIGHT +1 4) IF ONE SPEAKS IN HIS/HER MOTHERTONGUE -1

6. Each team is given a starting bonus of 10 points.

1. The members of the two teams stand in opposite rows along two walls. Everyone faces an opponent: the number 1 of team A faces the number 1 of team B, and so on.

2. The challenge starts. The number 1 of team A asks the number 1 of team B a question. In a minute, whoever is asked the question has to say whether the question is correct or not and, if it is not, can correct it. In another minute he/she also has to answer the question, helped by his/her team mates. During this minute he can formulate more than one answer.

3. The teacher intervenes in the game if there is any dispute between the two teams.