Using Video in Your Classroom

While watching television is often seen as a passive viewing experience, there are ways to turn it into a springboard for student interaction.

Here are some general teaching strategies that enhance the use of video materials in your classroom by targeting specific skill sets. Click on one of the areas below or scroll down.

• Predicting
• Viewing Comprehension
• Listening Practice
• Speaking Practice
• Discussion

Predicting

With picture and audio on: Use the pause control to stop a scene and have students predict what will happen next. Use the pause control to stop after a particular line of dialogue and have students predict the next line.
With audio off: Have students predict the situation and characterizations based on viewing an entire scene without the sound. Have students predict lines of dialogue after viewing an entire scene without the sound. Have students predict individual lines of dialogue by using the pause button to stop the scene.
With picture off: Have students predict the situation and characterizations by listening to the soundtrack without watching the picture.

Viewing Comprehension

You can check students' understanding of the situation and characters in the following ways: Before watching: Give students specific things to look and listen for before they watch a scene.

While watching:

• Freeze-frame the scene by using the pause button and check students' understanding.

While watching or after watching:

• Have students answer comprehension questions you devise.

After watching:

• Give students cloze scripts and have them fill in missing words in dialog lines.

Listening Practice

Have students focus on the dialogue contained in a scene by listening for particular vocabulary words, structures, or functional expressions. TV Dictation: Have students write dialogue lines as they view them, using the pause control to stop the scene after each line. Cloze Scripts: As students view a scene, have them fill in missing words in a cloze script you have created.

Speaking Practice

• Role Plays: Have students role play a scene, practicing the lines of dialogue for correct intonation and emphasis.
• On-Location Interviews: Have students circulate around the classroom and interview each other using questions contained in the video segment. Students can then report to the class about their interviews.
• Information Gap: Have half the class see a segment without audio and the other half hear it without the picture. Students from each half of the class then pair up, talk about the situation and characters, and act out the scene.
• Strip Dialogue Scenes: Write dialogue lines on separate strips of paper, distribute them randomly, and have students recreate the scene by putting the lines together.

Discussion

Have students discuss the scene, plot and characters' actions, thoughts, and feelings. Have students think about what the characters in the scene are thinking but not saying. Students can create these interior monologues, present them to the class, and discuss any varying opinions about characters' inner thoughts during the scene. Have students tell which characters they identify with and explain why.

Adapted from Side by Side TV Reference Guide. You can also visit the Side by Side Companion Website.

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