Ideas for exploiting video in the Classroom

Aims:
Reassess how video can be exploited in the classroom by embracing visual stimuli.
Materials required:
Any piece of video material you have used recently in class.
Appropriate for:
trainees, new or experienced teachers providing they have had some previous experience of
using video in class
Applicable to learners:
at any level

The most traditional way of exploiting video in class is to focus on language. It is commonplace for
learners to watch a sequence and then answer comprehension questions based on it. This could
be laid out as a simple gap-fill task in which learners select a lexical item they have heard, or the
focus could be on skills practice: the learners might be asked to extract the gist of a conversation
that they have seen. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this approach but it does treat the
video format as audio, which means that learners are looking at the screen and at their books at
the same time*.
An alternative approach is to go beyond comprehension and focus on the visual stimuli. For
example, show the video sequence without sound and ask the class true/false questions based on
purely visual information or ask learners to tick the elements that they have seen. Video sequences
which have no dialogue can be chosen, as certain scenes lend themselves well to this approach.
For example, chase sequences in action movies or the openings of films; the latter often establish
the setting, atmosphere and characters without the need for any dialogue. Likewise, any sequence
in which body language is highlighted should work well.
*Note: There is nothing wrong per se with comprehension tasks based around video sequences.
However, the emphasis should not be on testing comprehension but building it collaboratively. For
example, a classic task is to get learners to reconstruct the meaning of any given piece of material.
Some learners will understand some information and others will grasp other parts. Working as a
group, the class can come to a global understanding of the video in question.

Cambridge English Teacher Cambridge University Press and Cambridge English Language Assessment 2014

The Task
1. Find a piece of video material that you have used for comprehension type activities. Play the
video without any sound. Note down any visual elements that attract your attention. What stands
out visually from the sequence?
2. Bearing in mind these visual elements, design a short task around them. If there are many
different elements, you could design a visual memory test or get learners to sequence a series of
images in the order in which they appear in the clip. You can also raise the challenge by including
detractors (elements which dont appear in the video) or asking learners to correct false information
based on visual stimuli.
3. Try it out with your students. What is their reaction to watching video in this way? Learner
expectations and classroom experience may mean that students are first rather puzzled by such an
approach.
4. In future lessons, try experimenting with both comprehension based tasks and tasks based on
visual stimuli. Which ones do your learners prefer? In which order do the different activity types
work best?
5. Finally, experiment with more open-ended questions which do not have single, straightforward
answers. For example, try freeze-framing a video sequence and asking questions about a
particular visual element such as what a particular piece of body language means. Encourage
different responses. This should generate more language in class and encourage all learners to
contribute.

Bibliography
Goldstein, B. & Driver, P. (2014) Language Learning with Digital Video, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Cambridge English Teacher Cambridge University Press and Cambridge English Language Assessment 2014