Lewis Lansford, co-author of Unlock, continues his series looking at use of video activities in the ELT classroom. In this post he gives two quick exercises that help students with all four skills – speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Speaking and listening: Video information gap
This is a fun, motivating activity that lowers students’ inhibitions and gets them talking. All you will need is one short video clip – lasting no longer than two minutes.
1. Arrange the class into two groups, with one group able to see the video and the other group with their back to it. The group that can see the video are the speakers, and the group that can’t are the listeners. Each student in the speaking group should be facing a student in the listening group, close enough to speak easily.
2. Explain that the video will be played with no sound, and that the students who can see the screen must speak, describing what they see. The task of the students who cannot see the video is to listen to the description. Encourage the speakers to start as soon as the video clip begins, and tell them they can use single words. They don’t have to speak in full sentences.
3. Start the clip. If students in the speaking group aren’t speaking, encourage them to do so. Some students will probably not only listen to their partner, but to others around them too. This is OK. As long as there’s plenty of speaking and listening going on, the exercise is working.
4. After the clip has finished, ask the listeners to explain what the video was about. Guide them as necessary, and let them work together as a group to try to piece it together. Agree the basic story of the video with the whole class.
5. Allow the whole class to watch the clip again, either with or without the sound to check their answer.
Writing and reading: Create the voiceover
This is another activity that uses video without the sound. The beauty of silent video is that students can comprehend what they see far more easily than what they hear. You can limit the language input, or choose a video that fits well with what you’ve been studying. This works well with clips of up to 5–6 minutes.
1. Explain that you’re going to show a video with no sound and while watching, the students should try to imagine what spoken words and sentences could go with the images.
2. Play the video. Ask students to note down their ideas as they watch.
3. Put the students in groups of 3–4. Working together, they should first agree on what type of video it was: drama, advertisement, documentary, etc. and then on what the images were, in order. They can write this is a list, or as a comic-style storyboard.
4. Next, have students decide what they think the voiceover could say. There’s no correct answer to this, and there’s plenty of room for humour, which can be very motivating.
5. Give the class twenty minutes or so to write their script. They should write it neatly, because another group is going to have to read it. Circulate around the groups and give assistance as necessary.
6. Now have each group pass their script to another group. The groups should read through their new script and make any necessary corrections to the language. Help out as necessary.
7. Now it’s time to see how the scripts match the video. With smaller classes, the groups can take it in turn to present the voiceover they’ve just corrected to the whole class. With larger classes, you can play the video and have groups simultaneously read their voiceovers to the rest of their small group. Circulate, listen, and then choose two or three to present for the whole class.
Have fun!
If you do use either exercise, why not come back and let us know how it went in the comments below? It would also be great to hear if you have any variations of these exercises that you have found to work well.