A video course for teachers

Chris

Kennedy

A Video

Course

for

Teachers

Introduction The use of video as a teaching aid }s becoming more widespread in English Language Teaching including the field of English for Specific Purposes ~. Its use is motivating for the learner who can be presented with the authentic data of the situations for which he is being prepared as a student, whether these be (in an ESP situation) listening to lectures or participating in seminars, for example 3. The authentic and immediate qualities of video film can release the learner from classroom-bound activities. Furthermore, by exposing the learner to the non-verbal as well as the verbal aspects o f c o m m u n i c a t l o n , video film can greatly assist listening comprehension. It is more and more likely that TEFL teachers will be working in institutions which already have vldeo/TV facilities or w h i c h would be interested in acquiring them if there were a suitably experienced teacher available. It therefore seems logical that part of a TEFL/Applied Linguistics teacher training programme should include an introduction to the use of video. We are fortunate at Birmingham in having a TV and Film Unit wh i c h is able to put at our disposal a small TV studio fitted with 3 Sony cameras, lighting, sound/vldeo recording etc. Using these facilities and working closely with the TV Unit's personnel I am able to run a short video course for experienced, native-speaker teachers of EFL as part of their degree programme 4 • I have already justified the inclusion of such a course on practical grounds, but there are also more theoretlcal reasons. The objective of the course is to make a video film for a specific audience and in order to do this, the group involved have to make very real decisions,

Isee, for example, reports in ESL Video Newsletter World Engllsh Center, University 6f San Francisco. 2See my review paper

'Video in ESP'

(mimeo).

(1978).

3Sturtrldge G. (et al.) 'The British Council and the English language problems of overseas students: English for academic purposes materlals development' in En@llsh for Academic Purposes (eds. Cowie and Heaton) B~AL/Selmous publication 1977. 4A post-experience degree course leading to BPHIL in Applied Linguistics.

140 albeit on a small scale, about syllabus planning and course design - needs of learners, relevance of materials, authentic or 'simplified' language etc. As a practical project at the end of a year's work it has the effect of focussing the soclopsycholinguistic aspects of learning and teaching which have been covered in earlier parts of the programme. Aims and objectives The aims of the course were to introduce the teachers to basic TV techniques, camera operation, sound and vision mixing, floor managing, programme research and direction. The aims were to be achieved through the final objective which was the production by the group and teachers of a short, I015 minute, video film for use in ELT. Constraints We have very llttle studio time at our disposal, only 4 afternoon sessions in the studio Its91f. Plannlng and preparation sessions have to be efflclently'conducted so that all materials, props, actors were ready and filming could take place in the studio with the minimum of delay. With such a short time at our disposal, we had to be selectlve about the content of the technical aspects of the course. We concentrated much more on the practical operation of the equipment and less on the theoretical principles behind it. We therefore relied heavily on the expertise of the TV Unit's staff for both technical and production advice. The whole operation depended very much on t e a m w o r k between the group following the course, myself and two TV staff, one advising on production, the other responsible for the technical aspects of sound and vision recording. The programme

(1) ~z~_2~_~s~!~!~x The first stage in the plannlng of the programme the group were to produce was a discussion to decide what use we could put video to and what sort of programme should be produced. (I am not suggesting this as a mode of operation when actually designing an ELT syllabus). In this case, a needs analysis will hopefully reveal areas which need to be taught/ learned and only then can it be considered whether video might contribute to the learning/teaching in some way). The group first decided that a major advantage of video lay in the opportunity to present communicative situations which could act both as listening comprehension ~ractlce and lead on to exploitation in role-play activities ~.

5Knight M. 'Video in Oral Proficiency Training' Vol 3, No. 2., May 1975.

in System

141

(2) T h e a u d i e n c e It was a g r e e d that the film should be d i r e c t e d at an audie n c e of o v e r s e a s s t u d e n t s w h o w e r e s t u d y i n g at a u n i v e r s i t y in Britain. (In this case, B i r m i n g h a m ) . T h e p r o p o s a l was that the f i l m s h o u l d fit into an E n g l i s h for A c a d e m i c Purp o s e s p r o g r a m m e a n d that, t h e o r e t i c a l l y , it w o u l d be one of a series i n t r o d u c i n g the s t u d e n t to life in the u n i v e r sity and in the city. The film w o u l d then have a dual function: (a) p r o v i d i n g useful i n f o r m a t i o n for the s t u d e n t (b) d e v e l o p i n g his l a n g u a g e skill. T h e topic for this film w o u l d be f i n d i n g acco~mK)datlon and w o u l d deal w i t h the p r o c e d u r e s an o v e r s e a s s t u d e n t w o u l d have to f o l l o w to o b t a i n a p l a c e to llve.

(3) P£2~r_am_e_Eesea£ch W i t h the a g r e e m e n t of the L o d g i n g s Officer, two of the g r o u p v i s i t e d the L o d g i n g s O f f i c e on the c a m p u s and w e r e able to t a p e - r e c o r d a n u m b e r of c o n v e r s a t i o n s to find out the seq u e n c e of o p e r a t i o n s an a p p l i c a n t for lodgings has to follow and to d i s c o v e r the l i n g u i s t i c c o n t e n t of the c o n v e r s a t i o n . The r e s u l t s of this r e s e a r c h w e r e u s e d in the p l a n n i n g of the c o n t e n t of the film so that we w e r e r e a s o n a b l y sure that w h a t the s t u d e n t w o u l d see and hear on the film w o u l d be a v a l i d r e p r e s e n t a t i o n of the s i t u a t i o n he w o u l d have to face w h e n a p p l y i n g for lodgings himself. This e m p i r i c a l a s p e c t to the p l a n n i n g stage p r o v e d to be e x t r e m e l y v a l u a b l e since w h a t we had a s s u m e d w o u l d o c c u r o p e r a t i o n a l l y and l i n g u i s t i c a l l y o f t e n di-~ not in the real situation. Content The p r o g r a m m e

content

(i) I n t r o d u c t o r y (2) I n t e r v i e w

then d r a w n

- captions

by p r e s e n t e r

(3) R o l e - p l a y i n g J

music

was

sequences:

with

up as follows:

- title

Lodgings

'Finding

a Place'

Officer.

(a) A p p l i c a n t v i s i t s L o d g i n g s B u r e a u to m a k e enquiries, c o m p l e t e a p p l i c a t i o n form, and m a k e a p p o i n t m e n t to see L o d g i n g s Officer. (b) R e t u r n s on day of a p p o i n t m e n t signs visitors' book.

(c) I n t e r v i e w w i t h L o d g i n g s O f f i c e r and r e c e i p t able addresses.

of suit-

(d) P o s t - s c r i p t a few days later. S t u d e n t m e e t s f r i e n d - tells h i m he has found a p l a c e to live - friend c o n g r a t u l a t e s etc.

142 (4) Final music - credits. The group then decided who amongst them should play the roles required of (i) presenter/interviewer (2) receptlonist (3) student looking for accommodation (4) friend; One of the group emerged as dlrector/vlslon mixer and the rest acted as cameramen on a rotating basis so that everyone in the group would have practice in the handling and operation of a camera. Work began with the group operating the cameras from the very first session and filming was completed in the four sessions. Comments (i) The Lodgings Officer agreed to come to the studio and be interviewed for the opening part of the film. The purpose of the interview was two-fold: (1) to give the students information about the procedures for finding accom~aodation which they would see deme~strated in the role-playing sequences in the second part of the film, (2) to tell them what problems, from the Lodging Officer's experience, they might face in their search for accommodation. This interview also produced listening comprehension material, and this dual function of the film, giving information and at the same time, providing language practice, worked very well. (2) A early decision had to be made whether to script the dialogues for the role-playlng sequences or not. It was agreed that writing scripts would defeat one of the purposes of the film, to show the learner instances of communication he would have to face and to make those instances as 'authentic' as possible. Had w e been able to, the obvious solution would have been to have filmed in the lodgings office Itself. Since this was not practical, we decided that we would extract from the recordings already made in the lodgings office, a 'skeleton' sequence of questions that an applicant might be faced with and use this as a basis for the dialogues without in any way predetermining the actual language forms that would be used. The 'actors' therefore 'ad-libbed' following a loose sequence of topics with extremely satisfactory r e s u l t s Instead of artificlal-soundlng highly-structured dialogues, the result was a series of remarkably naturalistic interactions approaching as near t o a u t h e n t i c i t y as we could get in the circumstances. The realism of the 'applicant's' interview with the lodgings officer was particularly noticeable. The lodgings officer did not-know the person plaving the part of the 'applicant' and had not been told his details so that the officer was genuinely asking for information which was unknown to him. The two were placed therefore in a real communication situation. (3~ Owing to lack of time, we had to set ourselves the lim-

143

ited objective of making the film and we did not go on to prepare materials for its pedagogic exploitation. This is an obvious next step, to write materials and develop an appropriate methodology for using video efficiently as a teaching device, and it would be ideal, given more time and resources, to develop a series of such films for the teaching of overseas students. Conclusions The aims of familiarlsing the group with basic TV techniques and the objective of making a film for teaching purposes were satisfactorily reallsed. Feedback from the group was positive - all felt it had been a professionally useful and enjoyable experience. In particular, by being able to work on a practlcal video project, the group had seen some of the medium's limitations but also reallsed its potential pedagogic value. Dept of English University of Birmingham