In my classes, I find myself wondering how I can structure my lessons to be more engaging - both mentally and emotionally. Oftentimes, I see my students sighing into their watches in the middle of a written gap-fill exercise (working in pairs or not) and I can't help but feel that clock-gazing is equivalent to boredom. After some reflection, I come to the logical conclusion that mental exercise, just like physical exercise, can be strenuous and it is completely normal for a person to reach a saturation point. But, there is a part of me that believes that it's possible for every class to be so engaging that despite the level of difficulty or challenge, time seems to fly by and so, I'd like to talk about one of the methods I've found to be effectively engaging for students and something that I think is worth a closer look.
"Videotelling" is a teaching method developed by Jamie Keddie, in which lessons are centered around videos or pictures and the material (and target language) is controlled by the teacher. This means that the teacher becomes a sort of "primary source" in the classroom - students work harder to decipher new sounds and meanings without the aid of written material, a dynamic that mimics situations in 'the real world' (i.e. going through customs, making a doctor's appointment by telephone, etc.). In his words:
I saw Jamie speak at a conference last spring and I was impressed. Without showing the audience any pictures or videos, he evoked a very particular image - men holding a hammerhead shark above their heads on a street in Somalia. He evoked this image through eliciting information from the audience and delivering his prepared speech, while simultaneously highlighting target vocabulary, grammar points and language chunks. What was telling here, is that by virtue of withholding the visual information, every single person had a different and unique image in their mind, a visual image that had been activated through aural stimulation before seeing any 'real' image at all. This withholding created a suspense that made the 'revealing moment' (the punch line, the twist ending, what have you) that much more powerful and therefore, emotionally engaging.
"Videotelling" is a teaching method developed by Jamie Keddie, in which lessons are centered around videos or pictures and the material (and target language) is controlled by the teacher. This means that the teacher becomes a sort of "primary source" in the classroom - students work harder to decipher new sounds and meanings without the aid of written material, a dynamic that mimics situations in 'the real world' (i.e. going through customs, making a doctor's appointment by telephone, etc.). In his words:
Video + storytelling = Videotelling. In this technique, the teacher is the deliverer of the material. The delivery process is a whole class communicative event. The secret to videotelling is to decide what you are going to say and how you are going to say it. This will force you to consider ways to encourage learners to interact (e.g. what questions are you going to ask?)
I saw Jamie speak at a conference last spring and I was impressed. Without showing the audience any pictures or videos, he evoked a very particular image - men holding a hammerhead shark above their heads on a street in Somalia. He evoked this image through eliciting information from the audience and delivering his prepared speech, while simultaneously highlighting target vocabulary, grammar points and language chunks. What was telling here, is that by virtue of withholding the visual information, every single person had a different and unique image in their mind, a visual image that had been activated through aural stimulation before seeing any 'real' image at all. This withholding created a suspense that made the 'revealing moment' (the punch line, the twist ending, what have you) that much more powerful and therefore, emotionally engaging.
I've done quite a few of Mr. Keddie's lessons, (found here), the most successful being "Mr. W" (a commercial for alternative energy personifying the wind), "Speechless" (a woman rejects a marriage proposal at a halftime basketball game), and "If the earth had rings..." (a video demonstration of the earth with rings like Saturn). But today I did "Treetop Rescue" for my B1 level students to review transport lexis and I'd like to reflect on that here.
In this lesson, the teacher elicits a hobby (Radio Controlled Model Aircraft flying) through a teacher-led game of closed questions. Then, the students work in pairs to define relevant words (e.g. 'runway', 'take off', 'aircraft', etc.). The teacher reads the story of a man named Ben who went with his friend one day to fly his RC model aircraft in the countryside. But what happens? The plane gets stuck at the top of a tall tree. The students are told that Ben gets his plane back in five minutes and they can figure out how by reading a dialogue between two people who witnessed the whole thing go down. The dialogue reveals that there were two men in a helicopter who saw the plane get stuck, they fly down to retrieve the plane, and then land to give the model plane back to lucky Ben.
In my class, I immediately noted a change of energy when I began the activity - guessing the hobby together brought up intrigue and suspense. However, when I asked the students to define the terms I'd written on the board, I sensed the familiar tone of drudgery. The students enjoyed reading the dialogue aloud for the class (in manners of elicited adverbs, "cheerily", "angrily", "lazily") but the "reveal moment" didn't have the effect I was expecting. I couldn't tell if they actually enjoyed the lesson or not and found myself questioning how effective the lesson was in terms of the language aim. It's true that the students reviewed some transport lexis, but beyond that, there was little activation. I could have continued with some discussion questions, or asked follow-up questions as a group, but time was up and they had already started packing.
In some of the lessons I've used, there has been a low level of language activation in the students. It's true that students activate target structures through mimicking and urging on my part, but I've found it effective to supplement the materials with activities which encourage the students to create/produce their own relevant language.
Another factor is the strong aspect of storytelling that is essential for his lessons to work. The teacher must be comfortable telling stories and must learn to draw out silences in order to allow students to explore further possibilities (for example during the stage of eliciting possible explanations for the aircraft's prompt return.) Personally, I have never been the kind of person to mesmerize others with stories or jokes, but I welcome the opportunity to develop this side of myself.
So, in sum, I highly recommend his website and method, especially for teachers looking to incorporate video, current events, and creative ways of teaching 'tired' themes, but I would also recommend incorporating other materials and methods to address other learners' styles.
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