© 1988 by Oxford University Press
Articles |
Learning English in a video studio
N. J. Charge works as a Course Director at The Bell College, Saffron Walden, running and teaching on General English courses. He completed an MA in Linguistics and Language Teaching at York University in 1985. He has taught in Sweden for the Folk University, in Oxford and London in TEFL schools, and in Indonesia for three years, working for the British Council.
Karen Giblin works at The Bell College, Saffron Walden, where she divides her time between English language teaching and further developing the school's video-playback facility. Her previous teaching experience includes work at the University of the South Pacific, and in Fiji, California, and Portugal.
This article presents a rationale for the creative use of a video studio in the context of task-based communicative language teaching. We argue that with access to video cameras and a video studio (facilities possessed by a growing number of schools all over the world), students can learn how to film and produce short sequences in English. The process of planning and filming sequences involves the learners in real communication tasks, which cannot be completed successfully unless the necessary linguistic skills have been mastered; and the goal of producing something provides motivational force. We have tried out the course that is outlined below with a number of classes ranging from Lower Intermediate to Advanced levels, and in each case the results have been very satisfactory. The students have commented that they have enjoyed learning a skill through English and, in addition, that their general command of the language has improved.