Lesson Plans

             Using Video in Teaching and Learning

            Audiovisual material provides a rich medium for teaching and learning. Video can effectively communicate complex information to a student and, if used creatively, can become a powerful expressive tool. This page suggests a variety of viewing techniques when using films and videos in the classroom and  lesson plans that refer to specific videos and techniques. 

            Silent Viewing (Dubbing Technique)

This techniqueallows students to focus on the specifics of nonverbal communication such as gestures, facial expressions and body movements. Showing videos without the sound and having students develop an imagined dialogue can be a great language lesson, and a lot of fun. You can even have students act out the scenes, too. After the performances students watch the scene with the sound on and decide which group was the funniest or the nearest to the original.
Lesson plan  "Youth Culture. Fashion and Clothes"
Video 1.

Picture-less Listening Technique.
This technique develops students listening skills. Listening without viewing also enables students to imagine (on the basis of sound effects, music, and language) environment, appearance, mood of participants and their actions. After listening students discuss in the groups and present their versions of events. Finally, students watch the video and check their predictions.
Lesson plan "Leisure and Sport"   
Video 2.

  Freeze Framing Technique.

This technique involves stopping the video at any time and helps students develop and use various strategies such as predicting, summarizing, visualizing, questioning, connecting, evaluating, etc. Teachers can use video to give students further opportunities to practice these strategies in an engaging way. For example, students could practice predicting what will happen next and then summarize what actually happened in the video.
Lesson plan "Lifestyle. A weekend with friends"
Video 3.

Picture or Speech Technique (“Mosaics”).

Students are divided in halfs: the Listeners and the Watchers.  The Watchers view the episode without sound and the Listeners at this time listen to the record without picture.  Then each Watcher is paired with a Listener. The Watcher should tell the Listener what they saw, and the Listener should tell the Watcher what they heard. Students should agree on the plot for the movie and provide their summaries. Finally, all students watch the video again with sound and visuals and evaluate the accuracy of their summaries.

Role play "Detective" is a different form of “Mosaics”. After the Watchers view the episode without sound and the Listeners listen to the record without picture two detectives are chosen. They listen to the summary of the Watchers and the Listeners and offer their own version. Finally, all students  watch the video again with sound and visuals and evaluate the accuracy of their summaries.
Lesson plan "Work and Professions. Career Prospects"
Video 4.

Video Dictogloss Technique.

Students watch the scene a few times and write the main words and short phrases that a particular character says. Each group is given a character and is encouraged to listen and exchange information, this usually works better if there are two characters in the scene. Working with someone from a different group, they write the script for the scene, incorporating both characters. As they will not have managed to write down the whole script from the listening exercises they will have to use their imagination and fill in the gaps. This gives them an excellent opportunity to work on grammar. The outcome of using the technique is a dramatization of students’ scripts.
Lesson plan "Food. Eating out."

Using authentic movies.

Using authentic movies has an important ideological and educational value. They introduce history, culture, life, traditions and customs of the English speaking countries. 

 Lesson plan "Country Studies. The UK"