In this series, Nicky Hockly explains aspects of technology which some people may be embarrassed to confess that they don’t really understand. In this article, she examines an excellent online video resource.
1 What’s so special about these videos?
The TED Talks (www.ted.com) are no ordinary videos. TED stands for Technology Entertainment Design. These videos are short presentations of 3, 6, 9, 12 or 18 minutes each, made by very good speakers on a huge range of interesting topics. You’ll find TED Talks by politicians (Gordon Brown, Bill Clinton, Al Gore …), by technology gurus (Bill Gates, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin …) and by scientists, educators, designers and other talented individuals. TED Talks have been offered for free online viewing since 2006 and have attracted a growing online audience. The price tag for attending a face-to-face TED talk is around US$6,000, so the best news of all is that viewing the 1,000+ recorded talks online is free.
2 But how are TED Talks relevant to language teachers?
They are a particularly good resource for English language teachers because the speakers and topics are engaging. Many teachers watch them for their own professional development, as a way to keep up with developments in technology (and design) in the wider world and, of course, as a way to develop and practise their listening skills in English. Not only that, students often find them interesting, too, and TED Talks have some extra features that make them great to use both inside the classroom and for students to watch alone outside class.
3 What extra features?
For a start, you can watch TED Talks with subtitles in English and you can read transcripts of the talks. What’s more, the TED Open Translation Project means that there are also subtitles available for some of the videos in 85 languages to date. These range from Albanian (162 talks) to Vietnamese (619 talks) by way of major languages like Chinese (over 1,000 talks) to lesser-known languages such as Ingush and Hupa (1 talk each) and even a madeup language: Klingon from Star Trek (1 talk). Subtitles are created by volunteers, so if your students are linguistically proficient enough, you could even get them to work in small groups on translating one of the shorter videos into their first language, and submit it to the Open Translation Project (see www.ted.com/OpenTranslationProject). In short, TED talks are potentially more accessible to students with subtitles (whether in English or their first language), and via transcripts. There is also a TED Talks app for the iPhone and for Android phones, so students can easily watch TED videos out of class.
4 How can I use TED Talks in class?
If you’d like to introduce your students to TED Talks, try searching for lesson plans built around them. A good place to start is http://esltedtalks.blogspot.com, which has a bank of downloadable lesson plans to use with specific videos. Jamie Keddie’s Lessonstream site has a lesson based around a talk given by Daniel Pink at http://lessonstream.org/2011/03/31/ the-candle-problem/.
You can have your students watch TED talks (with or without subtitles or transcripts), and do related language work or hold a discussion around the topic. But the TED website itself also engages viewers in dialogue around topics. TED Conversations (www.ted.com/conversations) has forums in which viewers can discuss issues that may come out of watching the videos. You could always encourage your students to contribute – they will need to sign in. There is no more authentic use of language than engaging in a real online discussion.
How about having your students watch TED Talks as preparation for their own presentations? Garr Reynolds lists TED Talks videos which are models for good presentations on his blog: www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen /2009/05/making-presentations-in-the-tedstyle. html.
5 Which are the best TED talks?
This depends on you. You may want to watch TED talks yourself or you may want to use them with students. For lower-level students, you can use subtitles and/or transcripts, and the shorter videos. You will always want to choose topics you think your students will find interesting, or ones that are related to work you are currently doing in class. If you’re new to TED, here is a list of recommended talks, produced by a group of teachers from all around the world on one of our recent online training courses. They each chose a talk they found especially interesting or inspiring. Search the TED website for each video:
- Tim Berners-Lee on the internet (Jose Antonio Silva, Brazil)
- Thomas Suarez on app development (Silvia Caldas, Brazil, and Anabel Nowak, Germany)
- Michael Nielsen on open science (Anna Avramenko, Russia)
- Bunker Roy on the barefoot college (Antonella Elia, Italy)
- Bill Stone on caves and space (Tony Grant, Japan)
- Howard Rheingold on collaboration (Virginie Lasalle, France)
- Aparna Rao on high-tech art (Karyn Weston, Germany)
- Rebecca Saxe on the theory of mind (Vicki Hollett, USA)
- Joe Sabia on the technology of storytelling (Carla Arena, Brazil)
- Pranav Mistry on SixthSense technology (Gavin Dudeney, UK)
- Jane McGonigal on gaming (My choice)
Nicky Hockly is Director of Pedagogy of The Consultants-E, an online teacher training and development consultancy. She is co-author of How to Teach English with Technology, Learning English as a Foreign Language for Dummies and Teaching Online. She maintains a blog at www.emoderationskills.com.
This article first appeared in English Teaching professional, Issue 80, May 2012
