Russell Stannard finds the internet a rich source of videos.
In my last article, I talked about some of the experiments with using the internet in the classroom which I have done. I want to continue this theme by introducing work with video accessed via the internet. I use the BBC’s Video Nation, a fantastic collection of videos about British life and customs, great for work on British culture. The Video Nation project was started in 1993 to document everyday life in the UK. A series of cameras was distributed around the country and people were invited to record short films of their lives. More than 10,000 tapes were shot, many of which were then edited and shown on TV. An online archive has now been created, which is accessible to all. You need Real Player to watch these videos. You can get this directly from the Video Nation site (it is free) and you only need the simplest version. If you are on broadband, the video will be streamed and should run a few seconds after you click on the Play icon. If you are using a dial-up connection, the download time will be much slower. If you have problems, it may be that ‘cookies’ are turned off on your computer. When you download Real Player, it sends a cookie to your computer, allowing you to download video content. You cannot save the videos; when you stream, you are simply reading information straight from your internet connection. When a certain amount of the video has been downloaded, it will start playing. If you have problems, look at the help section on the BBC site (www.bbc.co.uk/help/). The following site explains about streaming: www.bbc.co.uk/webwise /askbruce/articles/video/stream_1.shmtl.
www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/archive/index.shtml
On this website you will find a massive array of videos about different topics, ranging from reggae music to Christmas. Each topic has several videos, so you can have groups watching different videos, completing questionnaires, etc, and then regroup the students so they can talk about what they have seen. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Questionnaires take time and effort to prepare, so save them to use again.
- Dial-up connections will be slow, but as the video is streamed, this is unavoidable. Keeping the screen size small will help.
- Space the computers out to avoid sound interference.
Holidays
Here is an activity which uses four video clips from the Video Nation site, which are all about different aspects of holidays. Set up four computers in different parts of the room, all linked to a different video about holidays. Prepare a questionnaire with questions on each of the videos. There are many videos to choose from. Here are the ones I have been using, with examples of questions for each:
www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/articles/c/cornwall_airports.shtml
- How long was she waiting in the queue?
- How old is her son?
- Where did she go for her holidays?
- How long was she there for?
- Where is she returning to?
- What was the problem?
www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/articles/u/uk_chilled.shtml
- What type of place has Hamish chosen?
- What hasn’t he done for two or three days?
- Why does he choose this place to come to for his holiday?
- What does he like doing while on holiday?
www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/articles/c/cumbria_unpreparedhikers.shtml
- Where does Nick like to go for his holiday?
- What do unprepared tourists always have with them?
- What do people not do when they go on the mountains?
- How many call-outs do Mountain Rescue get every year?
- What is the most common problem when people phone Mountain Rescue?
- Where does Denise like to spend her holidays?
- What doesn’t she like about her life in England?
- What doesn’t she wear when she is on holiday?
- What does she like to do while on holiday?
Start by doing a brainstorm of vocabulary connected with holidays. Then give every student a questionnaire and put them in groups of four or five. Tell them to move around as a group, watch a video and answer the questions relating to it. (I impose a restriction that they can only watch each video twice; this forces them to discuss and find out answers from other members of their group rather than keep watching the video over and over again.) Tell them when they must move on to the next computer to watch a different video. Once the students have seen all four videos, re-group them so that they can compare answers with students from other groups. This creates quite a bit of discussion as some groups will have different answers. Then put them in pairs and ask them to discuss these questions (write them on the board to save on photocopies):
- Where do you like to go on holiday?
- What do you like about being on holiday?
- What was the best and the worst holiday you ever had?
- Where are you planning to go this year?
- Where would your dream holiday be?
Another option is to get each student to choose one of the videos and write a short summary of it. Display the summaries on the wall so that the students can read them all. Finally, get the students to write about a holiday for homework.
This was a very successful lesson, with lots of listening and talking going on, always based around the theme of holidays.
Russell Stannard is a senior lecturer in ICT and course leader for MSc Multimedia at the University of Westminster, UK. He has an extensive publishing background in ELT and is currently working with BBC Worldwide on various CD-ROMs, and with Macmillan Hong Kong on a primary course. He also teaches English and Spanish at Sutton Adult Education College, UK.
This article first appeared in English Teaching Professional, Issue 35, 2004
