“The use of video in the language classroom”

Introduction

It would be marvelous to play a video in the class, let everything to it and forget about teaching!!! But the reality is far from that when it comes to really taking advantage ofusing video in classes. Training teachers in how to use video in the classroom is important to fully exploit all its potential and avoid wasting time pretending you are doing something good for yourstudents.

Video brings language to life in the classroom. It gets students involved in cultural and current situations. The success of this involvement will depend on the chosen video and the activitiesdesigned for that video.

Body

One characteristic of video is that it presents language in the context of life; it shows students how language is used in real situations. Students can seefacial expressions, gestures, and hesitations. They can observe the body language of a situation, how far apart people stand, how people react to emotional situations, information that is difficult to getfrom a book or an audio tape.

Video can be integrated into the classroom in many different ways, it can be used in as many different ways as you can imagine, the sky is the limit. Allan Maley(1985) mentions that it can be used in all the stages from presentation to free practice:

• Focus on language: elicitation, presentation stage, reinforcement.
• Practice: roleplay, drills,comprehension, review.
• Presentation of topics.
• Communication example.
• Telling stories.
• Focus on cultural differences

Video can be used at all levels as presentation or supplementary material, aswell as language reinforcement and skills practice. Despite it can be used in so many different ways in all the teaching stages we, as teacher, should be aware that how video is used in class dependson what the focus of it is. In my personal case I have used video in the following ways:

• Presentation of new grammar and vocabulary
• Grammar and vocabulary review
• Pronunciation model:...