4.5.3.2. Exploitation of TV materials in English class
.
a) Developing listening skills through summarising, setting
comprehension questions.
b) Developing speaking skills through language
tasks/activities,
group discussions, debates, role-plays.
c) Selection of adequate instructional materials and
judicious use of TV
a) Developing listening skills through summarising,
setting comprehension questions.
Here the students had the opportunity to listen to different
programmes, mainly TV news broadcasts. After the programme, they were required
to perform a number of activities in class such as summarising the content of
the newscast. The lecturer would also set up comprehension questions but as my
informants stated, this exercise was prepared before watching the TV programme.
In general, the lecturers stressed the importance of designing tasks
beforehand, that is, to make sure they are prepared to teach certain skills
before getting in class.
Therefore, it is necessary to talk about how a lecturer
organises his listening class. Three steps are involved in the process. They
are closely linked and have traditionally been referred to as: pre-viewing,
while-viewing and post-viewing. As I mentioned earlier, (see section 4.5.2c),
effective listening strategies need to be undertaken such as holistic viewing
(Miro, 1998:5). Since focus of the lesson is on listening, these tasks can also
be called pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening tasks, but these
terms apply most of the time to listening to audio materials.
In relation to this listening process, some lecturers
expressed their opinions in line with these listening tasks. For example, in a
reply to Question 6 of the questionnaire (i.e. Do you think TV can help to
improve your learners' listening skills?), L5 claimed that she would start with
a pre-listening activity so that the students are prepared for what they are
going to listen to. Another lecturer whom I interviewed (i.e.L1) had this to
say:
Normally you record the target programme and then
you let your students watch. Prior to watching, may be you can make a kind of
preview of the programme, then you set questions so that the students watch
while trying to find answers to those questions.
All these principles to teaching listening as highlighted by
my informants are relevant and are intimately connected to the first listening
activity. On this note, Ambrose (2002:45) recommends that in viewing
activities, using video effectively in the classroom requires a lesson
structure that includes both previewing and postviewing activities. He adds
that it is important to introduce students to the scenes by helping them create
schema (see Section 2.5.2.2) before viewing and to follow up with creative
activities that allow them to use new vocabulary in meaningful ways.
The next section deals with kinds of activities and tasks that
characterise the English class when TV materials are exploited with an aim to
develop speaking skills. In other words, my informants provided me with
insights regarding what lecturers should do in order to plan adequate viewing,
conducive to promoting advancement of speaking skills.
b) Developing speaking skills through language
tasks/activities, group discussions, debates, role plays.
In the preceding section, it was a question of recalling what
second year students witnessed in their English class while TV was involved in
the language learning process. They also had opportunities to hold group
discussions or debates following the programme they had just watched. The
lecturer would ask learners questions about the topic of the programme. For
instance, a student described what he experienced:
The newscast was about terrorism. While
watching we were asked to note down
as much information as we could. After the
show we were put in group work
to discuss the topic. We had someone to
report the findings of our group.
This demonstrates the type of learning situation (e.g. debates
in group activities) that helps the learners to develop their speaking skills.
L6 who responded to my questionnaire (i.e. Question 7: Do you think TV can help
to improve their speaking skills) believed that:
What students watch can be used as a starting
point for speaking or writing. Talking about speaking for instance, students
could watch and narrate what they see. They could also imagine how the actors
feel in the movie clip.
To sum up, there are a number of techniques used as
instructional models in using TV or video in classroom and most of these foster
the development of note-taking skills as underlined by my informants. In this
case lecturers give learners a list of questions before they watch TV/ video.
Then, as a while-viewing activity, they are allowed to make short notes about
the facts that will help them to answer the questions while looking at the
material.
In the following section, I explore students and lecturers'
views about the selection of adequate TV materials that are prerequisites for
sound planning if one is expecting the class to yield good results.
c) Selection of adequate instructional materials and
judicious use of TV.
While answering the last question of the questionnaire (i.e.
Question 12) students gave their opinions about the importance they attach to
the use of live TV materials and recorded materials in English class. In fact,
I set this question with the aim of assessing the students' preferences and
motivation towards these materials on the one hand and the familiarity they
have with the materials on the other. My informants generally appreciated more
live broadcasts than recordings for several reasons, namely authenticity of the
language, real setting of language use and offer of a range of topics and
regularity of different programmes. Here are views of one respondent on the
matter:
First TV materials deal with almost all topics,
but ready recorded materials are limited to some topics. Second, in recorded
teaching materials, speakers try to adapt their accents to the students but
in TV materials speakers talk freely regardless of aural weaknesses of their
listeners.
Another student believes that live TV materials are less
distorted than recorded materials. However, some students oppose the
classmates' views. They say that with live materials, you cannot ask the
journalist or the producer to repeat what he has just said. In general, I
noticed that students were not very comfortable to tell specifically what
materials could satisfy their learning needs, but at least they speculated over
the materials that could help them.
In fact, materials recorded for ELT purposes are edited and
scripted. They are generally produced for non-native speakers. Recorded
materials have a number of advantages. One may be the fact that recording them
from TV does not require sophisticated devices: with video recorders you do not
have to be present at the time of recording when you have something else to do.
Live materials are to be adapted to the learners' needs and classroom settings.
In addition, they are favoured when a lecturer makes use of a short extract or
a clip for use on spot. For instance, TV news offers genuine occasions for
EFL/ESL learners to exercise themselves on making the necessary connections
between the spoken text and background knowledge. In this case, lecturers urge
students not to rely more on linguistic cues but on the background knowledge
and link between topic familiarity and comprehension.
In relation again to Question 12, watching TV programmes makes
the learning atmosphere animated. The students are motivated by the fact that
TV captures their interest in a two-fold perspective: first, they see and
second, they hear. This involves a receptive response from the viewer. In an
interview with L3, the latter stressed this motivating factor she could notice
from the session with her students:
They like using TV while teaching because it's
sort of recreation. They learn with out anxiety, they feel at ease. You see you
are the lecturer, instead of standing at the front of students you are just
part of the group and all of you follow the same programme. So, if you ask them
questions they are eager to respond. If the programme ends you see that the
students are not yet tired. It's not like in the classroom when it's time for
break, it's time for break but when they are watching the TV materials they
don't want to stop to go for break.
The next section concerns the lecturers' contribution in
ensuring the best use of TV materials in the English class. Here, the focal
point is the adequate selection of these materials. On this topic, lecturers
have not provided substantial information except that they all agree on one
central issue: selecting appropriate materials and equipment before the actual
class takes place. in response to my questionnaire, L6 stated that the
lecturer, in a bid to teach language skills, has to capitalise on the visual
facility he can afford. He has to select and adapt authentic materials
accordingly. L2 in an interview specified that what is important is not the
level of training of the learner but rather finding the materials adapted to
their level of comprehension.
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