CALL-my ideas




My lesson plan for a CALL with my favourite website




This is what I presented for a competition a few years ago. 

I love using these videos in my class and it greatly enriches listening and learning environment on the whole.



 Description of the teaching/ learning activity:


The website for these activities:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/

Depending on the textbook topic or class interest (due to age group) the type of videos are chosen. The choice is given on the left of the video page. Videos can be chosen from
a) Animal videos (esp. suitable for younger learners 8th-10th forms);
b) Environment videos (esp. suitable for exam preparation, thus 11th-12th forms);
c) News videos (exam preparation, 11th-12th forms).

The class is divided into groups which will later carry on the assignment individually, working in their preferred area (a school reading room or a house/flat of one of the teammate’s). The optimal number of
students per group is (3-4). A task is given to each of the group to be carried out in certain time (in a week or two). The students are to:
a) pick three (of four) animals/environmental issues/ or news
b) The group has to watch these videos. Afterwards they analyze each of them writing: the main topic of the video/ the main idea, stated facts (not necessarily all of them), and things that surprised/interested them most (might even add an explanation why).
c) Afterwards this analysis should be presented in a form of a visual aid for their presentation. This might be a power point presentation or a poster.
d) The presentation of each group should continue for approximately 5 minutes (time might vary - depending on the age group and the complexity of a subject).
e) Each presenting group should follow the same presentation outline. Introduction (greet the
classmates as if they were in a conference or a seminar – be creative and welcoming, inform them of what they are going to hear), then the body (it is the presentation itself, the analysis of the videos that was made), conclusion (might shortly summarize all of the videos or share some impressions and be polite – thank the
viewers for their attention ). All of the group members should be involved in presentation.

Evaluation.
The teacher himself/herself decides which of these points are most important depending on the area of concentration (e.g. if preparing for speaking or writing exam one might focus on a structure; or if enhancing vocabulary one might focus presentation of facts and analysis). Points are given for:
a) visual aids (poster or power point presentation)
b) Structural outline of the speech (nice introduction, body, conclusion)
c) Participation of all of the members of the group in a presentation. (For individual work each team can evaluate their team members by dividing a percentage of 100 as to how much work each of them has included.)
d) The analysis and presentation (body of the project).

(I choose all of these to be of equal importance).
Also I recommend to show a video or two in a class as an example.


photo taken from

3 comments:

  1. Hello, Lina! Thank you for sharing such a great idea with us. I like that you use nationalgeographic.com as a basis for this activity. There are so many interesting and captivating videos. I'm sure that students will find them amazing!In fact, the resources are not only good for teaching English, but also for general education. Animals, environment and news are extremely current and interestig videos. And there are also Science, Photography, Travel and Adventure videos available. So, you can choose whatever suits your textbook or topic of the course. In my opinion, the assignment you proposed is suitable for intermediate and more advanced students, because the speech is authentic and not adapted to a certain level. It is "live" speech.
    I also like that you give a list of aspect you access. On the whole, it looks like a challenging but exciting task which is worth trying to do in the class.

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  2. Dear Anna,
    yes, it seems that the listening tasks are more suitable to intermediate and advanced students. However, I've tried them with pre-intermediate and it worked just fine. I just simplified the tasks. I did it with animals and asked them to tell what animal they are looking at, and tell me one or two things they understood from the video (then I wrote all of their replies on my whiteboard) - we listened to the same video twice. I believe I also gave them some vocabulary words in advance, so that they would be able to get the main idea... -- I was actually pleasantly surprised at their capacities ;)

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  3. HI Lina :
    Thank you for sharing your ideas on the videos. I enjoy project-based activities because, besides helping children to use the language, they learn to organize themselves, to be collaborative, in simple words, to work in a group, which is different from working individually. Thanks a lot for sharing the site, too. National geographic has nice videos for kids. I chose some when I wanted to work with them on animals and their habitats, but I did not know this site. I will add it to my "delicious page"

    See you online !
    Regards.

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