Advantages of Video Based Writing
William J. Peters
Suwon Foreign Language High School (South Korea)Introduction
This is a video based language teaching lesson for upper-intermediate and advanced level students. The emphasis is the ability to incorporate these expressions into daily life.How Do We Teach Writing?
¡°Teaching writing is no different than teaching any other subject. The teacher has to know the subject, the process, the children, and the means for the children to become independent learners.¡± Graves, 1983Sample Lesson Plan
The Piano - Aidan Gibbons (found on YouTube)
As a main writing activity, students will report the whole situation in an article. Students will use the outline they made in advance. They have to maintain the form of a paragraph and include their opinion in the last part.1. feelings, slang, idioms, power point
2. Describe the situation. Please make sentences around your key words.
a. Who did you see in the video?
b. What happened to them?
3. How do you think the old man felt as he remembered each situation?
4. How did you feel when watching this video? Please try to use at least three feeling words. And try to describe the part of the video that made you feel that way. For example, I felt very enraged when his friend was shot in the war.
5. What do you think the meaning of the video is?
Advantages Journal Writing
Promotes fluency in writing and reading.
Provides opportunities for reflection.
Provides a safe private place to write about experiences and feelings.
Makes thinking visible.
Provides a vehicle for evaluation.Sample Journal Writing Assignment
If I was to try out for American Idol
1. Show a clip of an American Idol tryout (I use William Hung, ¡°She Bangs.¡±)
2. Have students talk about any experiences with singing.
3. Homework: Students write about their pretend experience on an American Idol tryout.
a. What song did you sing?
b. Did the judges like you?
c. Did you qualify to go to Hollywood?Frequently Asked Questions
1. What should I do if I don't have time to correct all their errors?
Even though you may have good intentions, your correcting of errors does not promote learning. In fact, focusing mostly on grammar errors, which seems easier to do than focusing on organization or logical
development, conveys to students that correctness supersedes meaning.2. When the writing interferes with understanding
Tell the student that the content is unclear or unfocused. Say "I can¡¯t understand what you¡¯ve written. Could you tell me what you are trying to say?"Such garbled writing might suggest that the writer is overshooting her abilities to write academically and needs to use language appropriate to her level. Or, the student may not have understood the topic or concept, in which case some re-teaching may be necessary. Once the student can explain what she is trying to say in each sentence, ask her to rewrite the draft.
3. Is Grammar Correction Effective?
Results showed that at the end of the course, no significant differences existed between all the groups in terms of accuracy. Consequently, the authors concluded that comprehensive treatment and overt corrections of surface errors are probably not worth the trouble for teachers to make.4. Why Doesn't Grammar Correction Work?
The first reason why writing class grammar feedback doesn't work is that it treats only the surface appearance of grammar and not with the way language develops.Secondly, learning grammar in a second language is a complex and gradual
process which occurs both developmentally and hierarchically (some items are acquired before others).References
Beyond MTV: Music Videos as Foreign Language Text by Thomas J. Garza (1994)
Enhancing Acquisition through Music by Robert Lake (2002)
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