I was at Vic High on Wednesday, and I went to the same ELL class that I go to every Wednesday afternoon. It’s a ton of fun – there’s lots of diversity in the room, different grade levels, different skill levels, and students from all over the world. Naturally, this can also lead to some challenges for teachers, but the ELL instructor is experienced and confident. She uses the TPRS style, which keeps students highly engaged and helps them participate in simple, short conversations. She sometimes uses video in her teaching. However, I also wanted to point out how the TOC used video this past Wednesday.

He showed the students a two-part episode from a series called Extra English. It was set in England, and it looked to be produced in the late 90s or early 2000s. Sure, the accent was different, but he mentioned it to the students and I think that could be a good way of helping them adjust to the varied ways people speak English. The strongest part of this clip was that it addressed youth culture. The characters were roommates who used the Internet and tried to get dates. One character was an immigrant from Argentina and didn’t know very much English yet. Sometimes, he misunderstood things, which led to funny situations. It was actually a lot like a sitcom, except that the actors spoke more slowly and clearly. The TOC also addressed this and asked the class if they heard people usually speaking this slowly. I liked that the slow speech made the content more accessible for students, and it was also great for them to recognize the differences between the show and the native speakers they hear every day.

I’m glad he used this resource because now I’ve made a note of it and I potentially might use it in the future. It was the right level of language, and it’s a type of content that’s relevant and interesting to high school students. Furthermore, it was about 20 minutes long, which is awesome for a TOC who probably doesn’t have a lesson plan. It wasn’t just to fill time, because he asked a few questions afterwards and had students write 5 sentences about the TV show.

This is just another great example of video being used in the language classroom.