Reflection on essential reading for week 9

This article talks about how to develop an IVD (interactive videodisc) courseware for enhancing TEFL project, including design considerations, objective setting, instructional design, implementation, evaluation and how it should be linked to language classroom, etc.

In my opinion, the principles discussed in the article can bring some considerations and implications to HK secondary teachers. For S4-5 students, they have to do a school based assessment (SBA) which requires them to give an individual response or a group discussion after reading an English book/ watching a movie. Many teachers find using movies is an effective way to arouse students' interests in learning English since students can see and hear how people use the language in a real context. It is more fun by just reading the texts in the textbooks! It has richer language input, such as verbal speech and non verbal visual items such as gestures, posture, facial expressions, eye contact, proximity.

However, it seems to me that teachers may not know how to integrate the videoclips into the language classroom and how to engage students in their learning, not just for fun! This article may help teachers to some extent. Do teachers have ideas on using movies in language classroom?

Reflection on essential reading for week 8

Many language teachers love using songs, books, video clips, movies in language classrooms since it's an effective way to motivate and stimulate students' learning. However, since a few years ago, the government has been reinforcing the importance of copyright issues. Teachers have to be very careful when they choose the materials used in classrooms. Teachers cannot use them for entertainment purposes. Instead, teachers can only use them for education purpose. But it's sometimes quite hard to find a clear cut between the two. For example, SBA (for senior forms students in secondary schools) requires students to comment on books or movies. Students have to watch the movie first and then appreciate it. Should I say that students learn through entertainment. To cope with this problem, very often, I cut the movies into different episodes and design related worksheets for classroom use. That is to avoid violatating the copyright laws. Do other teachers have any good ideas in using multimedia like movies in language classrooms?