From video-watching to video-making

A changing perspective in the foreign language classroom

Agata Scanselli Venezia, July 15, 2015

The paradigm of change…

How to escape education's death valley, TED Talks Education, April 2013

“Lighting Fires”

• One of the greatest difficulties our schools face today is the challenge of “lighting fires” or engaging students and creating excitement about learning• In order to “light fires”, attention must be paid to the capacities, interests, and

habits of students

BUT• Contemporary assessment lacks measures that test such things. That’s why

current research seem to be focused on identifying criteria and tools which allow to evaluate the real ability of studentscheck not only what students know, but “what they can do with what they

know“ (Tessaro, 2011)

The growing concern…

To encourage and enable students to learn how to learn become autonomous become enquiring persons who

not only use but also produce knowledge

Technology plays a key role, as it creates opportunities for students to do meaningful work that has value outside school

How can we make the shift?

KEY BENEFITS: Students are not given facts –

they have to go out and find them by themselves

Students have the chance to learn by doing – and to learn by making mistakes

Students have to collaborate in teams

Students have to go through self-evaluation

“higher order” thinking skills are fostered!

Our job as teachers

WATCH !!!how students interacthow students carry out

researchhow students plan their

projectshow students organize their

teams

In the foreign language classroom

MAIN POINTS: a) learners must practice the language, as it is the use of the language that helps

them speak with fluencyb) learners reflect on language forms only after they have used them

“language is more than a set of grammatical rules (…) it is a dynamic resource for creating meaning”

- Nunan -

Theory - background

Some task-oriented answers to the dissatisfaction with the traditional grammar-translation technique…

1980: LONG suggests a “Focus on Form” type of teaching, which combines communicative/situational language use with instruction on grammar forms in context, and launches the idea of an implicit grammatical instruction.

1983: KRASHEN & TERRELL develop the “Natural Approach” methodology, according to which students must be given opportunities to communicate with each other in a natural way, without being necessarily accurate in all details of grammar.

1996: WILLIS emphasizes the importance of a real world basis for tasks, as “the aim of the task is to create a real purpose for language use”.

2004: NUNAN states that tasks are the unit of language teaching and calls them “the central curriculum-planning tool”

language use is the “driving force” for language development

Let’s enjoy cooking!a cooking laboratory experience in the Middle School

Main aim: to move students toward independent learning by means of communicative task-based activities

First step: INFORMATION (What do you know about it? Do you know that…?) vocabulary language structures grammar

Second step: LABORATORY (I’ll show you what… then it’s up to you!) research work, in the classroom video-making, at home

Third Step: ASSESSMENT (What did you do? Why?) plus & minus analysis self-assessment

Extra-curricular activities…

1. reinforce classroom learning2. allow students to put their

knowledge and skills into practice3. promote students’ personal and

social development4. make school life more challenging

and interesting

Group workApril-May 2015

Why is this hardly taking

place?

a) because of the way the curriculum is designed

b) because teachers teach the way they were taught

c) because planning new kinds of lessons takes more time

d) because we naturally fear “unknown situations”

IF A TEACHER DOES ALL OF THE WORK, THERE IS NO LEARNING!