Revista simpozionului Eficiență și calitate în educație - 19 mai 2017 Eficiență și calitate în educație | Page 45

coherent narrative through the mediated instruction so as to make the students aware of
the explicit and implicit learning goals of the activities in which they participate. Teachers
must prepare for the use of a video in the same way they do with other teaching aids or
resources. Specific objectives should be determined in advance, instructional sequences
should be developed and reinforcement activities have to be planned.
Videos can be used in a similar way to the audio materials, with pre-/while-/post-
watching tasks, but the experience will be more complex and attractive for the students
since it combines audio and video materials.
2.1. Pre-watching
During this stage of the activity students become acquainted with the topic and are
prepared for what they will see. Before screening the video, there must be some
introduction of the issues surrounding the subject in order to contextualize the content.
This ensures that the class is prepared for the topic and the content is accessible to all the
students. Examples of activities could be brainstorming, quizzes, sets of questions,
guessing activities.
2.2. While-watching
While watching students are to be given mentally stimulating tasks to carry out
during the video duration. This avoids distraction and lack of involvement. One possibility
is either to answer teacher prepared questions or to watch and write their own questions
on the video and then have other students in class answer them.
An original way of using videos in class is to divide the students in pairs, with only
one person in the pair facing the screen. This student will watch a video without sound and
will have to tell their pair what is happening. The student with their back at the screen
takes notes and then reports to class their version of the story. Afterwards all the students
watch the video with the sound turned on and compare their versions to the real one. A
variation could be dubbing – showing videos without the sound and having pairs of
students write and perform dialogues based on the images they see. Such tasks are very
engaging and a lot of fun for students.
2.3. After-watching
As follow-up, the teacher will allow time for a thought-provoking discussion or
debate, so as to make sure the students are internalizing the content. Reflection on the
topic followed by an ensuing task will help students solidify and use the knowledge they
have taken in while watching.
Students can be asked to create posters, to make presentations and act out role plays
illustrating the topic or problem in the video. In order to practise their writing skills, students
may also be required to write an essay providing solutions to a problem, or an opinion
essay as a follow-up activity.
Another possibility is to use videos for home assignments. In this way the teacher
provides the students with a link to the video and they can complete the tasks at their own
pace.
3. Advantages and disadvantages of using videos in class
While the advantages of using videos obviously outnumber the drawbacks, mention
must be made of both, in order to have a clear image of this powerful resource and its use
in the teaching-learning process.
On the one hand, there are positive aspects that videos provide, such as:
+students develop strategies such as: predicting, summarizing, visualizing, questioning,
evaluating;
+videos take students around the globe to meet new people and hear new ideas. They
also bring literature, music and history into the room, making the experience more vivid
than mere reading about these subjects ever will. It is therefore a lot easier to understand
culture by encountering people in their own environments;
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