Making videos - applying

This lesson is fitting for the 8^th grade of ESL learners in the Norwegian school, and the content area is Norwegian.

Language objectives

- Sketch an outline on how you want your video to be.

- Practice what you are going to say and do in your video before you start filming short clips.

- Construct and modify your video of clips.

- Present your video and show it to the class.

Content objectives from the Norwegian curriculum:

This lesson focuses on using oral skills and technology to make a commercial/video from their home town/neighborhood. Relevant competence aims from the Norwegian subject curriculum after year 10 are to enable the pupils to “discuss the form, content and purpose of literature, theatre and films and present interpretative readings and dramatizations, and present linguistic and multidisciplinary topics using relevant terminology and appropriate digital tools and media” (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2013a). A relevant aim from the English curriculum is to enable the pupils to “use different situations, working methods and learning strategies to develop one’s English-language skills” (Utdanningsdirektoraret, 2013b).

Relevant websites:

 

https://animoto.com/

https://no.surveymonkey.com/

Lesson plan

In the first part of the lesson, the students get to practice their oral skills and vocabulary. The students will get 6 notes each with some symbol on them (the symbol itself is irrelevant). They will go around in the classroom asking each other questions about themselves, their lives, and their home town/neighborhood. In this task, the only rule is that you cannot say Yes or No. If you do so, you have to give one of your notes away to the person you are talking to. So the goal is to get others to answer with Yes/No, but to avoid saying so yourself. The person with the most notes in the end wins. This can be done either as one longer activity, or the activity can be done twice, so that they get another try at succeeding. This should take about 10-15 minutes.

In the main part of the lesson, the students will make short videos presenting and showing off what their home town/neighborhood has to offer. How they choose to solve the task is up to them, they may be as creative as they like. Divide the students into groups of three, and make sure every group has a video camera or smartphone available for filming, as well as a computer for making the video. The students will make their videos on the website https://animoto.com/, where the students can sign up for a free trial and make a short video out of clips. The web tool is easy to use, and they should make a short video between 30-60 seconds. It is important that they follow the language objectives when working on the task. They have about 30 minutes to make the videos before they will be presented to the class, and the presentations will take around 5-10 minutes. This part of the lesson should take about 35-40 minutes.

In the final part of the session, the students will use a computer to respond to a simple survey/questionnaire about the task. The questions should be along the lines of did they learn anything new, did they like working on such a task, where they pleased with their end results, did they learn anything new from the videos to the other groups, and a rubric for comments. For this, the teacher should use https://no.surveymonkey.com/ and put the questions in here beforehand. The results can help the teacher when assessing the lesson afterwards, and considering whether this is a good activity to use again. Taking the survey should take about 5 minutes for the students to finish.

Assessment and reflection

I chose these websites/technologies because the survey gives the students an anonymous chance to give feedback on the lesson as well as assessing their own work and the work of others. It gives the teacher some pointers when assessing the lesson considering the investment and attitudes of the students during the task. The other website, https://animoto.com/, is a great tool for making short videos out of pictures and short clips. Here the students can film short clips and put them together, put music into the video, and so on. It is a new website to them, but it is fairly easy to navigate and use. I chose this website instead of Windows Movie Maker and similar applications, since I don’t find them very easy to use or user friendly. It is also easy to download the video from the website, and the site has templates and video styles that the students can use to make their videos.

The teacher has to help and guide the students through the process of planning and making the videos. All groups should have a plan/sketch before they start filming, so the teacher can see what they are planning to do, watch their process of filming, and compare the plan to the end result. The students’ creativity may make the videos exciting and fun, and will probably introduce new elements that I have not thought about before, either as effects, ways of filming etc. Their creativity may also be a challenge, since not all ideas are as easy to implement. However, by discussing with the groups, they may come up with ideas that are easier to implement and use in their videos.

References:

Utdanningsdirektoratet. (2013a). Norwegian Subject Curriculum (NOR1-05). Retrieved from http://www.udir.no/kl06/NOR1-05?lplang=eng

Utdanningsdirektoratet. (2013b). English subject curriculum (ENG1-03). Retrieved from http://www.udir.no/kl06/ENG1-03?lplang=eng