In order to improve students’ English proficiency and accuracy, I am always seeking those authentic materials to enhance this process.
When it comes to learning English, there will be a notion that learners are supposed to simulate those speaking or using authentic expressions. As I mentioned in my last post, there is less opportunity for students in China to have access to the contexts using English, still less could they immerse themselves in an authentic English environment. Where can I find some videos which could engage my classroom populations, thereby they could glean from those videos and then we can simulate by organizing relevant classroom activities.
Yep, I know, people here will say, Sure Youtube is. But……
Some basic computer science knowledge equipped me and allows me to cross the block.
It’s an amazing world, so many English learning video clips I can stream on YouTube, like BBC learning English, very informative and well-organized teaching and learning materials are presented in front of me, but the question is how can I grab and put them into my classroom delivery, fortunately, I found this amazing website Clip Converter which enables those YouTube videos clips to be downloaded. This tool did help me a lot like I can re-edit those clips offline which make my teaching practice design more interesting, particularly, those video clips illustrating some basic knowledge in terms of telecommunication chemical engineering and mechanics engaged students majoring in relevant subjects.
This video talks about the way in which how food waste the leftover processed by chemical means transfer to sources which can generate electricity.
Students found that in this video, this process can be described in some simple but authentic sentences as long as they are familiar with those chemical-related words.
On the following group presentation, students surprised me with their vivid hand-drawn boards and elaborately designed flow charts. Some groups added some previous chemistry knowledge to enrich their presentation. so constructivism…
Although the English they were using is simple, at least they correlated their old knowledge within newly-acquired authentic English and represented it in real contexts. They have made huge progress.
These add-ons undoubtedly deserve much more explorations, when starting to design a technology-involved classroom.