The Loudness Of Silent Video
I’ve been building the video lesson library of ELT Buzz these days and I got a message on LinkedIn that I think might be a common question other teachers have. This Iranian teacher asked, “Why are so many videos silent? How is it possible to use them in a language classroom?”
I’d like to respond here for other teachers that might have the same question. Find HERE an older post with more detailed info. about silent video.
Why silent videos/films? While instead of a listening focus, the videos allow students to do the “language creating”. That can be in many ways; retelling the events, predicting what’s going to happen, writing the video narration, roleplaying the video scenes etc … Also, just use as a “hook” for your lesson topic, a way of prompting students schema and eliciting background knowledge. There are so many ways.
So there are many ways to use silent video and focusing on student language production instead of language reception. See all our “helpers” for teachers to use video in the classroom HERE, free to download.
Here is a rundown of many ways to exploit silent video. Download the PDF.
Originally published at ELT Buzz.