Here’s the featured article for the fifth issue of ELTWeekly:
Audio-video Aids in Teaching English
by
Rajesh Bharvad
The new era assigns new challenges and duties on the modern teacher. The traditional methods on teaching English have been drastically changed with the remarkable entry of technology in the arena of teaching. Given that technology provides so many options which can be used not only to make the teaching interesting but also to make teaching more effective and productive in terms of students’ improvement.
Keeping this in view I am happy to say that audio-video materials can be proved to be the best recourses which can be utilized for the upliftment of modern teaching styles. The greatest advantage of these types of materials is that it satisfies both visual and auditory senses of the students. It gives an unparalleled chance to the teacher to create a virtual world in the classroom itself. It gives a permanent freedom to the teacher from that of verbalism. The teacher is now more comfortable and effective as he can have modern resources at his own disposal. The limitation of verbalism – verbal description – can not be a stumbling block to the teacher as he can go beyond words and create the words into virtual reality which can help the learners grasp things easily, without any confusion or misunderstanding.
The beauty of these kinds of materials is that it has no limitation and it can be used at all the levels of teaching. Let’s see how the teacher can use these types of materials to enhance his teaching style at all the levels. But before I discuss above mentioned issue I would like to point out a new area and that is the use of audio-video materials in developing language skills. Language skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing – can be developed by the appropriate use of the audio-video materials. For example, there are various techniques that can be used to improve listening with the help of audio-video materials. A teacher can use recordings of expert speakers to improve their listening. Moreover, he can also use movies or some interesting video clips in which the target language is a medium of conversation. This can give a good chance to the learners to listen to the speakers of target language along with the visual presentation of the story. They will listen to the characters with interest and this interest will generate good understanding of the target language.
As I have already mentioned that audio-video materials can be used in all the levels of education. For example, one can use audio-video materials in pre-primary or primary schools. He can have variety of options like presenting animal video clips in front of the students to enable them to know the elementary words. This could be an interesting task as the students will enjoy in a great deal. Similarly, one can present simply recordings of the sounds of different animals and ask them to recognize the voices of the different animals.
However, depending upon the syllabus audio-video materials can be used in secondary and tertiary level of education. In secondary level before explaining the lesson a particular video related to that lesson may be shown in the classroom. This not only improves their understanding of language but also improves their vocabulary. Some special videos can be brought into classroom in order to invoke a kind of interest among the students for the subject which they feel as monotonous.
In tertiary level depending upon the syllabus a teacher can use variety of resource material in the form of audio-video aids. For example, while teaching any novel or drama in the class of literature, a movie based on that drama or novel can be presented in the classroom. This will generate a fine understanding of the theme and minute details of the characters. In the other case if a teacher in an engineering college wants to teach the basic fundamentals of group discussion, he can have at his own disposal limitless resources of audio-video materials. This will enable the students to learn some real tactics of group discussion. Similarly, he can present some expert talks in the classroom which can help them learn things quickly. Moreover, the teaching of international scholars in the form of audio-video aids can be brought into the classroom and this would be an extra effort on the part of a teacher to make his class at par with the international standard.
Moreover, the improvement in the students’ pronunciation of the target language can be brought about by the appropriate use of audio-video materials. For example, in the language lab we often find these kinds of materials being used for the purpose of checking the right kind of pronunciation in the usage of language by the students and correcting their pronunciation with the help of audio-video materials. They can be trained to use right kind of pronunciation of the words by means of audio-video materials. They can easily understand the right kind of pronunciation of consonants, vowels, diphthongs and the like. With a sustained practice of audio-video materials they imbibe the right kind of pronunciation in their routine conversation of the target language. This technique can be far better than the teaching of all sorts of theoretical elements of phonetics. Indeed, the teaching of phonetics can be enriched with the aid of audio-video materials.
While using audio-video materials it is necessary that a teacher is selective in choosing the appropriate material in the classroom. In spite of the fact that they are very effective the classroom, they can be proved to be a hazard and may not fulfill the aim for which it is brought in the classroom. In other words, they can create some adverse effects on the minds of the students if inappropriate material is presented in the classroom. Hence, a teacher must be familiar with the sociological cultural background of the students. In addition to this, he should also check the psyche of his students. For example, the videos that are highly preferred by the students of western countries may not suite the mindsets of eastern students. It has to be understood by us that the web world has no limitation and no boundary as such, but as a teacher we have to be selective and take care of this issue while selecting any kind of material.
Hence, it is seen that audio-video aids are a kind of panacea to almost all the problems that a teacher come across in his or her efforts of making the teaching more effective. They are very effective at all the levels of teaching irrespective of different subjects and categories, provided that a teacher knows what kind of material he is supposed to select from web and knows how to use it. Here I would like add one final comment that a teacher can not be a substitute of technology and hence he must not compromise his positive role in the classroom while using technological aids in the classroom.