[ELTWeekly Volume 6, Issue 23 | September 22, 2014 | ISSN 0975-3036]
Multimedia contents are a great aid in teaching languages. As we all know the Internet has brought in a revolution in terms of accessing and utilizing such contents anywhere.
In past few years, TED videos have got a momentum when it comes to speaking and presentation skills improvement. Some of the TED presentations have become widely popular and have received millions of views. Amy Cuddy’s (Harvard Business School) concepts on Body Language became very popular via one of her TED talks. She has recently been mentioned in NYTimes.
Most of our learners lack confidence while speaking and we can pump in that factor by showing select presentations from the TED. They can be asked to imitate their favourite presenters at the initial level and go on speaking.
Here are five more ways you can use TED talks for your speaking class:
1. Ask your students to deliver talks on same topic as they have seen on TED.
2. Ask them to work in groups and evaluate one or two TED talks and note down what they found good about it.
3. Ask them to compare two or three presenters and prepare a list of their presentation qualities.
4. Make them note down key points from select presentations. This will improve their listening skills and teach them to ‘focus’ important points in their speeches.
5. Give them tasks to prepare a list of resources for a talk they have seen. This will help them search and organize contents for their talks.
Grammar and fluency will be by-products when your students will watch these presentations with their utmost interest.
I hope it helps 🙂
Do share your inputs on using TED videos in the language classrooms.
—
Tarun Patel
About TED
TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, under the slogan: “Ideas Worth Spreading”. TED was founded in 1984 as a one-off event. The annual conference began in 1990, in Monterey, California. Wikipedia
I appreciate your point of view that is new and creative. I agree with points you mentioned and I think it would be of help especially in advanced levels.
Thank you Sophie for your note. Keep writing 🙂