Video-Task 1
I’m making this video as a project to help students of the English language to obtain competency in comprehension through listening. The video-task is quite simple, the learner should play the video while following the written text below the video player. After listening to the video and following the text once, the learner should listen to the video again after looking up any words that are not understood. You can listen to the video as many times as you like and you can repeat the lines from the video checking your pronunciation. Stronger learners can play the video directly and check the comprehension after the video has finished by looking at the text.
The concept behind the video-task is simple. You hear the sound of an English word or an English phrase and you can immediately check its spelling. Therefore, you have the sound memory of the word in the way that it is pronounced associated with this spelling. By practicing in this way, the learner associates sounds with spelling. By watching the video as well as listening and reading, you are multitasking. Multitasking is doing different things at the same time, for example walking and talking. Watching and listening and reading can be difficult together, but with practice, the results are very good. You will learn chunks of language with patterns and pronunciation in a synthetic way.
I remember when I first started watching television newscasts that broadcasted a scripted line that moved across the bottom of the screen. This was a new technology for the industry that allowed them to give the most important news items in a written form while the newscaster spoke about other items. I had a hard time trying to decide whether to follow the written word, or listen to the newscaster. I remember it was difficult for me, but with practice, I became used to listening to the speaker and following the text. It was difficult because the speaker told one story and the text told another – no association.
In this video-task, the written words and the sounds are associated. So it’s not as difficult. I have seen good results with this kind of exercise.
Thank you for listening and watching and reading me. I hope that this video-task has been interesting for you and I look forward to the next edition.
Anthony Lombardi
Director