TEACHING IDIOMS AND PHRASAL VERBS USING WEB VIDEO

Video hosting and sharing sites are services that allow individuals to easily upload, link and share images and videos. As a teacher, I can say that this can make our lives practically easier for many reasons. We can have easy access to loads of educational material and information shared online which, if integrated in the learning procedure, can create a very interesting and motivating atmosphere for the students. Sounds, images and especially authentic material can bring a boring lesson to life. Students, especially teenagers, respond to these more effectively and as a result, the lesson becomes more comprehensive and pleasant. Moreover, teachers can use these sites to exchange and share their own, or their students' material in order to co-operate and work together on projects, in a faster and more efficient way. We can also use these sites as huge "banks" of information and ideas, which are difficult to find in remote areas in a different way, and this most definitely applies to foreign language teachers.
The criteria which I use in order to choose a web video are the following :

CONTENT

• appropriate content with educational value.

• “strong” video content that will create an impact on students’ memories so that they can recall the target-language forms at the same time as the images.

• videos with comprehensive content following the lesson curriculum to facilitate the students’ understanding thus keeping their attention at all times.

• video containing the target language forms in a clear and direct way so as to maximise the expected effectiveness and results.

• containing as much authentic material as possible to bring the students close to real-life situations.

• video that will encourage the students to interact and get actively involved allowing for positive and effective feedback

TECHNICAL LAYOUT

• video must be of good quality so as to be explicit

• the audio and visual effects must be interesting to catch the children’s attention

• quite short to fit in the curriculum and time available for the task

• able to be embedded or shared online

SOCIAL CONSIDERATIONS

• content appropriate for the students’ ages.

• not containing comments that refer to racism, violence, gender,sex, drugs, etc. being offensive in any way.

• think of the psychological impact that it may have on the students’ subconscious.

• taking individual rights into consideration as well as students’ beliefs