CATESOL Preconference Institute

April 2009Branka Marceta bmarceta@otan.usKristi Reyes kreyes@miracosta.edu

Advantages for students: Authentic language input: reduced speech,

normal speech rates, contractions, reductions, idioms, and various accents

 Opportunities to build fluency  Visual support for language learning

Advantages for instructors Numerous free, easy-to-find materials Basis of or supplement to thematic, integrated-

skills lessons or project-based learning Break from the routine Engaging, high-interest materials Chance to plan lessons that integrate all skills 

Demonstration 1:Use short action clips with or without sound

Video Clip Sources: NBC Sports, CivicLiveIt.com, Funnyplace.org, Inside Weekend

(all downloaded and inserted ** must be saved in the same folder as the PowerPoint file)

  

What skills are practiced? What grammar is practiced? What part of the lesson? Pre- and post- activities? Other ideas for using short video clips like

these?

Students can ◦learn commands (TPR) ◦tell a partner or write what is happening (present continuous) happened (past continuous and simple past)

has just happened (present perfect)

will happen next (future)

Student B Speaking: He (step) off the boat when he (slip) and (fall).A man (rescue) a cat when the cat (get) scared and

(jump).They (pull) the car when the bumper (fall) off.

Student B Answers to help your partner:A woman was running when a cameraman tripped

and fell in front of her.She was skating when she bumped into another

skater.She was walking the dog when the dog pulled her

and she flew. 

List or label vocabulary in clip. Order / unscramble words or phrases from a

sentence that describes the action. ◦ Example: slipped on He walking and boat he fell

was the when. Use prompts to describe the action. Example: He walk boat / he slip and fall ->

He was walking on the boat when he slipped and fell.

Write a sentence to describe the action.  

Demonstration 2:Use short clips with audio (dialogs, news reports, commercials)

Watch and answer the following questions (open ended or multiple choice):

1. A good consideration about whether or not to tip is to ...

2. What is the standard tipping rule for service at restaurants, hair salons, and spas?

3. How much should you tip at a coffee shop?

4. How much should you tip for small services, such as drinks at a bar and hotel and airport bag handling?

5. How much tip should you give during the holidays to people who provide you with weekly or monthly services?

6. Who is someone you should not forget to tip (or give a gift to) during the holidays?

Video source: YouTube (embedded) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZyTCQyzPm0

Watch and answer the following questions (open ended or multiple choice):1. A good consideration about whether or not to tip is to ...

A. think about the serviceB. put yourself in the other person's shoesC. don't bother tipping less than a dollar

2. What is the standard tipping rule for service at restaurants, hair salons, and spas?A. 5 - 10 % of totalB. 15 - 20 % of totalC. 30 - 40% of total

3. How much should you tip at a coffee shop?A. No less than 10 centsB. No less than 25 centsC. No less than one dollar

4. How much should you tip for small services, such as drinks at a bar and hotel and airport bag handling?A. No tipping necessaryB. $1 per itemC. $5 per person

5. How much tip should you give during the holidays to people who provide you with weekly or monthly services?A. no tip or gift necessaryB. just a cardC. one-week's worth of tips

6. Who is someone you should not forget to tip (or give a gift to) during the holidays?A. mail carrierB. newspaper delivery personC. teacher

How many times to let students listen? What kind of listening? What other skills are practiced? What part of the lesson? Pre- and post- activities? Other ideas for using short video clips with

audio like this?

Online quiz with ESL Video (e.g., in a lab, students can watch, pause, watch again as needed)

Students can discuss/write/present:◦ Tipping customs in their countries◦ How to get better tips◦ Tipping guide for visitors to the U.S.A.◦ Other?

Demonstration 3:Use a documentary clip, longer video, or series of related videos as part of a thematic unit or cumulating in a class project.

Part 1. Conversation. Ask and answer these questions with your classmates.1. Where are you from originally? Describe the place where you come from (geographically,

economically, culturally).2. How long have you lived in the United States? Why did you come here to live? Could you

speak English when you first came here, and if so, how well could you communicate?3. Did you have American friends in your country? How did you expect life to be here? Were

your first experiences living in this country easier or more difficult than you expected? Explain with examples.

4. What was your first job in your country? How did you find the job (a friend, an employment agency, etc.)

5. What was your first job in the U.S.? How did you find the job (a friend, an employment agency, etc.)?

6. What is your job now (if different from your first job in the U.S.)? Tell what you do at your job. Do you want to change jobs, and if so, what is your ideal occupation? What education or training do you need for the job you would like to have?

7. Are you a citizen? If not, do you plan to become a U.S. citizen one day? Why or why not? What are the benefits of U.S. citizenship?

8. Do you plan to return to your country to live in the future or do you plan to live in the U.S. for the rest of your life? Explain your answer.

9. Many immigrants come to the U.S. illegally for many reasons. One of the biggest reasons is to have more economic opportunities (jobs, better pay). What are some solutions to stopping illegal immigration or helping undocumented workers become legal residents of the U.S.A.?

10. What does “the American Dream” mean to you? 

Part 2. Listen and watch to answer the following questions about this story of a successful immigrant:

1. What kind of doctor is Dr. Q?2. Where is he from?3. How was his life when he was growing up?

What was his first job in his country?4. How long ago did he come to CA? How old was

he?5. What was his reason for coming to the USA?6. What was his job? How much did he earn?7. He later studied math and science. Why?8. From which medical school did he graduate?9. What does he do after his regular job of being a

doctor?10. Why didn’t he return to his native country?

Video source (hyperlinked): Video source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/25802159/&GT1=43001, By Bob Dotson, TODAYShow.com contributor

Part 3. Now listen again for the messages Dr. Q makes. Fill in the missing words.

About fear of failure: “It's OK to be ____________________,” Quinones says. “Because you know what happens when you're ______________________? You _________________ like crazy. One thing that this country absolutely, absolutely values is ________________ _____________________.”

About being a good doctor: Quinones teaches his medical students to treat

all ____________________ as ___________________. About education: “(My father) used to tell me, ‘If you wanna be like me for

the rest of your life, don't ___________ ____ ___________________,’ ” Quinones says.

 About illegal immigration: “Can we build walls?” he asks. “Sure, we're

gonna build walls. Can we make ’em taller? Sure, we can make ’em taller. Would that be a ____________________ ? As long as there's poverty, and as long as people are dying of _______________________ in other places, it's human nature. They will try to find _____________________ ways.”

 About success: “It doesn't matter whether you're successful or not,”

answers Quinones. “What matters is that you ______________ _____ ________________ ____ ___________, and the _______________ _______ ___________ __________ ___ _______________.”

Discuss: ◦Which of these messages do you most

agree with? Why? Give a personal example.

◦What can we learn from Dr. Q?

(handout available for download at Using Video)

“Dr. Q” has a theory about how to cure cancer that he can’t wait to tell me.I look around at his lab assistants, their faces a rainbow of colors — intense, smart, listening. Their parents come from many parts of the

world. Dr. Q has chosen them to test his theory: that a team of scientists from a diversity of backgrounds might find a cure for cancer more quickly, because each would see the problem differently.

The lab at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore we’re all gathered in belongs to Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa — “Dr. Q.” He is one of the best brain surgeons in the world, but two decades ago, his hands were picking vegetables for $22 a day. Quinones was a migrant worker, living under an old camper top in the middle of a California field.

“Sometimes I would cry myself to sleep thinking, ‘What am I doing here?’ ” Quinones recalls. “I have a cousin who told me, ‘You're never going to be anything but a migrant worker the rest of your life.’ But it just ignited this fire in my belly.”

He learned dozens of jobs, with a blazing desire to be the best at whatever life offered. It was Dr. Joe Martinez Jr. who steered him toward medicine. “Alfredo came to work in my lab his senior year at the University of California at Berkley," Martinez recalls. “He knew nothing about the brain, but learned at an amazing rate. He was one of the two best students I ever taught.”

Quinones studied math and science because he didn't have to write perfect English to do well at them. Martinez told him that with his grades, he should try for one of the very best medical schools in the country. He made it to Harvard and graduated at the top of his class.

“I think what drives Alfredo is fear,” Martinez says. “Fear of failure.”

“It's OK to be afraid,” Quinones says. “Because you know what happens when you're afraid? You work like crazy. One thing that this country absolutely, absolutely values is hard work.” And that's what he tells kids who wonder whether they can beat overwhelming odds too.

Now Dr. Q breezes into a patient’s room. “Aww-right! Here's my team!” he shouts. His medical students gather around the bed. Quinones teaches them to treat all patients as friends, reminding them: “Don't forget the human side.”

And Quinones tries to remember that himself. Like his patients, he has had more than his share of uncertainty and tears in his life. Many nights his mother had no food for the table because his father lost the family's gas station in Mexico. “He used to tell me, ‘If you wanna be like me for the rest of your life, don't go to school,’ ” Quinones says.

Heeding his father’s warning, Quinones graduated college at 18. He became a teacher, but found that, like his father, he was not earning enough.

So, on his 19th birthday, he clawed to the top of a 16-foot fence and jumped — illegally — to an uncertain future here in the U.S. “All I wanted to do was come in, make a little bit of money, send it back to my parents,” he says.

I ask Quinones how he feels about illegal immigration today. Should we build walls? Should we keep illegal immigrants out of our schools?

“Can we build walls?” he asks rhetorically. “Sure, we're gonna build walls. Can we make ’em taller? Sure, we can make ’em taller. Would that be a solution? As long as there's poverty, and as long as people are dying of hunger in other places, it's human nature. They will try to find better ways.”

Ironically, the brain surgeon followed his heart, not his brain: He became a U.S. citizen rather than return to Mexico a hero. He felt he owed this country for all the opportunity it had given him.

So now, each evening, as other doctors head home, Quinones goes to his lab, looking for clues in the brain tumors he's taken out. “What if you never find the cure for brain cancer?” I ask. “It doesn't matter whether you're successful or not,” answers Quinones. “What matters is that you give the world the best, and the best

will come back to you.”  

How many times to let students listen? What skills are practiced? Other pre-, during, and post- activities? Other ideas for using video clips with audio

like this?

Students can predict content from the title or an opening scene order words, sentences, or events from the video practice listening for main ideas and details by answering

comprehension questions, taking notes on an incomplete outline, or by filling out a time line, plot map, or Venn diagram

conduct surveys about issues in the video or write discussion questions to ask in groups

read transcripts or book/article versions, if available brainstorm possible solutions to a problem in the video

and report the best solution and reasons to the class write summaries, personal responses, critiques/reviews, or

letters make poster, slide shows, digital stories, PowerPoint

presentations, or use Web 2.0 online tools (blog, wiki, podcast, etc.) for projects

 

Using student-created video

Student introduces herself, filmed with webcam; inserted in PowerPoint

Video downloaded and inserted, source Roger Drury, GA Tech: http://web.li.gatech.edu/~rdrury/600/oral/video/dictionary.html

Downloaded and inserted, source Roger Drury, GA Tech: http://web.li.gatech.edu/~rdrury/700/oral/cur_work/index.html

See Nik’s Learning Technology Blog Entry on 12 Seconds TV and Daily English Blog for many other activities for integration video in general

See Roger Drury Phrasal Verb Dictionary and many other video and PowerPoint projects on his home page

How could the following video be integrated in an ESL class?

Are people who wear glasses smarter? Are people who don’t wear glasses more

attractive?

Video hyperlinked from Mefeedia Video http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/what-glasses-say-about-you/14906911 (original source is ABC News/GMA http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=6995868)

What level of students? Where in the lesson? Pre-, during-, and post-viewing activities? What activities would you have students do

◦ before watching the video?◦ while watching the video?◦ after watching the video?

Would you use the whole video or just a part? What part?

What skills would students practice (listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary, pronunciation)?

Many good video readily available and free online

May take time to find clips and create materials, but can be reused

Choice of topics that apply to your specific group of students

Video brings outside world into the classroom

Video appeals to many learning styles