Monday, February 03, 2014

Layering Language Skills Through Video Storytelling


 V       Layering Language Skills Through Video Storytelling
by
David Lewis Brooks
Published in The Word, Hawaii TESOL Newsletter, Vol 23 (2), February, 2014, pp. 7-8
                  This article illustrates an instructional use of video as text and tool in the classroom for building language mastery. It introduces a teaching activity called video storytelling. This technique is useful for building students’ mastery of action verbs, cognitive and emotional vocabulary, sequencing words, voice, and presentation skills through the oral language technique of narrative layering.

Definition of Video Storytelling
A video segment, when carefully chosen, is a holistic, meaning-focused genre of linguistic discourse, which can be used to great advantage to teach lexical, syntactic and discursive features of the language. Often its full range of interpersonal communication (style, non-verbals, mood, register and voice) in an authentic cultural context affords the teacher and the learner a wealth of additional language learning opportunities. The purpose of this short article is to introduce video storytelling, a method for using video as text and tool in the classroom for building language mastery. This description will focus on the instructional process for video storytelling called cumulative layering, a method for helping students develop mastery of narrative discourse at multiple levels of English proficiency.
Language teachers often rely on and recognize the importance of storytelling. Yet, how often do we really challenge our students to master this form of discourse? Video storytelling is an instructional technique for helping students develop narrative skills and to polish the telling of their stories. A simple definition follows. Students watch a brief video segment full of both action and dialogue. They are guided to fully comprehend both the linguistic, social and visual content. Then they are coached by the teacher to challenge themselves in five main ways of retelling this narrative: 1) summarization, 2) description of the action and setting, 3) description of the speech, thinking, and the emotions of the characters, 4) description of the events in linear or logical sequence with discourse markers, and 5) the combination of all of the above. There are many opportunities for creative expression within a linguistic framework that is both challenging and attainable for all students at any level.

The Process of Layering the Story
   To begin, the students watch a carefully chosen brief video segment a number of times and are guided to fully comprehend the linguistic, social and visual content. The students are then coached over several sessions to pull out or the teacher may provide the main story elements, which they will deal with in telling their own version of the story. After the students can smoothly recount the basic events (summary) of the story, they select another linguistic or content element to add to the retelling. Then, they practice retelling the story with this new layer. With continued additions of elements and an increase in sentence length and complexity, the story becomes more entertaining and complete. Next, the teachers will have the students listen to each other’s telling and give specific feedback about mastery of that element. When possible, the students should record their live re-telling (from memory without notes), so that they can individually or in pairs listen and assess their progress.
                The teacher can give specific feedback by “listening in” or reviewing the recordings or conduct a random group storytelling. In this way, the teacher picks five students and shuffles them. Then the first student begins to tell the story, at any random point, the next student is called on to continue the narrative, and then followed by the next students. Further, the storytellers should be taught to increase the complexity of sentence structure by getting them to combine sentences in various ways, including the use of coordinating and subordinating conjunctions. Finally, the students add discourse markers to the narrative to aid the listener. Once a benchmark is achieved, the students can be challenged to vary the storytelling by altering the point-of-view, tense, use of reported speech (actual dialogue), and their spoken acting voices.
                 Depending on the level of students, the amount time allotted for the project, and the goals of the storytelling project, the teacher can consider any or all of the following criteria in planning a video storytelling as a classroom activity or major performance project.

Analysis of Story and Language Elements
 a.  summary of the main events
 b.  descriptions of action/ setting / situation
 c.  description of the characters’ appearance, attitudes, and behaviors
 d.  use vocabulary to describe their
  speech and communication behaviors
 e.  description of the emotions
 f.  significant time / cause/effect relationships
 g.  cultural dimensions (social roles non-verbal behaviors, values and perceptions)
 h.  plan for relating sequence, perspectives
 i.  plan for language variations (tense / voice, point- of-view, etc)
 j.  find opportunities for creativity and fun

What qualities does the teachers consider when choosing a video for storytelling?  Hollywood movies can be used, but they are often too long and complicated. Also, the students may already be familiar with a well-known movie and may have seen it in their native language. Therefore, it is useful to make use of English language educational videos that provide some conflict situations, and which may also create the need for interpretation.
         In conclusion, the video storytelling project can be integrated it into ESL courses at various levels. It can be done as individuals or as a group or team performance. 

No comments: