Lonergan, Jack (1992). Video in Language Teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press.

p 4: “The outstanding feature of video films is their ability to present complete communicative situations.” I note this because I’m interested in the idea of using audio instead of video. And while audio doesn’t present the physical visuals of a live or videotaped or filmed experience, one’s mind always supplies the missing information. So while I’m not disputing his assertion, I’m thinking there may be another way of looking at it.

Obviously the aim of this book is very different than what I may want to explore in audio, but I’ll take some notes that I think I can extend into the realm of the purely auditory.

p. 4 “The speakers in dialogs can be seen and heard; other participants in the situation can be seen. The lagauge learner can readily see the ages of the participants; their sex; perhaps their relationships to one another; their dress, social status, and what they are doing; and perhaps their mood or feelings…

“Similarly, the setting of the communication is clear: the language learner can see on the screen where the action is taking place. This information may help to clarify whether the situation is very formal, or perhaps informal.”

I quote the above because elements pertain even to audio only.

The writers talk about video being a complete communicative situation, but I wonder: how often do we just listen? And what we can’t see, we always supplement in our own minds. And on a related thread, on page 11 the author writes, “Because a video presentation shows the totality of a communicative situation, it is usually difficult for learners to undertake extensive writing.” Not so true for radio/audio. Listeners can write, or draw, or gaze out the window and dream. [I said that.]

There are myriad ideas from this book that would transfer for audio-only (or audio threaded with other forms of input).

p 15: pictures or diagrams, worksheets to focus attention.

p 16: Watching & Listening for Cues: Exercises in which students watch or listen for cues; each group could have a different cue sheet. E.g. “As you watch the sequence, not down examples of displeasure, disappointment, optimism; Learner B: … note examples of agreement, disagreement, pessimism; Learner C: … direct commands, indirect commands, resignation.

p 20: Good for note-taking skills, sorting information (can use matrix: who thinks what about what)

p 24: Guided note-taking: Like what Tatiana did. Where did they go? How long did they stay? Why did they go? etc.

p 32: Playing and stopping selected segments for repetition. P 35: for copying intonation.

Other exercises: prediction (p 36),

P 39: Role play. In the case of audio, I think that once Ss understand the situation, they can re-eanact their own version of the story. [My idea] And maybe [my idea] you could then have them swap roles.

p 29: Idea: have an a audio speaker directly address the listener.

p 44: another thing to explore: different register

p 48: Narrative recall (stop and ask Ss what happened up to that point)

p 49: Reported speech: Tell a third-party what has happened

P 53: Focus on a language feature in communicative language learning. What is someone trying to accomplish. Maybe [my idea] could get into cultural pragmatics, etc.

p 55: Focus on lexis.

p 65: Discussion: a videotape (or in my case a first-person audio story) provides ample fodder for discussion. p66: “Most classroom discussions benefit from thorough preparation. Unless learners are very familiar with a discussion topic and/or are very articulate, an unprepared discussion can be disappointing. Learners are frustrated if they have not got the vocabulary available to express their ideas, and they are dispirited if the discussion leads nowhere.”

p 69: Learner-Centred Discussion

“A discussion among language learners of a specialist topic with which they are familiar may mean that teachers are left on the sidelines.” Seems to me from our recent approaches discussions that this would be ideal. If Ss are working with their own lives and issues through audio, and their peers understand the context, learners could have a field day.

p 70–71: Other project ideas

• Written summaries (“…prepare a piece of co-operative work, written summaries of the video presentation. I general language courses this will often be in the form of a narrative. This writing practice is likely to be an effective measure of competence in the uses of tenses, syntax, and other written constructions. However, it is only of real value if the learners have a need for such writing in the target language.”
• Scriptwriting a role play (including stage directions as well as dialogue
• Scriptwriting a cliff-hanger: breaking the script into installments that leave the watcher wondering what’s going to happen next

p 82-84: Sources for video : plays, poetry, literature, humor, documentaries, discussions, ads. Each can lead to language analysis: what is the purpose, how is it structured, what is the register, etc.