Issue 11, Spring 2006
TELL @ ELI Archive

Improving Teaching through Video Analysis and Critique

As many of you know, the ELI now has two MiniDV camcorders that instructors can use to videotape their classes. Beginning the summer session of 2006, instructors will now be able to burn CDs and DVDs on the new office computers. While most instructors have been using the camcorders to video their own classroom performance for their portfolios or for self-reflection, it is important to keep in mind that the same can be done to help the students self-reflect. While videotaping the students so that they can view their own interactions or presentations is not a new idea, the fact that we will now have the ability to record multiple interactions and burn them to a CD or DVD is new. For this reason, I would like to share my own experience with using video recordings with you to help spark some ideas about how you can use the camcorders in your own classes.

When I began teaching the Level IV Academic Interactions class, I typically had my students give three presentations throughout the semester. While they were giving their presentations, I would use a rubric (download in MS Word - 33 Kb), which I shared with the students, to rate their presentations for pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and use of various presentation skills. Typically, I would meet with students after their presentations and discuss their grade for the presentations using the rubric that I filled out in class. While this was useful for some students, others did not benefit from such a practice on subsequent presentations; verbal and presentation skill gains were often minimal or non-existent.

After conducting some research on various forms of assessment and feedback, I came across an article that discussed using video for student's self-analysis of conversational styles between L2 learners and native speakers (Fukada & Pashby, 2002). This article prompted me to think about how I could use a similar technique to help raise students' awareness of what they were doing in their presentations. I decided to start using a VHS camcorder, analog video, to record the presentations, which would allow the students to sit down with me and discuss their presentations individually. In these meetings, I wanted the students to reflect on their own performance and rate themselves using the same rubric that I used in class. After which, I would have the students discuss ways to improve their subsequent presentations. I noticed that the students following presentations were usually much better, and they would usually not make the same mistakes that we had discussed in our meetings. One drawback of using analog video was that it required having a television and VCR in my office, which was not very big, or using some other room that was not always very private. The second option typically made students nervous because they did not want other students to see or hear their presentations. Another drawback to this method was that it was time-consuming and cumbersome to move around the tape. I knew there had to be a better way.

After purchasing my own Mini DV camcorder, I decided to start recording the presentations using digital video. After each presentation session, I would capture the video to my computer and then hold individual meetings with the students to discuss their presentations just as with the analog recordings. However, in these meeting, the students could come into my office and view their presentations on my computer. Using digital video made it easier to move about the presentation, and allowed me to schedule more meetings back to back because I was able to save each presentation in a separate folder for each student. Another advantage of this method was the fact that it was easy to show students where they had improved from one presentation to the next and then discuss what areas they still needed to work on. One final advantage of using digital video over analog video was that at the end of the semester, I was able to give the students a copy, burned to a CD, of all of their presentations as their own video portfolio.

While this activity might not work for all classes, there are many ways in which you can incorporate the use of the camcorder into your own classroom to aid in the learning process. You may even want to talk with other instructors to find out how they have used video before and try out new things. In fact, Scott had a novel use for using a camcorder with his level II Literature class for his Project Based lesson plan that was highly motivational for the students. A copy of his activity can be found in the break room in the Summer 2005CALL lesson folder.

Fukada, Y., & Pashby, P. (Winter 2004). Student self-analysis of conversational styles in
........videotaped interactions. TESOL Journal, 11(4), 27-9.

TELL@ELI Issue 11, Spring 2006

Copyright © 2006, University of South Florida.
English Language Institute
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