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Using Video in the Primary Classroom
Günter Gerngross and Herbert Puchta

Video and television are part of children's lives and can be an extremely successful tool in teaching a foreign language in the primary classroom. In this article Herbert Puchta and Günter Gerngross concentrate on the use of video in teaching stories and role plays effectively, and in anchoring the language of 'Action Stories' successfully in the children's memory.

We are sure that most teachers of a foreign language in the primary class are familiar with the following situation:

Scene 1:

You have taught the children some new words before you tell a story in the Pupil's Book. Let's say the story is about two young wizards who put the contents of various bottles of different colours into a huge pot. After some time the mixture is about to explode. The wizards quickly open the door and throw the liquid outside. The next morning they are confused because they can't leave their house through the door. It is blocked by the stalk of an enormous flower which has grown in front of the house during the night.

You ask the children to sit around you and you tell them the story with the help of the pictures in the Pupil's Book. They have their books closed because you want them to focus their attention on one picture after the other while you are telling the story. That means the teacher tells the story and shows one picture after the other while covering up the rest. If they have their books open while you are telling the story they might be distracted by a particularly interesting picture or might start talking about e.g. the wizards' clothes in their mother tongue.

Since the children have enjoyed the story you feel confident that you will reach the objectives you have set yourself. Your first objective is that they understand the story. Judging from their reactions it is clear that their listening comprehension is fine. You have, however, also set yourself a far more ambitious goal. You want them to act the story out. When you have finished telling the story you realize that the children like the story so much that they want to act it out immediately. You quickly draw the huge green stalk of the flower on the board and then close it (provided you have one of those triptych-like boards) and you take a plastic bowl that will be the wizard's pot.

You have managed to stop them shouting "Me, me, me, me" and the first two lucky ones can start acting the story out. They act nicely, but there is one problem - unfortunately a grave one. Since they have listened to the story only once they hardly remember anything of the text. Consequently you are completely absorbed in your task as a prompter and you have no time for anything else. And you keep saying to yourself: I've made a mistake. They didn't get enough input.

When the bell rings you've surely made a mental note of what techniques to use next time before they act out the story, e.g.: photocopy the story, cut it up and have the children put it in the correct order; match the speech bubbles with the pictures; complete the speech bubbles etc.

Scene 2:

It's the same story, but another class. The teacher has also taught some new words, but then she just switches on the video. The children watch the story of the two wizards with rapt attention. When it's over the teacher has to rewind the video three times as they want to watch it again and again. Before they watch the story for the fourth time the teacher turns the sound down very low and asks the children to speak the text while watching. Some remember the whole text, others only chunks of language. When they then act the story out it is markedly different from the class described above. Quite a lot of the children have stored most of the text in their heads and there is no need for continuous prompting. The visuals have helped the children to understand the language and they even imitate the rhythm of the wizards' language.

The explanation for the discrepancy of the two scenes in the two classrooms is quite simple.

In Scene 1 the children were not interested in listening to the story again. Their initial curiosity had been satisfied and they were ready for more action: they wanted to act out the story, but were, of course, not aware of the fact that they wouldn't be able to reproduce the necessary language. The only way out for the teacher would have been a strategy of deferred gratification: You are only allowed to act the story out when you have finished the following tasks: put the pictures in the correct order, match the pictures and the speech bubbles, etc.

In Scene 2 why are the children willing to watch the video several times? The answer is simple: the video is a medium which captivates their interest. Their attention is clearly focused on the screen. There is a feeling of shared interest. There is more visual variation compared to the static representation in the book and last but not least there is more auditory variation because they hear several voices and there are background noises and there is music. Extensive experience of teaching a foreign language to primary children clearly tells us that teaching stories with the help of a video is an extremely effective strategy which also makes life a lot easier for the teacher.

In recent years we have also experimented a lot with so-called 'Action Stories'. An Action Story is a very short text consisting of a sequence of actions with a punchline at its end. Action Stories are ideal for primary classes since they cater for the needs of the children to hear, see and act out the story.

Since there are different learner types in a classroom it is crucial to take their different sensory needs into consideration. In teaching materials there should be a balance between the visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles. The Action Stories in Join In are ideal to achieve this goal because they cater for all three. The children see, hear and they mime the actions. Through multi-sensory conveyance, these stories are well-anchored in the learners' memories.

Consider the following scene: the children are standing in a semi-circle in front of the TV. The teacher switches it on and the children hear and see Toby the Tiger. Toby says "Turn off the alarm clock" and mimes the action. The children listen, watch and imitate Toby's movements. Toby gradually develops the story.

Turn off the alarm

Get out of bed.

Put on your T-shirt.

Put on your shorts.

Put on your socks.

Put on your trainers.

Put on your cycle helmet.

Open the door.

(The children see that it is raining hard.)

Shout: "Oh, no!"

The children understand because they see Toby do the actions and they remember because they are actively involved in listening, watching and miming.

In the next step Toby says the sentences without miming and the children do the actions again. The teacher watches this step closely. If a large number of learners have problems reacting correctly to the stimulus, the teacher either stops the video and goes back to step one or does the first step herself with the class.

Toby then says the sentences in a jumbled order. The teacher has told the children to open their coursebooks. Toby says, for example, "Number one: Put on the cycle helmet". The children look for the appropriate picture in the course book and write in the number one. When Toby has finished saying the sentences in a jumbled order the teacher draws a grid on the board which is a graphic representation of the page in the book. She draws nine squares and the children dictate which numbers to write into the squares. In this way they can check whether they have made any mistakes or not.

The advantages of using video to teach Action Stories are obvious. The children's attention is focused on the video because it is fun watching and imitating a tiger who can speak. Toby never gets tired. No matter how often you show his actions they always remain the same. There is the additional advantage of listening to the voice of a native speaker. The teacher monitors what is going on and she has the children repeat a step that is not working properly. Her role has changed. She need not fulfill lots of roles at the same time because part of her workload has been taken over by the video. She can take a deep breath and concentrate on being the facilitator and leave some of the work to the successful tool of the video.