On using YouTube and Facebook in class: two articles

This week in class, we read two articles:

Terantino, J. M. (2011). YouTube for foreign languages: You have to see this video. Language Learning & Technology, 15(1), 10-16. http://llt.msu.edu/issues/february2011/emerging.pdf

Prichard, C. (2013). Using social networking sites as a platform for second language instruction. TESOL Journal 4(4), 752-758, DOI: 10.1002/tesj.113

Terantino gives a brief overview of YouTube before turning to its advantages in a language class. He touches on the “picture superiority effect” (Berk, 2009; cited on p. 11), the idea that “concepts or ideas are more likely to be remembered if they are presented as pictures rather than words” (11), for example, and then describes YouTube’s potential for providing “linguistic and cultural content and information in and related to the target language” (12). Videos, he writes, can introduce students to the culture of the target language, provide linguistic input, or just grab students’ attention; and YouTube, in particular, is a venue in which students (or teachers) can share their own video creations.

Prichard, meanwhile, discusses the ways a social networking site (SNS) such as Facebook can be used by learners “in a variety of ways, from communication skill practice to language acquisition,” while teachers can use an SNS to “organize, monitor, and evaluate student work” (756). Specifically, he suggests Facebook is good for facilitating discussions outside of class, while L2 learners can also use it to practice listening, reading, and writing, and expand their vocabulary while simultaneously acquiring grammar structures. At the same time, as they interact with native L2 speakers, students will build “pragmatic awareness” (756) as they’re exposed to nuances of authentic language such as register.

I appreciated both of these articles. The authors raised solid points, all supported by my personal experience. I love using YouTube videos in class, and my students and I have shared self-created videos with each other via YouTube. I’ve also found Facebook a great avenue for out-of-class discussions; my students post completed projects on our class page and then comment on each other’s work. I also use it to communicate with students; if I need to make an announcement about an upcoming class, I post it on the class page. (The class captain usually re-distributes the most important announcements via Kakao Talk, the messaging app of choice in Korea.) Facebook’s potential to provide access to authentic language and culture, meanwhile, is something I’ve written about elsewhere.

But I feel as if both articles are missing part of the picture. For example, I read an article a while ago (can’t find it now, unfortunately—it was in a Korea-based professional journal) suggesting that requiring students to use SNSs can actually backfire; though the students in this study initially were very excited and motivated to use Facebook and Twitter for class assignments, the novelty soon wore thin, and postings soon became just another piece of homework. This isn’t an argument against using SNSs in the language classroom, but it is something teachers should keep in mind as they consider how best to integrate them.

Terantino’s YouTube article, too, missed some of my favorite uses for videos in the language classroom: setting context, eliciting the target language, and providing students with a reason to talk. There doesn’t even have to be any language; in fact, silent videos allow students to focus on what’s happening and avoid cognitive overload, then they can follow up videos by producing language of their own. For example, Teeth (2008) has no dialog—which makes it the perfect video for information-gap watching. Student A watches the first half while Student B puts his/her head down; then Student A explains to Student B what happened. The partners switch roles for the second half of the film.

Or as another example, I use the first 1:12 of the 2004 Dawn of the Dead trailer to set the scene for a 2-hour zombie apocalypse lesson that elicits modals (“What’s the problem? What could she do? What should she do? What would you do?”). We then use the first thirty seconds of this Zombieland (2009) trailer to introduce a new twist: the zombie plague has reached Korea, and groups can choose five things from Home Plus (a store similar to Target) to take with them to survive. The lesson culminates with this awesome interactive zombie movie (which is very challenging, linguistically, but the choose-your-own adventure style is great for inspiring quick debates between partners. It’s also a lot of fun.).

In short, there are a few more topics I wish these authors had touched on—and many more things one can do with videos than Terantino considers! (Ironic, given how close his name is to a certain innovative director’s, eh? You can read more about how I use these videos—and see my favorite five—here.)