This is an idea I came up with when I did the excellent Consultants-E “ICT in the Language Classroom” course earlier this year.
A colleague on the course was asking if anyone could think of a way to use this video clip with learners.
Do-you-speak-english
Uploaded by flyingtostunt66
Well after I’d stopped laughing at the video, this was the idea I came up with:
I think a nice lesson for this particular clip would be just for everyone to be “eyes.” You turn the sound down on the TV and after watching the film once, the students, in pairs, have to talk together and guess what was said in the dialogue.
They write the dialogue down, then watch the film again to see if they had predicted correctly. As we all know, prediction skills are a vital help to listening skills.
You could even do something like this online.
If you posted the film to a blog or website without the dialogue, you could then invite students to write their ideas of what is being said and post it as a reply to the blog entry.
After a week (and lots of nice prediction ideas have been posted by your students) you could post the “real” version with sound to the blog..
Of course, saying that you could do something like this online, and actually doing it are two different things. My colleague asked me how you could edit the film to remove the sound. I thought that Photobucket would be a good tool, so I set out to test out my theory with their video editing tools. And… it worked! Here’s how I explained to my classmate to go about doing it:
Before you start you’ll need:
- A Photobucket account
- A video you want to use in class like the ones you find on Youtube or Google video .
- About an hour of time (unless you’ve done this sort of thing before)
Ok now let’s get started.
- Download the video you want to use from Youtube. Video Downloader is a good tool for this. Save it somewhere you’ll remember on your computer.
- Log in to your PhotoBucket account and upload your video.
- To make sure your students can’t see the original version of your film, upload it (or move the film) to a private album. If you leave the film where it is, as soon as your students have finished watching your cleverly edited film clip with no sound, they will be able to watch the original. This would probably ruin your lesson!
- Now you are ready to start the fun bit. Look in the botom left hand corner of the page and you’ll see the “Create Remix” button. click this then edit your film. there is a written tutorial here if you need help, though to be honest I’d recommend watching the video tutorial that opens up the first time you use the Remix tool.
- To cut out the sound from your film, all you need to do is add a bit of music to your film. There is a music button on the right hand side of your main video editing screen.
- Add some titles to your film from the “Graphics and Captions” box and you’re nearly there!
- Finally, when you are ready, click the “Preview” button to see what you have done so far.
- If you are happy with your film click on the “Publish” button and hey presto!
All you’ll need to do now is to tell your students the web address of your newly edited clip. You could ask them to post their dialogues to a blog if you have one already. Otherwise, you could simply ask them to write their dialogues on paper and bring them to the next lesson.
And here is the finished article… a video with no dialogue, which is ready for students to post their ideas of what the conversation is that they’re having in the film.
Hi Seth, great ideas. Just borrowing some now to try out with a few groups, especially like the idea using “6 Billion”. Trying it out tomorrow, so will let you know how it goes.
Re this video, I tried to re-edit using your methods, but due having a mac I couldn’t quite get hold of all the relevant software. But the Zamzar programme has served me well!
How would I be able to get hold of your remixed version?
Cheers
Gary
Hi there Gary,
Thanks! I’m really glad you like the ideas. I haven’t tried out the 6 Billion idea yet, so I’d be really intrigued to hear how you get on with it.
The remixed version is available from:
http://s42.photobucket.com/albums/e319/sethdickens/?action=view¤t=6a84e389.pbr
Alternatively you can embed it directly in your blog / web page using the code you get from the link above. blogger won’t let me post the code here though!
All the best and thanks again for the feedback,
Seth
This is a great video - I hope I will have an opportunity use it in class sometime. (And I came to you via Larry Ferlazzo’s blog - good work on the carnival, Larry!)
Hi there tefl logue,
First off welcome fellow ESL Carnival blog surfer! I too think Larry’s ESL Carnival is a great idea and am really pleased he decided to include this blog on it.
I’m really pleased you liked the video too. I think in face to face (F2F) lessons you could simply use this video and turn the sound down on it, but by using the tools on Photobucket you can also do the same thing online. I’ve been using this video with a Moodle based online class recently and it’s been going really well. I’ve had some really “creative” conversations written by my students.
Thanks again for the feedback,
Seth
I like the idea IF you can edit out parts of the dialogue. I found out you can but it really is A Lot of work…. I’d rather just turn off the sound and play some music and go from there…..
but I appreciate the lesson and making me think and photobucket is a good editing program, very intuitive.
Thx,
David
http://eflclassroom.ning.com
Hiya David,
I’m really glad you liked the lesson idea. I used Photobucket again the other day and also had the same frustrations, it’s not actually possible to cut the sound from a video simply and easily, you have to add the same video twice and then “overdub” the sound in the section you don’t want. Definitely tricky stuff, that would better be done on a computer.
It is, however, still a really handy tool which is useful for simple editing tasks.
Hi Seth
A brilliant idea and very good video to use. On the sound issue, I found a program called Cyberlink Power Director that will strip out the audio on any video and then let you add a different soundtrack. It’s not a free program though.
Hi Jonathan,
Does the “Cyberlink” program work with Flash content too i.e. films from Youtube etc? It sounds really good if it does, online films I guess are the most versatile for most language teachers nowadays.
One thing I really liked about Photobucket is the fact that it’s all done 100% online. It does mean you have slightly limited control over what you can do with your material, but it does save having to buy, download and install a load of software. It’s also pretty easy to use too.
All the best,
Seth