[Kieran]

Hi Gail,

Thanks very much for your great analysis of the videos to promote values.

This was a really interesting topic – one that we don’t generally deal with in university classes.

I think that values are promoted enough in adult classes.

The film on 10 virtues would be interesting to use – having students guess what these might be and asking if they have any additions or disagree or could name the opposite of virtues (what would we call these – the curses of modern day life?)

Getting students to speculate on the 10 virtues of the modern age is a great activity. Yes. The opposite of the 10 virtues could be the 10 curses or vices of modern day life.

Educate the Heart was beautiful. The film on Kindness was excellent and I would use it with students. Mary’s Meals is really well done and effective.

These three are amount my personal favourites.

Just a note: the links to the films on the sheet that I downloaded are not always correct. The links on the website are correct. It would be good to correct on the sheet the links to the 10 Virtues (listed as How to Become a Better Person), Educate the Heart, Success.

Thanks for the heads up. I checked all the links in the PDFs a week before the course started but links in PDFs are notoriously difficult to maintain. I’ve updated them again and they’re all working now.

Thanks again for your great analysis.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks very much for your great analysis of the video.

Of all the videos, the one I wanted to comment on most was “We’re the Superhumans”. There’s something about this video that really speaks to me. My mum has one arm – she’s also a teacher, can drive a car, and so many other things besides (though I don’t think she ever had sporting ambitions!).

It’s a great video, isn’t it? Your mum sounds amazing!

While the other videos foster empathy in various ways, this one is just so direct – it’s a positive, inspiring image of disability in the open, for all to see. I think it’s reflective of a piece commissioned by Channel 4, which has a proven track record of taking more risks, being innovative and tackling issues head on.

It’s refreshing to have such an inspiring image of disability.

I’ve actually used this in class for a lesson on the Paralympics and it was very interesting to see the reaction from students. There is a lot less disability on display in Korea and the students were curious, fascinated and inspired by what they saw.

Good to know that you’ve used this video with your students and that they were enagaged by it.

The video opens with a close up on the drumsticks, and as the camera zooms out, we see it’s a man playing drums with his feet. There’s an initial element of surprise. Then we see the band and notice all the musicians are disabled and the viewer starts to process what they’re watching. The video doesn’t try to hide disability: it celebrates it. We can see stumps, artificial limbs, people in wheelchairs. We see all the things people are able to do. There are those living their everyday lives – at work, eating, filling up at the petrol station, driving cars, flying planes – and we see the athletes taking part in sport. The camera shots are fast paced which adds to the energy and power. They’re shot from various points of view.

Brilliant analysis of how the video celebrates disability rather than hiding it.

The song used for this video “Yes I can” fits the video perfectly.

As you point out, the song matches the video perfectly.

It is a positive message and emphasises all that is achievable, with the lyrics reflecting this. The line “yes I can” is repeated and builds up, driving this sense of determination and possibility. The only spoken line, “No, you can’t”, from the condescending Careers Officer, is met with a warrior-like battle cry of “yes I can”. There’s the instrumental (rock) break with scenes from sporting events which also plays a part in creating an atmosphere of strength and resolve.

Great analysis of how sound is used in the video.

Humour is used here to great effect too. The singer and the band make their way into numerous scenes, weaving through a wheelchair basketball game for example. There’s the final scene, where a man in wheelchair goes down a really steep ramp, like a daredevil ski jumper, and up into the air. It then cuts to a man brushing his teeth. I find the juxtaposition of the two really clever. There’s the black and white tap routine (inspired by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, perhaps) with dancers missing limbs and prosthetics joining in the tap routine. It’s almost farcical at times but what impact does that have on the viewer’s empathy?

Yes, that juxtaposition is very clever.

Thanks again for your great analysis.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks very much for your great evaluation of the activities.

Intriguing title

I like the idea of students creating a narrative based on just the title. It’s very little information to go on but at the same time students could really tap into their creativity and take the story anywhere.

Absolutely. Students don’t get much information but enough to spark their curiosity and creativity.

As you mentioned in the webinar, some titles are more evocative than others and lend themselves better to this activity.

Exactly. Some titles are more evocative than others.

Pairs would also need to be well matched for this to work – some are better than speculating than others. They’d maybe need more prompts or scaffolding to help them, but does that defeat the object of the activity?

Scaffolding the activity may well be necessary and doesn’t the object of the activity.

Empathising with a character

I like that the students put themselves in the character’s shoes and think about the next decade of the character’s life – what will happen to the pregnant waitress and her child? Will their paths ever cross again? I like that the students will share what they imagine happens to their character with each other. That, and the feedback session, will help prepare for the homework task because students will have shared lots of ideas about the characters by that point.

You’re absolutely right that sharing what they imagine happens to their character with each other and the feedback session, will help prepare students for the homework task.

Write a sequel

I like this activity because there’s lots here for the students to think about and it lends itself well to collaborative work.

This activity definitely lends itself to collaborative work.

It also draws on existing knowledge because they’ve all probably seen a sequel and may have varying opinions about what makes it better or worse than the original!

Great! This activity really helps to activate students’ schemata.

I like the question prompts they have to answer when watching the film. They can then use this when writing their sequel.

Yes. The questions help to scaffold the tak nicely.

I think it depends, but perhaps students find writing activities based on short films more engaging and motivating than some of the writing activities from our textbooks. I think that because they’re able to imagine more vividly this will helps them with the writing process.

Excellent points. I think what you say about images helping students to imagine more vividly helps them with the writing process is very true.

I’d like to try to use these activities with my teens class and see what the result is.

Please give them a go. I think they’ll work well with your teen students.

Thanks again for your great evaluation, Andrew.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Gail,

Thanks very much for your answers.

I found all the activities mentioned here useful.

I’m delighted you found the activities usefulk.

Yes, I have used film as a writing prompt. (Our students do a lot of writing – we tend to emphasize that aspect of language learning since we are preparing them for writing at the university level.)

I think there are a lot of benefits to students doing a lot of writing.

I particularly liked the idea of using of screenshots in combination with the film- I have never done that. It’s a great idea! Thanks!

Screenshots are a great way to scaffold wriitng activities and very easy to set up.

Here’s a link to an article on how to take a screenshot in Windows.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-screenshot-on-windows

Thanks again for your answers.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Marialena,

Thanks very much for your answers.

I’ve used social and viral shorts.

Social shorts and viral shorts are both engaging genres.

Do the videos from the YouTube channel Great Big Story also count as short docs? I’ve used quite some videos from this channel as they cover many diverse subjects.

Yes. These are definitely short docs. They have a lot of great short docs on this channel.

Apart from the ones above I really like the idea of using split screen shorts and I think these might also be popular amongst students.

Split screen shorts are great for getting students to make comparisons.

Can you think of any other new genres?

How about interactive films maybe for higher level students ? (e.g. Seven Digital Deadly Sins – this one is not that short if you dedicate time to go over the entire story, but we could look at one or two of the videos during the lesson and provide a link to students to explore the rest at home).

I can see this one working. Viewing one or two of the videos during the lesson and then giving a link to students to view the rest at home is a good approach.

Thanks again for your answers, Marialena.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Marialena,

Thanks very much for commenting on the activities and the lessons.

From the generic activities I think they’ll really like the Venn diagram exercise as well as the collocations activity because they’re not as typical as the lists and key vocabulary activities.

The venn diagram and collocations activities are both nice ones.

Regarding the three lessons, my students would really enjoy the first one. Not only will they be able to identify with the boy at the start of the video (most of them constantly talk about gaming) but it’ll also eventually generate a discussion about how we should treat nonhuman animals and people that have a disability about both of which I think that they’ll have many interesting things to say.

The Present is a wonderful short film and it was created by an 18-year-old German boy. It does connect to the lives of many students and is a lovely introduction to the themes of teenagers, treatment nonhuman animals and disability.

Thanks again for your comments, Marialena.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Marialena,

Thanks very much for your great answers.

I honestly cannot remember if I have ever used short films as writing prompts…I am familiar with the type of activities but it might very well be that I actually used them as speaking rather than writing prompts.

As I mentioned in last Sunday’s webinar, most teachers use short films as prompts for speaking but not many use them as prompts for writing.

I would really like to know your opinion about using these activities during the lesson, as small group writing tasks only. Would you say that it’s also beneficial for the students or would you rather stick to having them carry out the final tasks individually for h/w?

Good question. I’d definitely recommend using many of these narrative building activities in class in pairs and groups. Students often come up with great narratives when they work together on constructing the narrative. I often get students to write the narrative in pairs or groups in class, and for homework ask them to individually come up with a more polished version of their narrative.

I think the ‘stills story’ and ‘two characters’ might be really good activities for students who are not as imaginative as the discussion questions could prove to be extremely useful for guiding the writing activity afterwards – students won’t necessarily have to come up with something themselves, if they can’t think of anything they could build on ideas previously discussed during the lesson.

Exactly. The screenshots help to scaffold the activity for students. This is especially useful for less imaginative and creative students.

Thanks again for your answers, Marialena.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Gail,

That feature is really cool! Thanks very much for sharing it.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Gail,

Thanks very much for your great answers!

This was a great topic with wonderful suggestions.

I0’m delighted you found the Topic useful.

Many I have tried, but some were new ideas and I really like them. I watched all of the films and found most of them very interesting.

Good to know you liked the films.

I’m not sure I would use “Lovefield” – I think it is really disturbing and not knowing what the students’ life experiences are, I would be careful.

Good point. This film could well be disturbing for some students especially those with any kind of trauma. You’d probably know your students well enough to know if it would be appropriate to use or not.

Unfortunately, the quality of “Signs” is not so great – you are right about YouTube vs. Vimeo as far as quality goes.

I completely agree. The image quality of “Signs” is really poor which is such a shame as it’s a wonderful short film.

I tried to do the listening tasks myself (back to back, moving music, what does it sound like) – I find this difficult and would be really interested to hear what students have to say.

I understand your point here. This one can be difficult to set up, especially the first time you do it, but it does get easier when students know exactly what they have to do.

Thanks so much to you, Kieran, for all of these suggestions.

You’re very welcome, Gail.

It is great to compare how you used these films in the webinar in one way, and in a totally different way in this chapter.

I’m happy you noticed this. I like to use the same short film in different ways so taechers can see the various possibilities we have for exploiting a short film.

My tendency is to view a film and hone in on the most salient feature (let’s say the message or the characters) and you often focus on some other aspect (such as sequencing the scenes) – a very interesting approach.

Good point. This has come from experience. I think the more you use short films, the more possibilities you see.

I can suggest the Android commercial Rock, Paper, Scissors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VZi6cfUZQ4 – I have used it to teach culture (the game), the song in the background and the connection betw the message and the film. Also the issue of bullying.

I hadn’t seen this short before. Thanks for sharing it. I really like it.

Thanks again for your excellent responses, Gail.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Marialena,

Thanks very much for your excellent answers.

Regarding my experience, at the beginning I found that it was quite tough for some of my students (especially the younger ones 11-13) to really follow the activities as they were not familiar with using short films as a learning tool – though I must admit that I’m probably the one to blame as I went for the ones that I considered most interesting in terms of topic rather than gradually build their confidence and make them accustomed to the process.

Your experience is very common. It’s take time for both the teacher and students to get used to using short films and videos if they haven’t used them extensively before. What you say about the need to gradually build their confidence and make them accustomed to the process of using short films and videos is really important.

In this sense, I think that the Observation questions, Order the actions and Memory game tasks will be really helpful as ‘baby step’ activities into the world of exploiting short films in the language classroom.

Exactly! These activities are really simple and introduce students to short films and videos in a stress-free manner. ‘Baby step’ activities is a nice way of expressing this!

I feel that they’re excellent tasks for scaffolding some of the other activities that you recommend and for getting students to start exploring the film that they’re watching regardless of their English level.

They are excellent scaffolding activities.

What happens next? → Students tend to get very engaged with this activity. I’ve used it quite a lot of times. Though I must admit that at the same time I feel that it could add quite some pressure to more reserved students.

It is a very engaging activity. With regard to more reserved students, we might like to give them time to think and write their response before asking them to give it orally.

What does it sound like? and Food for thought → these are the ones I liked the most because they seem to activate different cognitive skills, e.g. auditory perception and logical reasoning.

Both of these work really well.

I’ve never done anything like these so I’m definitely planning to use them in the near future.

I’m sure they’ll work well.

Other activities: I’ve used an ‘order the scenes’ type of activity with screenshots from short films. I basically gave students printed screenshots and they – in groups – had to put them in order and decide (predict) the storyline.

‘Order the scenes’ is a great activity.

Thanks again for your excellent answers, Marialena.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks very much for your great answers!

With some of these activities students need to have a suitable range of vocabulary to effectively participate, while others are easier to differentiate.

Excellent point. Some of the activities can be used with many levels and some are more suited to just higher levels.

Order the actions

I’ve tried this activity before, not only using sentences but also pictures. It’s a good way to get lower level students to sequence the story. Rather than reading and ordering, they can look at the pictures and say what’s happening.

Absolutely. This is one of the activities which can be used with many levels but is maybe best suited to lower levels.

Back to back

I like that the students have different roles in this activity, and that the listener bases their questions on what they have heard. It would test the watcher’s memory and ability to describe what they saw.

This one is a classic. Both the viewer and listener have to work hard.

What happens next?

A worthwhile activity for predictions, students can have creative and far out ideas (and sometimes they manage to hit the nail on the head!)

This one works really well too and, as you point out, encourages students to be creative.

What does it sound like?

I’d be really interested to find out what students would predict without the visual cues. It really allows them to use their imaginations.

Students come up with great ideas!

Short films

I tend to use animated shorts. They’re silent in that they have no dialogue but there’s still music and sound effects. Two of my favourites are Pigeon Impossible and Alma. There is strong characterisation in both. The music and sound effects adds drama/atmosphere and the students get pulled into the story.

Animated shorts work really well in the language classroom and are particularly good with younger learners.

Lifevest Inside (Kindness Boomerang) is another great one. I’ve used it as a warmer for lessons on kindness, being helpful and paying it forward. It’s good for sequencing and talking/writing about stereotypes.

I’ve seen this short and like it. I agree it’s excellent for classes on kindness, being helpful and paying it forward.

The Black Hole is one I’ve used with adults – it was particularly effective for writing about conditionals.

The Black Hole is great for working on conditionals.

I did a week-long winter camp with students using Pixar shorts as the theme (titles like For the birds, Presto and Lifted). The activities were graded to their ability – instead of ordering sentences, students put pictures in order or would match sentences with pictures. They wrote about the characters, describing how they look and their personality. After watching the shorts, students took part in a range of activities – they wrote comics, created their own storyboards, and made puppets before doing a role-play.

This sounds brilliant! I really like the range of activities the students did.

Thanks again for your excellent responses, Andrew.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Daniela,

Thanks very much for your great evaluation of the extensive viewing guides.

So I focussed on the viewing guide for “The King’s Speech”.

The King’s Speech is a good one to evaluate.

Generally speaking, as Gail pointed out above, this is an amazing amount of details and materials ready for work and as I went on browsing the viewing guides I was wondering how much work did it take you to elaborate all these sheets. That is wonderful!

I’m delighted you like the amount of detail in the guides! They do take a lot of time to write!

In each guide there is a lot of material and tasks to be done by students, so I also think that as teachers we might select some questions of each section, or maybe we could leave some sections out, depending on the class, on our students needs, etc.

Yes. I think selecting some questions would work well.

I also thought that some sections are perfect to be done at home, so as a homework, both as an individual or as a small-group task (we need so much group working and we’ve done almost nothing in the last two years!).

Absolutely. The viewing is best done at home.

Others sections could be best done in class, with us teachers giving more guidance and more support.

The pre-viewing and post-viewing questions work best in class.

Among the viewing guides I was attracted by “The King’s Speech”, for many reasons: I liked that particular film, I like historical movies, I love British movies and I’ve recently developed a (good) obsession for movies, series, documentaries, dealing with the royal family. I was taught in my pre-service studies that dealing with subjects we’re keen on, is very profitable also for our students, because they can perceive our passion, our involvement in the things we are teaching.

I completely agree with you about selecting topics you’re interested in or passionate about. You can transmit that interest and passion to your students.

As regards pre-viewing questions, I find them engaging because they require the “self” involvement, so they are also very personal. I would certainly do this at school. We may build up a discussion.

Yes. The pre-viewing questions aim to activate the students’ schemata and to get a personal response from them.

As regards the glossary, I would start the analysis at school but assign the rest to do at home, I find that vocabulary learning is a typically individual task to concentrate on.

Starting the glossary in class and assigning the rest for homework makes sense.

“What do you know about the British monarchy?”
“What are the arguments in favour and against monarchies?”

I usually deal with this theme in my classes, comparing British Constitutional Monarchy and the Italian Constitution, so they might have some background when I present such an activity.

What other films have you seen about the British monarchy?
Considering the success of the series “The CROWN” and my recommendations, some of my students may have seen at least that series. The topic is also quite popular and covered by the media.

Good points. 



“What do you know about speech impediments? How do they affect people? How are they treated?”

I think this question might be too general and I think the students will need an explanation of the fact that the king had stammering. so, it would be useful to read the synopsis first.

I understand your point here. But the idea of doing the pre-viewing questions before the synopsis is that students don’t have too much information about the film.

“The film is set in London in the 1930s and includes the lives of royalty and ordinary people. What are your expectations of how it will look, particularly the production design, costume and lighting?”
A good question to predict the historical characteristics of the film and their ability to recognize social status according to costumes and clothing in general.


Exactly. That’s the rationale behind this question.

As regards the post-viewing questions I would assign some of them, to be done as a writing task.

Good idea to have students write their answers.

Then as a personal response to the film I’d assign the multimodal review, that implies the use of many competences, non only linguistic, but also digital, etc. Also, for my older students I like the idea of a video review.

Yes. The idea is to get a multi-modal response from students. The video review works well with both teens and adults.

Thanks again for your great evaluation, Daniela.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Gail,

Thanks very much for your insightful comments.

There is no question that extensive viewing improves language learning, especially when it is guided and active (for all the reasons you have given).

Absolutely. I really like what you say about the Extensive Viewing programme needing to be guided and active.

We could offer it at the university as an add-on to a course or as an elective.

I think this is the most sensible approach.

The obstacles are always financial – hiring a teacher, deciding how much or whether students would have to pay extra, etc.

Money is often an obstacle. However, I think an Extensive Viewing programme could be set up relatively cheaply. Of course, an other option is to have the programme within a normal course.

I just wonder how much time students are willing to give to such an endeavor since they have so many other academic obligations.

Yes. Time is definitely a potential obstacle. I’d try to convince students that the time they spend on reading the guide, watching the film, discussing the questions and doing the tasks, will be justified by improvements in their language level.

I generally offer my students the option of doing extensive reading or viewing and answering on “VoiceThread”. There I put up questions for them to answer and I respond orally and sometimes ask them additional follow-up questions or questions that are more personal, such as “have you ever experienced such a thing?”. I can give extra credit to students who decide to do extensive reading or viewing.

Great idea! I hadn’t thought of using VoiceThread in this way.

Thanks again for your insightful comments, Gail.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Michael,

Thanks very much for your in-depth evaluation of Extensive Viewing related to your teaching context.

EVF here is designed to deepen students’ knowledge of Korean culture and language, as well as support their English-language development, by watching feature-length films. There would be 4-6 feature-length films used in this particular course. Films would be chosen according to topic (eg., historical drama, Korean ethics / morality), availability of English-language materials (subtitles, reviews, scholarly work), and importance in the canon of Korean cinema (i.e., no obscure works). Using a few select works, along with clips and references to other films of course, allows the students to gain significant exposure to select topics and aspects of Korean culture and language without overwhelming them with viewing hours.

This makes sense to me. Choosing a select few films according to topic and importance in the canon of Korean cinema is a logical approach. As you point out, it’s important to to overwhelm or discourage students with too many viewing hours.

The [Modified] 7 stages, for the Korean students (i.e., those who know the culture and language intimately) + the non-Korean students (who are learning about these)

The modified 7-stage frameworks makes sense to me.

1. Activation
a. Class discusses preview questions after looking at a poster / viewing a trailer
i. General questions first, then on to culture / language (maybe not language at this stage)
ii. Non-Korean students ask questions.
iii. Korean students answer – as best they can.
iv. Teacher facilitates / fills in as necessary
b. It is expected that students will get quicker at this at the term progresses.

This Activation stage is good for activating students’ schemata.

2. Context and grading text
a. Students read a synopsis
i. May be taken from an online source (IMDb), or written by the instructor.
ii. Students may, eventually, create their own ‘predictive’ glossary
iii. Glossary will be multi-lingual (Korean, English, plus Ss’ 1st language)

Getting a synopsis from an online source saves a lot of time. Writing a synopsis takes a lot of time. I like the idea of having a multi-lingual glossary.

3. Preparation
a. Students will be given an English glossary (or will it be Korean????)
b. They will also have space to add their own words / expressions
c. They will have space to translate these into their own L1.
d. They will return to, and develop, this glossary after / during stage 4.

I like the idea of leaving space in the glossary for the students to add their own words / expressions. Nice!

4. Subtitles, whole film “getting acquainted”
a. This is going to be tricky.
b. Students will use no subs / English subs / Korean subs according to their individual needs
c. Korean students will focus on developing their English skills
d. Non-Korea students will focus on learning (about) Korean, and using English to scaffold that learning OR scaffolding their English (only?)
e. How this will look is dependent on the class make-up and the individual backgrounds of the students.

The subtitles are tricky as you have Korean and non-Korean students. As you point out how this works is dependent on the class make-up and the individual backgrounds of the students.

5. Stage 5 “intensive viewing”
a. Students will watch individual scenes.
b. Students will probably study these in small groups (hopefully all groups will have both Koreans and Non-Koreans) ; 5-6 groups watch 5-6 scenes
c. Focus on linguistic content in Korean, English, and with some elements of comparison to their L1 (if it’s other than Korean or English)
d. We then cycle back to stage 4 and complete the glossary.

I like your concept of ‘intensive viewing’. I can see this process working well. Having both Koreans and Non-Koreans in all groups is a good idea.

6. Post-viewing questions and discussion will be given in English and translated by students into Korean + their L1.
a. It is *possible* that certain questions will be given in Korean, if the classes’ Korean level is high enough.
b. All students, but especially for those whose Korean level is not high enough, will be able to access a bilingual version of the questions.
c. Post-viewing pre-discussion may be held in groups that are arranged according to L1 (In TBLT work of this sort, I often give students the opportunity to prepare with short discussions in their L1)

This is another tricky stage but what your propose would work well, in my opinion. I like your proposal for lower level students to be able to access a bilingual version of the questions.

d. “Culture and Language” section may be enlarged / other sections omitted.

It makes perfect sense to extend this stage in a course on culture.

7. Reponses
a. Responses will include typical questions
i. These may be answered in English or Korean (but no Korean for Korean L1s)
ii. Students can work together in groups to do peer-review / checking
iii. Teacher will facilitate
iv. This can be done as homework (partially or completely)

Another tricky area but I think you’ve dealt with it very well. I like your idea of students working together in groups to do peer-review / checking.

I could envision this becoming progressively more critical, difficult, and ‘Koreanised’ as the term progresses.

Yes. This could become more critical and difficult as you and your students become more familar with and proficient at the framework.

I both love the prospect of this course and am simultaneously terrified!

It sounds like a brilliant programme but logistically very complex! I’m sure it’ll be a great success even though you may have some teething problems.

Thanks again for your evaluation, Michael.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Marialena,

Thanks very much for your insightful comments.

It goes without saying that student’s media literacy will benefit immensely from the Extensive Viewing programme.

Absolutely. The student’s media literacy and visual literacy will definitely benefit from an Extensive Viewing programme.

As far as the obstacles are concerned I fear that in my case they’ll either have to do with parents’ not grasping the value of the programme and rather evaluating it as a distraction from the learning process, or students not having the required time to dedicate to watching the films twice or even not being willing to do so e.g. in case they did not enjoy the film.

Two very good points. Parents often don’t not grasp the value of this type of programme and have to be educated and convinced of its value. Time is another key factor – quite possibly the biggest obstacle. I would argue that learning a language takes a lot of time and hard work, and that Extensive Viewing, just like the better-know Extensive Reading, involves a lot of time and hard works but is one of the best ways to learn a language.

Overall, I believe that it could only work as an elective, extra-get-together-activity.

Of course there’s also the financial obstacle…such a programme means extra costs for both the language school and the parents.

Yes. I think you’re probably right here.

‘Selling’ it wouldn’t be necessary in my case as I was encouraged by my boss to participate in this course in order to recommend activities and frameworks that we could implement afterwards!

Having your boss on board is a big advantage!

Thanks again for your comments, Marialena.

All the best,

Kieran

[Author]

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