‘Queen of Grammar’ videos are more relatable due to the local context and language used. The humour in these videos helps increase engagement in our students and help them better understand the use of certain words. I can use these videos as an introduction to grammar and then add other grammar rules for students to practice.

Shmoop is an excellent resource to teach students language and literacy where students can re-play and practice at their own time. These videos are catchy and simple enough for our SEN students to understand. It comes in handy when teaching visual and auditory learners. I will definitely use these videos to teach writing, grammar rules, and punctuations. SEN students can also act out keywords after watching the video. 

As I looked through the resources from ‘All at C’, apart from teaching the language, some videos included aspects of motivation and encouragement for viewers. I can use these videos to teach about other cultures, model appropriate behaviour and increase student engagement, especially for students with shorter attention span. These videos can be used for writing and comprehension strategies to help my students who have trouble generating ideas. This site is also helpful for subjects other than English. I can also use the ideas in the PowerPoint slides to customise my lesson plans to suit individual student needs. Useful for HBL lessons as well.

I must also take into consideration of students’ disabilities when choosing a video. For example, students with hearing disabilities may need subtitles to benefit from the videos they watch. I may also create a handout based on the topic in the video so that SEN students can read it prior to watching the video. This can help the student to follow and understand the video clearly.

I have also noticed that certain content may not be suitable for younger children, like beer advertisements, witchcraft, dangerous stunts and even poor pronunciation. Therefore, I must choose age-appropriate videos and those that can deliver the best outcome for my lessons.

Thank you for the resources, Dr Liz. All these are saved and bookmarked, ready to be used.

 

For our students with SEN, watching videos and movies may enable them to understand the context of words used as it is part of the story and this can help them learn better and remember well. Comical presentation such as those from the Speak Good English Movement can also be more impactful as literacy concepts are presented in a novel and engaging way unlike just reading from a textbook or hearing a teacher deliver a lesson. 

 

For students who may get confused by grammar rules, Shmoop videos are concise and emphasise specific rules with clear examples. 

From my personal experience as a student, I had always wondered why my teachers would not show more videos during lessons. They were few and far between, occasionally only as a "reward" after having completed our exams and the teachers needed time to mark our scripts while we were engaged. 

This e-learning made me realise that learning can occur through the use of videos and movies if the right content is selected. 

Like what the article on ‘How to Learn English with Movies’ mentioned, the trick really lies in the selection of the video or movie you plan to show. It should be something age appropriate, enjoyable and for some, even impactful. If I were to use movies, it might probably form the body of my lesson, as it will take some time to dissect and teach explicitly what was being seen and heard from the video. I can choose certain scenarios for the student to learn the pronunciation of words from (it can be a dialogue or a narration etc), or the tone and also meaning of new vocabulary.

The ‘Queen of Grammar’ series would be a good filler to show the students if there is still time. This is so as the videos are funny, short and relatively easy to understand. Another way that I can utilise these videos are to pause at the mistakes that the character makes and ask the student if they know how to correct it. As the title suggests, this is to aid in the student’s basic grammar rules.

I would want to adopt the idea shown in the lesson plans included in the blog – All at C. It was a relatively well-thought-out process where they activated the prior knowledge of the students before drawing their attention to the various videos and then linking certain concepts that they wanted to teach. This was illustrated in the example video on online shopping. The blog really amazed me by showing that even the most ‘absurd’ video can be used to teach vocabulary (video of father and son duo making music dressed up as Star Wars characters). Perhaps, these videos can also be something that intrigue our students with SEN. These videos can also allow students to practice their speaking skills (e.g., asking student to describe the situation or what a particular character is wearing).  There was also a lot of pair work involved and this makes the session more interactive and ideal for group interventions.

Another thing which I picked up was from the journal article. It mentioned the comparison between novels/plays and film adaptation. Though this requires certain higher order thinking skills, but I feel that this would be relevant for secondary school students with SEN who have trouble with understanding the actual text. It can turn out to be a fun activity when certain parts of the book are compared with the film and students can point out what are the similarities/differences. This makes certain subjects like literature less daunting.

Overall, videos can be a good tool to use to make lessons more interesting and easier to understand. But these effects can only be achieved if the correct videos are chosen for the targeted audience. We would still need to take into consideration what works best for our students with SEN.

Using Video Lesson Plans, we can engage students primarily and work on their language development. Videos creates memories and allows student to maximize retention. We can also connect and widen students’ vocabulary through videos. The curiosity and engagement to find out words and meanings while watching videos is developed through planned lessons and students are more likely to find out words and their meanings on their own. 

Through movies, we can present information visually and auditory to students who do not have any prior knowledge. This helps students create impression and relate to what they will learn. We can also impart values and general knowledge to our students through movies. The accent of actors from different countries may be difficult for our students to decipher, therefore subtitles ensure they understand what they are watching. Eventually, subtitles as a scaffolding can be removed as the listening skill of our students improve. 

The Queen of Grammar was over the top, but hilarious. It is great to see local productions getting involve to bring up the standard of English. SMOOP is an excellent resource to teach grammar, vocabulary, etc. as the videos are short and more importantly, engaging. I always believe that mixing humour and fun in our lesson make learning more effective (well, as long as the teacher does not get carried away, haha!)

Videos that come with lesson plans are a great help as it can get the teacher started. He can tweak and adapt the lessons to suit the needs of the class or what he is going to teach. 

In summary, learning a language can be done using all forms of media - videos, songs, print etc. Teachers are spoilt for choice when getting ideas to conduct engaging lessons.

Many SEN students can learn better through visual and audio support.

 

The grammar video by Kumar was made in way that captures the key element of grammar in humor.

Sometimes when we teach individually during pull out sessions, we might forget about getting the student’s emotion of the day. Even on a bad day, fun moments will make them forget sadness and get engage in learning through jokes and humor.

 

These videos can help to increase their interest especially if it is something that they like.

Even though they might only be interested on what the movie is about at the start but as we start to teach them what they will learn, they will be excited to know. 

 

For the movies, I agree we can use it sparingly to teach lessons. It can help us remember phrase and key ideas which we can use during our writing. I could still remember the movie Forrest Gump and the phrase he said: “Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get” 

Even though I have not watched the movie for a very long time, it is still etched in my mind. 

You will never know what the students gonna get until you teach them all the fun things which can help improve their learning.

 

It will be a helpful tool as the videos can help to make them remember the grammar, tenses, or any components of learning. You can even act out scenes with them like reader’s theatre which can improve their reading fluency.

However, things to note is that is, we must watch the movie or videos and spot any parts which is not teachable like bad influences or words deemed bad or scenes that are not suitable for the age group. 

 

Another idea is making your own movie! Students learn best when they see someone in the video which they like. They can scream as though they are seeing kpop stars. Short video clips on your lesson can really capture their attention and interest.

As educators, it is always important to find out their learning styles and work on it especially to our SEN students.  

Things that I will consider when choosing a video for my students are to keep the video short and succinct. Even when the video is long, there are readily available functions on various platforms where we can specify the duration of the video to watch. 

Shoomp video is great for ice breaking or for a-knowledge-a-day kind video. Similarly to the grammar video featuring Kumar as the Queen of Grammar.

Thank you Dr. Liz for the rich resources!

Queen of grammar is a very interesting way to teach students grammar. Each episode has a clear rationale of the grammar they are teaching. If I want to use videos like Queen of Grammar, I must ensure that the student at least has the skills to comprehend the videos. I could use videos as a source of testing the student on their knowledge or as a way of sparking an interest to the lesson. 

I would use movies to build on student’s vocabulary knowledge. Movies tend to be in proper English which will allow students to catch on the proper pronunciation of words. We do this by asking them to watch short video clips of movies and ask them to pick out a few new words that they learnt from the movie. 

As some videos do not have subtitles, I feel that it is important that we ensure there are subtitles for the videos that we are showing to our students as some students may rely on sight more than auditory. Other than that, subtitles also allow students to record down the words that they are unsure of and clarify with us on the meaning of the word. I feel that videos give student a sense of ownership to what they have learnt watching it. However, as teachers, we must ensure that we check on their understanding and further build their literacy skills. 

I think students will like to watch these 6 videos as to how I learn that grammar is important in daily life. These short videos convey important content and ideas that students may benefit from. As an AED(LBS), I will embark on teaching students of different tenses, countable and uncountable nouns. I will monitor and guide them on how they are applying this grammar when communicating with their friends. Over time, the students will be able to generalize it not only during English lessons, but when they are talking to teachers, parents and the public. 

These 74 videos are useful for teaching vocabulary and grammar. Students will tend to be confused about using certain vocabulary words which have the same pronunciation. These videos will reinforce the students to use the correct vocabulary words based on the context. Thus, this delivery method of a multisensory approach generates interest in the students to learn effectively. 

After reading the article on how the movie works, I recall back when I was AED (T&L) teaching maths of Proportional and Ratio chapters in my school. We start by introducing using movies and pausing along the way when needed while doing some activities. This strategy of multisensory I used was beneficial for ASD and dyslexics who do not perform well in Math. Now I have learnt the same strategy with various videos based on SEN students' needs. As an AED (LBS) I will take this learning point to apply it to my students with special needs.

The shmoop videos are really effective in emphasising the differences in various grammatical terms. Their videos present concepts that I previously did not have a clear idea on how to teach, for example when one should use “farther” and “further”, and that “different from” is the term that should be used instead of “different than”. Another one that I recall was 'ate' and 'eaten', and although I could not find a video on it on their channel, I will be reviewing to see how I can adopt their methods to teach grammar rules.

For older students, movies are something I can use, as well as encourage class teachers to use in their teaching. I remember that I used to look forward to movie sessions in primary and secondary school whenever we finished year-end exams. Now looking back, I see how it can be used as a teachable moment, when it’s carefully structured prior to the screening. Questions I should consider are: 

Movies, when used in carefully structured lessons, can help students facing low-self-esteem issues, or learn how to pronounce words more clearly. Given that we work with students with learning needs, many of them will feel less confident than their peers. As such, this would be a way I can utilise to help strengthen their self-image while at the same time targeting certain skills (e.g. language, concept, or behaviour). 

ALL the videos were very entertaining with full of teaching points. I love watching all of them. I like how the actors used their acting skills to communicate the correct way of using good English and that they corrected it in the video at the same time. These videos can be use to reinforce students the proper use of English.

In these modern time, I find that Tv and videos are tools that most students enjoy. They tend to learn faster by watching things they see from Tv and Youtube videos. For SEN students, videos like this can be beneficial to them. I think that it can be a good tool to use as a tuning-in lesson during my withdrawal lessons with my students. It is a good way to capture the students’ attentions to spark excitement and curiosity in learning English. I can use these videos to teach vocabulary, different tenses, countable and unaccountable nouns and pronunciation.

I like The Queen of Grammar videos as those videos teach specific skills. The videos are funny which makes them interesting and the videos are also short. The videos show us how to use tenses and countable and uncountable nouns correctly. I would teach these specific skills first before introducing these videos so that the students can understand the content in the videos. 

The Shmoop videos are useful to teach children grammar rules. The videos can also be used for students who have common misconceptions. The examples used in the videos are clear thus students will be able to understand them easily. I feel that even younger students would be able  to learn from these videos due to the clarity. 

Using movies might be more challenging than videos as movies are longer. Movies might also be more suited for older students as they might be able to understand the language used better as compared to the younger children. However, there are many considerations to take note of such as how much of time we have for the movie, and whether the movie is age-appropriate and whether there are subtitles available and whether there is a need to pause the movie at different points to check for understanding.  Movies can probably be used towards the end of the school term when we have more time to incorporate movies as part of our lessons.  

On the overall, videos are a good way to engage students. As much as I would want to introduce videos in my lessons, I have to take into considerations that I have to teach the skills first before using the videos to reinforce the skills taught so that my students can understand the concepts better. I have to also ensure that the videos that I choose are age-appropriate for my students. I will also choose videos that are short to cater to students who have short attention span. Bearing all these considerations in mind, I will want to incorporate videos in my lessons. 

 

As Coencas (2007) mentioned, visual and auditory learners who have difficulty with printed text would benefit from the use of movies during lessons, since it builds motivation in learning by taking away the stress they may feel when having to learn through written/printed text. For example, grammar can be quite a “dry” topic for most students and even more challenging for students with literacy difficulties. However, using videos like the Queen of Grammar series or the Shmoop videos would not only engage and entertain older students, but also introduce common grammatical errors in bite-sized portions. I feel that using these videos would be an effective way of “hooking” students into the lesson, before scaffolding their learning of the technical aspects of grammar.

 

The lesson plans and tips from All at C and OTUK are also very useful and I’m eager to explore how I can use their suggestions in my teaching. One takeaway I had is that just like how we can choose different forms of text (novels, short stories, posters etc.) to build our students’ interest in language & literacy, different forms of videos (movies, short films, commercials etc.) can also be used capture our students’ attention and be expanded to reading or writing activities. For example, we could get students to consider the purpose of the video (narrative, persuasive, informative etc.) which would tie in with a writing activity. However, there is definitely the need to check for movie ratings and consider if the video content is age-appropriate for students, and especially when using YouTube videos, they might get deleted so it’s best to save them if possible.