Week 6 Videos and critical thinking in classes

In this week, we have read the article “Using Original Video and Sound Effects to Teach English” by Shahla Yassaei. It is about implementing a video in a daily class which lesson was speculations. What surprised me was the way that video was used to fit in this topic. She started recording herself instead of downloading a video from internet. In the video she was doing activities that we do in our routine. What is more interesting is that, she built a speculation environment form the beginning by covering the T.V. and presenting just the audio of the video, so that, students started to speculate about what was going on in the video. The class was really interactive because students used the target grammar and they had fun at the same time. In fact, this method can be used to teach grammar, vocabulary, writing, etc. Of course, teacher always encouraged students to use and practice the target grammar.

In addition, the video “Critical thinking” is very helpful for teachers that want to do more for students. It explains what critical thinking is. And it is basically that students can think by themselves, so that, they can receive information, analyze it and provide their own thinking or output.

In my opinion, to have worksheets, activities in the classrooms, fill in the blanks, etc., is not enough. We as teachers must do our best to encourage and challenge our students to develop critical thinking to have a better learning results.