IATEFL Poland: Elzbieta Gajek and Agnieszka Szarkowska on using video interactively

Clipflair is a European Commission sponsored, Europe-wide project to provide video materials for language learning and practice for 15 different languages. The platform for the project is currently under construction, but Elzbieta and Agnieska (of the University of Warsaw) came to IATEFL to give us a preview of what it’s all about.

Interestingly, the project does not propose to use videos for receptive skills or just passive watching, but in interactive ways. Elzbieta stressed that video material should never replicate the relaxation mode of domestic TV watching, but should stimulate activity. An important point.

The presenters went on to outline the interactive tasks which the students would be asked to perform with the material. These were principally:

Revoicing – dubbing, making voiceovers, recording audio descriptions (eg for the blind), and performing karaoke.

Captioning – writing subtitles (translations), writing written descriptions of sounds (eg for deaf people), and inserting intertitles (as done, say, in silent movies).

The Clipflair project will offer video materials, lesson plans and instructions for the necessary software, plus a platform on which students’ creations can be shared online – and all of this free. The developers have achieved this by avoiding copyrighted materials in favour of material shared under Creative Commons-type agreements. More information at www.clipflair.net