While experimenting with Animoto, a digital story-telling tool, I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it is to use. The only downfall is that you are limited to a thirty-second video, if you are using the free membership.
I decided to create a video about idioms in English, which is not quite a narrative story, but can still be useful. I thought a video would be a good way to introduce or reinforce idioms, as the images reinforce the nonsense of their literal meanings. I tried to chose idioms that are common in everyday speech, music, etc. ['pull some strings', 'take the high road', 'couch potato', and 'apple of my eye']. While I have a whole list of idioms that I would like to have visualized, I think this video offers a short, yet clear 'picture' of the phrases. Some images help illustrate the figurative meaning, while others are just absurd. I want the images to spark interest, add humor, and create meaning for the students.
Here a few ideas I had for using it in the classroom:
1. Give the students the list of idioms and ask them to identify whether or not they have heard it before, what they think it might mean, and to use it in a sentence [if they can]. Then present the video. After viewing, see if the students can draw new meaning from the idioms and create a sentence and/or quick dialogue using the phrases.
2. After presenting a lesson on idioms, ask the students to extend this video by assigning images to different phrases. Students can use a program like Animoto or draw images in sequence, depending on their preference. This video would serve as a model.
3. Present a lesson on idioms. Show the video to the students. Then, ask the students to select one of the idioms from the video and create a comparison between the literal and actual meaning using a combination of images, videos, oral explanations, dialogues, etc.
1 comment:
I especially like your inclusion of having the students create Animoto video clips of their own.
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