Meaningful Tasks with Video in the ESOL Classroom

Audiovisual resources have long been an integral part of the language teacher's repertoire. Since the advent of inexpensive and easy-to-use digital video equipment, film or video creation by students is becoming established as a legitimate approach to enhance language learning. Gromik documents how video production and editing tasks fit in with current second language acquisition (SLA) theory and provide students with important technology skills. The iSSueS discussed here include focus on form, negotiation of meaning, input and output, and the technological preparation needed for teachers. Gromik then describes the task-based activities that he uses in his film course in Japan. He sees video projects as a means to empower students to think critically and become active, autonomous learners and producers of the target language.