How to Create Many Activities from One Video

How to Create Many Activities from One Video

Teachers often use videos to give students a break from the usual classroom activities. Learners use videos, too, to improve their listening and speaking skills.

In this week's Education Tips, we look at how one of our videos can be the start of a full English lesson. We will look at the video for The Big Snow, Lesson 11 of Let's Learn English Level 2.

In this lesson, Anna and Pete are reporting on a snowstorm¹, or blizzard². Anna loves to talk about weather. Pete is unhappy because he is working on a weekend. The video teaches the present perfect and past perfect verb tenses.

In recent workshops with English teachers in Ukraine, VOA Learning³ English instructors⁵ asked the teachers to brainstorm⁶ ideas for activities they could create with this video.

The teachers came up with about 40 ideas. They range from activities centered on grammar to activities that cover the subject of weather.

Here are some examples of classroom activities for before, during and after watching the video:

Before watching

Students list the words they know for kinds of weather and prepare to listen for weather words in the video

The teacher describes the video's plot, then students predict what will happen if Pete and Anna must stay at work all weekend

Students talk about their personal experiences with major storms or describe storms they have read about in books or seen in movies.

While watching

Listen for weather words in the video and write them down or circle them on the printed text of the lesson

The teacher stops the video and, with an image showing on the screen, asks students to do an activity:

Guess what happens next

Describe what the characters are wearing in the image

Ask questions about what has happened so far

Give an actor in the video advice

Talk about which actor is their favorite

Describe the setting⁷

Describe the feelings of the people in the video

After watching

Students summarize⁸ the story in writing or talk about it in small groups

Students identify problems and solutions in the story

Students act out their favorite scene from the video or act out the story with a different kind of weather event

Teacher or students write true/false statements about the story to check understanding

Students think of different ways the story could end. Then they write the different ending and act it out in small groups

Students think of other names for a big storm that might happen where they live

Student groups make lists of supplies they would need in case of a natural disaster: foods, equipment, clothing

Students play a game with a paper "snowball" (information below)*

As you can see from this list, there are plenty of ideas for giving students the chance to speak, write, read, and listen while enjoying a short, humorous video.

If you want to see more ideas, each Let's Learn English video comes with a lesson plan that you can download. For the snowstorm video, one activity sheet asks students to use the present perfect and past perfect tense to think of questions and answers using "snow words."

Another activity sheet gives students weather information from around the world and asks them to give a weather forecast like the ones you can see on television.

We are sure you can think of other ways to use this video in learning or teaching⁹ English. Write to us in the comments if you want to share your own ideas.

Words in This Story

blizzard – n. a very heavy snowstorm with strong winds.

instructor⁴ – n. a person who instructs or a teacher

brainstorm – v. to think of many ideas

character – n. a person represented in a play, film, story, or the like

plot – n. the arrangement of the incidents in a play, novel, narrative¹⁰ poem, or the like

summarize – v. to make a summary of or state briefly¹¹

(weather) forecast – n. a weather forecast is a statement saying what the weather will be like the next day or for the next few days.

1 snowstorm   

n.雪暴，暴风雪

参考例句：

• After several weeks of travel,snowstorm hit us first.我们旅行了几个星期，初次碰上了暴风雪。
• A severe snowstorm blocked up railroads.一场暴风雪使铁路中断。

2 blizzard   

n.暴风雪

参考例句：

• The blizzard struck while we were still on the mountain.我们还在山上的时候暴风雪就袭来了。
• You'll have to stay here until the blizzard blows itself off.你得等暴风雪停了再走。

3 learning   

n.学问，学识，学习；动词learn的现在分词

参考例句：

• When you are learning to ride a bicycle,you often fall off.初学骑自行车时，常会从车上掉下来。
• Learning languages isn't just a matter of remembering words.学习语言不仅仅是记些单词的事。

4 instructor   

n.指导者，教员，教练

参考例句：

• The college jumped him from instructor to full professor.大学突然把他从讲师提升为正教授。
• The skiing instructor was a tall,sunburnt man.滑雪教练是一个高高个子晒得黑黑的男子。

5 instructors   

指导者，教师( instructor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The instructors were slacking on the job. 教员们对工作松松垮垮。
• He was invited to sit on the rostrum as a representative of extramural instructors. 他以校外辅导员身份，被邀请到主席台上。

6 brainstorm   

vi.动脑筋，出主意，想办法，献计，献策

参考例句：

• The women meet twice a month to brainstorm and set business goals for each other.她们每个月聚会两次，在一起出谋献策，为各自制定生意目标。
• We can brainstorm a list of the most influential individuals in the company.我们可以集体讨论，列出该公司中最有影响的人员的名单。

7 setting   

n.背景

参考例句：

• The play has its setting in Vienna.该剧以维也纳为背景。
• Where and when a story takes place is called the setting.故事发生的地点和时间称为故事背景。

8 summarize   

vt.概括，概述，总结

参考例句：

• I will summarize what I have done.我将概述我所做的事情。
• They need to find information quickly and be able to summarize it in clear language.他们需要快速找到信息并能用清晰的语言概述。

9 teaching   

n.教学，执教，任教，讲授；(复数)教诲

参考例句：

• We all agree in adopting the new teaching method. 我们一致同意采取新的教学方法。
• He created a new system of teaching foreign languages.他创造了一种新的外语教学体系。

10 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

11 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。