Use pre-task subtitled videos of similar (not identical) tasks to build familiarity while preserving cognitive complexity¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

Before completing a communicative task, learners watch short subtitled videos of native speakers performing a similar but not identical task, with full playback control. The article chose similar tasks "in order to maintain the cognitive complexity of the task", since "Using the same tasks in these videos might have encouraged students simply to replicate the dialog". The videos' function is communicative rather than teaching linguistic structure, letting learners observe models, useful vocabulary and sentence structures in authentic contexts while still generating their own dialog.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Videos recorded in natural, authentic settings with unprescribed native-speaker language; subtitles provided; learner-controlled playback

Constraints¶

• The assumption that using similar rather than the same tasks maintains task complexity "should, however, be tested empirically", per the authors

Target Learners¶

• intermediate-level second language learners in online or blended task-based instruction

Target Learning Goals¶

• task familiarity with useful vocabulary and sentence structures; increased negotiation of meaning during task completion

Related Strategies¶

• Videos

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Arslanyilmaz, A., & Pedersen, S. (2010). Enhancing negotiation of meaning through task familiarity using subtitled videos in an online TBLL environment. TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 9(2). https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ898004