Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm Using videos to teach lead-in stage for some lessons in Tieng Anh 10 (Global Success) at Do Luong 2 upper secondary school

 TABLE OF CONTENT 
 CONTENT PAGE 
 PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 
1. The rationale of the study 1 
2. The objectives of the research 2 
3. The scope of the study 2 
4. The methods of the study 2 
5. The significance of the study 2 
 PART II: CONTENT 3 
I. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 3 
1. Lead-in 3 
1.1. Definition of lead-in 3 
1.2. The objectives of lead-in 3 
1.3. The principles of lead-in 3 
1.4. The strategies of lead-in 5 
2. Video 6 
2. 1. Definition of video 6 
2.2. Advantages of using video in the classroom 6 
2.3. Goals of using video in the classroom 8 
2.4. Procedures of using video in the classroom 8 
 2.5. Challenges of using video in the classroom 9 
II. SITUATION ANALYSIS 10 
1. Teaching and learning conditions at Do Luong 2 USS 10 
2. The students’ background knowledge at Do Luong 2 USS 10 
3. The reality of teaching methods for lead-in stage at Do Luong 2 USS 11 
 PART I: INTRODUCTION 
 1. The rationale of the study 
 Innovating teaching methods is a basic requirement for Vietnamese teachers 
today. It has become the most important challenge of general education reform as 
well as reform at the high school level. One of the basic orientations of education 
innovation is to promote the initiative and creativity of learners. The selection of 
strategies and teaching methods is an important point to the teacher to make a 
better lesson. 
 Obviously, the rapid growth of technology has brought many innovations in 
education and especially in language teaching. In recent years, teachers have made 
great efforts in carrying out new teaching methods and have achieved progress in 
promoting students' positive attitude towards learning. In order to offer and create 
successful classes language teachers, especially English language teachers are 
using different audio-visual tools to facilitate the teaching process. Besides 
textbooks and other interesting and engaging activities, videos such as: movies, 
songs, powerpoint presentations are widely used in English as a foreign language 
(EFL) classrooms. This ensures students centeredness, autonomy, interaction and 
connectivity to a certain theme. 
 Video materials nowadays are not only part of everyday life activities, but they 
are shown as an effective method in teaching English as a foreign language for all 
learners both inside and outside the classroom. Videos as a medium to strengthen 
activities in the delivery of more efficient teaching. The widespread use of 
English learning videos reveals that technology has been integrated into 
English language realm. The use of videos can facilitate the students in more 
interesting learning activities because they can get different learning 
experiences when it can be implemented by teachers effectively. Videos can 
give essential extra benefits for students’ learning experiences; enrich the 
students’ experience about language in use, improve their cross-cultural 
understanding, develop their creativity, and increase their motivation in 
learning. 
 To attract students’ attention and cultivate their desire for learning at the 
beginning of teaching, it is essential for teachers to carry out a suitable and 
effective lead-in activity. Lead-in is the first and most basic teaching step in 
English classrooms, and is important for efficient teaching. With an appropriate 
lead-in, students will be motivated and become more concentrated and interested 
in English classes. Lead-in can cultivate students’ motive for learning and create 
a fine learning and teaching environment, which influences the quality and 
efficiency of teaching. 
 Considering the great benefits of utilizing videos and the importance of 
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 well as the researchers. First of all, for English teachers, this research may 
 provide a useful and effective way to lead in the lesson by using videos instead 
 of boring traditional methods. Second, the study would serve as input for 
 students so that they will get general knowledge about the lesson and raise their 
 interest in learning English. Third, for other researchers, the result of the study 
 would be expected to be a reference and contribute more information to solve the 
 same issues. Besides, this study might provide recommendations for English 
 teachers at Do Luong 2 USS to prepare more effective lead-in stages for lessons 
 so that learners’ English would be improved not only in classrooms but also in 
 social situations. 
 PART II: CONTENT 
 I. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 
 1. Lead-in 
 1.1. Definition of lead-in 
 Lead-in is the first stage of classroom teaching, which is about 5 minutes at the 
beginning of a new lesson or before presenting new knowledge. “It is a technique 
used by teachers at the beginning of a presentation to prepare students to learn and 
establish a communicative link between the learners and the information about to 
be presented (Arendas, 1998: 240).” As is known to all, words like “front”, 
“beginning” and “first time” can attract a person most. It is because of “the first 
effect”, and the function of “the first impression”. This kind of phenomenon is 
called “primacy effect” in psychology (Yan, 1999). As the proverb says: “A good 
beginning is half done.” Similarly, a good lead-in is a key factor for successful 
teaching. It can initiate students’ thinking and arouse their desire for knowledge, 
serving as a magnet to draw students into the lesson and help students get a clear 
idea of what they are going to learn. It also contributes to the formation of a good 
classroom atmosphere, helping students establish a positive mental state or attitude 
of readiness. 
 1.2. Objectives of lead-in 
 The start of the lesson sets the tone and context for all that follows. It’s a way 
to encourage students to actively engage with the topic and motivate them to 
participate in the class. It is also an important opportunity to allow your ESL 
students to warm up and get back into “English mode. It helps us to kindle their 
interest and motivation. An effective lead-in also establishes the context we want 
the learners to focus on. Therefore, the lead-in to a lesson is really important and 
necessary. 
 1.3. Principles of lead-in 
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 confidence to interact with teachers as well. 
 1.4. Strategies of lead-in 
 How can we have an efficient and meaningful lead-in? Is there a best method 
 to do so? There is no right answer so far, but there are some strategies that will 
 help teachers make a good lead-in, although teachers do not have to take these as 
 things that never change. 
  Situational lead-in 
 Situational lead-in creates authentic or situated learning which takes place in 
the setting similar with the actual life. Halliday (1964) held the view that when we 
acquire our primary language; we do so by learning how to behave in situations, 
not by learning rules about what to say. The goal of language teaching is to 
develop what Hymes (1972) referred to as “communicative competence”, which 
involves being able to use language appropriately to a given social context. In 
situational lead-in, teachers set up a situation that students are likely to encounter 
in real life, which stimulates students’ desire to communicate in their familiar 
settings. 
  Multi-media lead-in 
 With the development and popularity of computers and the internet in the 
 information era, network technology plays an important role in education. The 
 multi-media education gathers different pictures, texts, images, voices, etc. to 
 display various information, which makes the lifeless knowledge interesting and 
 abstract things concrete. Compared with traditional teaching, multi-media lead-
 in has at least two advantages. First, multi-media can provide a great deal of real 
 visualized stuff. The students can be promoted from the visualized stuff to their 
 own understanding. Second, in multi-media lead-in, students can be activated by 
 the harmonious, natural and relaxing environment and be led into the new lesson 
 unintentionally and naturally, not feeling tired or boring. When using multi-
 media lead-in, teachers should choose the information relating to the lesson for 
 slices of powerpoint. 
  Dialogue lead-in 
 Using dialogues is a good method to lead in a new lesson. Dialogues can be 
 given between teacher and students or among students themselves on the topics 
 like campus life, family, friends, hobbies, holidays, etc., as they are interesting 
 topics for students. In dialogue lead-in, teachers should provide chances for 
 students to chat, and necessarily, exert subtle influence to help students to 
 complete the dialogues. By making dialogues, students can be directed into the 
 new lesson naturally. 
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  Facilitating thinking and problem solving 
 Shepard and Cooper (1982) and Mayer and Gallini (1990) made the 
connection between visual clues, the memory process, and the recall of new 
knowledge. Allam (2006) observes that the creative challenge of using moving 
images and sound to communicate a topic is indeed engaging and insightful but 
adds that it also enables students to acquire a range of transferable skills in 
addition to filmmaking itself. These include research skills, collaborative 
working, problem-solving, technology, and organizational skills. (Biggens, 
N.D.) 
  Assisting with mastery learning 
 In some cases, videos can be as good as an instructor in communicating facts 
or demonstrating procedures to assist in mastery learning where a student can 
view complex clinical or mechanical procedures as many times as they need to. 
Furthermore, the interactive features of modern web-based media players can be 
used to promote ‘active viewing’ approaches with students (Galbraith, 2004). 
 Voice-over is a fantastic multimedia approach to teaching. E-Learning can be 
dramatically enhanced by using voiced content in the teaching process. Voice 
content is a voice-over agency that offers the highest quality professionals for 
any project, speaking in any language or accent. 
  Inspiring and engaging students 
 More recently, Willmott et al (2012) show that there is strong evidence that 
digital videos reporting can inspire and engage students when incorporated into 
student- centered learning activities through: 
 ● increased student motivation 
 ● enhanced learning experience 
 ● higher marks 
 ● development potential for deeper learning of the subject 
 ● development of learner autonomy 
 ● enhanced team working and communication skills 
 ● a source of evidence relating to skills for interviews 
 ● learning resources for future cohorts to use 
 ● opportunities for staff development. 
  Authentic learning opportunities 
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instruction about what the students have to learn from the video and what they 
have to do after watching the video. This matter should be well organized to 
guide the students in achieving the learning objectives. 
  Step 3: Introduce the video briefly. 
 Giving information to the students about what they have to watch is an 
important action to activate the students’ prior knowledge and help them in the 
process of comprehending the information. 
  Step 4: Play the video. 
 When playing the video, the teachers have to facilitate the students to focus 
on what they watch. 
  Step 5: Stop the video at any part to highlight a point or replay it for 
exercises. 
 It will be effective to guide the students to understand what they learn. 
  Step 6: Set a time for reflection on what they have watched. 
 This activity is really beneficial in order to gather information that relates to 
the students’ understanding about what they have watched. In addition, it can 
facilitate the students to practice their communicative competence, especially in 
delivering information orally. 
  Step 7: Design an active learning activity 
 This last point is the most influential; the teaching and learning activities 
will not run effectively if the teachers do not prepare what the teachers and 
students have to do during the class. In this part, the teachers’ capabilities to run 
appropriate techniques are needed. 
 However, the steps of this procedure can be changed based on the aims 
and process of teaching. 
 2.5. Challenges of using videos in the classroom. 
 Harmer (2006) stated videos can give essential extra benefits for students; 
however, in this advanced technology era, the teachers have to face some 
challenges in utilizing videos in the classrooms. 
 The first challenge that the teachers have to face relates to their capability in 
deploying videos in the classroom and utilizing other technology devices such 
as computer, laptop, projector, earphones, and some other programs or tools. 
The teachers have to be the one who knows very well how to use the devices to 
facilitate the students during the teaching and learning process. 
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