Ishihara and Chi (2004) claim that context, interesting content, rich visual imagery, and often exaggerated actions and gestures of film provide students with multi-sensory input that is close to what they would find in real life communication.
Authenticity is itself attractive for student especially for those who would like to achieve an optimal comprehension in the target language. Real-life listening situations present various features of informal and spontaneous speech which were enumerated by Ur (1997:106).
• Pronunciation
Pronunciation of words is often slurred, noticeably different from the phonological representation given in a dictionary.
• Grammar
Informal grammar tends to be chaotic,’ ungrammatical’, not usually divided neatly into sentences, clauses may remain unfinished.
• Non-repetition
The discourse will not be repeated, normally it is heard only once though there is a possibility of requesting repetition or explanation.
• Brevity of ‘chunks’
Conversation is broken into short chunks as interlocutors take turns to speak. The turns are usually short of few seconds each.
• Vocabulary
The vocabulary is often colloquial, region bound, slang, vernacular. The everyday language is full of idiomatic expressions and ellipses.
• ‘Noise’
There is always some amount of “noise” in the discourse. chunks which may be incomprehensible to the hearers: the words may had been said unclearly, or some language elements may be unknown to the hearer.
• Redundancy
The interlocutor says much more than is necessary for the conveying of the message. Redundancy includes repetition, hesitation, paraphrasing, glossing with utterances in parenthesis, self-correction, the use of ‘fillers’ etc.
All of the above features of real-life occurring in an authentic film make it a useful device for teaching language comprehension to learners as it prepares them to function in everyday situations.
Not only does watching of the authentic video prepare for real communication but it also creates a great variety of activities that can be used before watching the video. It gets student talking as they feel the need to express their own ideas and opinions. When a moving picture is added, the realism becomes even greater as we see people communicating both visually and verbally. A film can do a thing which an audiotape cannot; present not only the authentic language but also the culture that is clothes, customs, food, life-style etc.
Above all, as a video creates an entertaining, pleasurable atmosphere becomes a highly motivating factor for studying a foreign language once students find themselves understanding authentic lines from a the video text. Tomalin (1991: 49) explains the point in other words: ’used in the right way in the classroom - to promote intellectual activity among children - video has beneficial effects that are transferred to the use of television and video at home’.
Reference:

Ur P. (1997) A Course in Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press
Ishihara, N. and Chi, J. C. (2004). Authentic video in the beginning ESOL classroom: using a
full-length feature film for listening and speaking strategy practice. English Teaching
Forum
Tomalin, B. (1991). Teaching Young learners with Videos. INC



Written by mgr Małgorzata Winciorek

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