Flipped teaching with screencasts at university level
Loading...
Date
2014-04-17
Authors
Advisor
Editor
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Title alternative
Abstract
This paper presents best practices in teaching EFL and linguistics at the university level using the flipped teaching method. Its aim is to present screencasts (i.e. video lectures) as an alternative to pre-class reading assignments and in-person lectures because they engage students more than the former and save teachers’ time more than the latter. Flipped teaching emphasises pre-class preparation, which allows teachers to spend more quality time with their students in the classroom, focusing on practice or further exploration (Bruff, 2013). But in order for a flipped classroom to be effective, students must show up thoroughly prepared, which usually involves pre-class reading assignments. However, only 30% of students read the assigned texts (Hobson, 2004, p. 1-2). Instead of developing new reading strategies or forcing students to read with quizzes, an emerging trend in US higher education banished readings altogether in favour of screencasts. The main rationale behind this is that passive offline text is not enough for the current generation of digital natives raised bombarded with interactive (often online) audio-visual content (Pacansky-Brock, 2013, p. 1-13). The YouTube generation requires YouTube-style content. Existing research shows that the use of multimedia screencasts increases learner motivation and performance (Herreid & Schiller, 2013, p. 64). Apart from engaging students, screencasts can also be easily reused to reach a wider audience of learners, with no effort on part of the teacher, providing a cost-effective just-in-time alternative to regular lectures. This paper will show how flipped teaching – with a screencast as a supplementary or, at times, the only material – was successfully used at the AMU Faculty of English in two types of courses: TEFL and linguistics (English phonetics and phonology and Polish-English contrastive grammar).
Description
Paper presented at YLMP 2014
Sponsor
Keywords
computer-assisted language learning, e-learning, Moodle, Google Docs, EFL teaching and learning, phonetics teaching and learning, flipped classroom, flipped teaching, screencast, video lecture