FOR Language TEACHERS

interested in contributing to the database? contact us

Step-by-step, this is how we build it:

• The first goal for visitors to this website is to provide videos of good teaching, however you define that. If you believe you are great at lecturing grammar, we are happy to put that up and label it as "grammar lecture." If you want to show teachers how you lead MovieTalk, we can put that up and label it "MovieTalk." If you have a great small-group task, we will be happy to take your video and label it "small group task."
• A secondary goal here is to capture longer, continuous spans of what teachers and learners are doing when using the target language in the classroom, and the various ways that those learners grow in their abilities to use the language over time.
• Whether posting quick a quick example of an activity, or a longitudinal series of videos of many classes, you, the language teacher, will need to get all necessary permissions to record and share images and audio from your school supervisor, parents/guardians, and students (you can download our sample consent forms below, and ask your supervisor if the forms need any changes). The school may require that only audio be recorded in order to hide the identities of the students--audio only is fine too!
• Then you can set up cameras to video record (or just audio record) your classroom. See images below.
• You can also collect photos and PDF scans of whatever learners have read and written, in class and for homework.
• Make sure to label all of your files clearly with a teacher name, date, time, and a class name, so we know which group of learners we are seeing. Names can be fake to hide people's identities from text searches, but the names should be consistent across media so we know we are comparing the same people between media files.

What kinds of classrooms and what kinds of media should I collect?

Video can be linked from YouTube. Some are uploaded solely to this database. All are meant to capture the daily goings-on in language classrooms where teachers are providing target-language input through a wide variety of conversations, activities, tasks, and materials. Inclusion criteria for adding media to this database are:

• there is at least one learner interacting with at least one other person (videos of language learning "in the wild," like in a restaurant, at a store, at the bank, on the street, etc. are welcome here as well)
• the teacher(s) and/or learner(s) are visibly using the language to communicate, where we follow VanPatten's (While We're On the Topic, 2017) definition of communication: "Communication is the expression, interpretation, and sometimes negotiation of meaning in a given context. What is more, communication is also purposeful" (p. 3) Expression from learners can be non-verbal such as hand gestures, facial expressions, use of materials such as referring to images, as well as limited production of any language that helps keep people generally understanding each other. In CCLT, teachers expect learners to be mainly engaged in interpreting via listening and reading. The purpose of the communication may be psychosocial (p. 9), cognitive-informational (p. 9), entertainment (p. 11), or some other category someone might argue should be included in our list of purposes later on.
• the media segment is of high enough quality such that viewers, listeners, or readers won't struggle to hear or see what is happening

Download our sample consent form

How to set up cameras in your classroom

After you have cleared permissions from your school, your goal in setting up cameras should be to capture:

1. everything the learners can see and hear that contributes to learning
2. everything the teacher(s) can see and hear that contributes to learning

The image of the classroom above shows how you can capture all of this by simply placing one camera at the back of your room and one camera at the front. If your classroom is shaped differently, or if your only have permission from your school to record some specific people but not others, then, by all means, feel free to place the cameras differently. Share only what you are comfortable sharing.

The image above assumes that the range of view of each camera is less than 90 degrees. During class time, you (the teacher) will often be reacting to the behaviors of your students--their faces, their hands raised, things they say, etc. Camera 1 is positioned in the front corner of the room to (1) stay out of the way of the teacher and learners walking around the room, (2) to be in a place where people won't often block it's view, and (3) capture the learner's faces because the teacher reacts to learner behaviors (smiles, laughter, vocal responses, hand-raising, sleeping, and so on). In order to keep the posters that the teacher or students may refer to in view, the posters at the bottom right and at the top left have been moved to stay within the range of view of Camera 1. Though Camera 2 would already capture the poster at the top left, it would only see it at such an angle that anyone viewing the video would not be able to recognize the words on it (the poster would be too squished from this angle).

The cameras in the image above are also set up to be kept plugged in to an electrical outlet to ensure battery power doesn't run out unexpectedly. I have heard teachers tell about a great lesson that they wanted to record, but were surprised to find out after the lesson that the battery had run out and their only evidence of superb teaching was lost forever.

How to collect texts in the most cost-effective manner

Collecting, scanning, and transcribing student writing can take many hours to complete. A far more cost-effective way to collect learner writing samples is to have learners type their work and assessments and upload their work to a folder or database themselves. Who doesn't want to integrate more tech into the classroom? \

Your learners' digital writing samples can greatly contribute to teachers' and researchers' understanding of what learners can do after different kinds of experiences with the language, at different points in time, in different languages, and for learners of different language backgrounds. Having learners type everything and upload their typed writing samples saves teachers the costly time of retyping handwritten samples into digital formats.