Jihlava primary school
teachers bring creative approach to the classroom
A Getting young children interested in learning a foreign language is not
always easy, but two teachers at a primary school in the town of Jihlava appear to have
done the trick. Lukáš Heřman, an English and gym teacher, and Lukáš
Javorek, a math and geography teacher, are producing fun video clips in which
they themselves are the main actors. The English vocabulary video clips called
MonkeyEnglish are posted on the school’s website and have been getting more
hits by the day.
B I spoke with one of the teachers, Lukáš Heřman, and asked whether they had been taken aback by the interest their simple video clips generated.
“Absolutely, it was a surprise for us. The success of the pilot episode motivated
us to understand the project MonkeyEnglish as a real project. We were
absolutely amazed by the response and the fact that the number of subscribers
grew rapidly.” “Can you explain how it
works?” “Well, the way it works is that every Sunday we post a new
video, in which we show and name the items, so viewers see them and hear what
it is called in English and how they should pronounce it correctly.”
C “It seems you have generated an enormous
interest in learning English among school children at your school. What do you
think is the secret behind this success? What is it that they find so
attractive as opposed to regular lessons at school?” “I think the attraction lies mainly in that fact that the videos are
short and available for free online. Viewers can play them over and over, when
and as often as they want to. So they are learning in the comfort of their own
home and there is no teacher. So, the answer is comfort and convenience.”
D “Who is your audience?” “That was a big surprise for us. At first we targeted students from
our own school, but when we put out the first few videos we realized we
were reaching an audience of adults and seniors as well.”
E “And what kind of feedback are you getting?” “After we first shared the videos with the
children at the very next lesson I checked to see how many words they had
learnt from the video and we were surprised by how effective it was. Most
children had learnt 10 to 12 words from the 20 words presented in the video.
That motivated us to continue with the project. And there is also feedback from
Facebook and Youtube, with the most frequent comments being Good video! I have
learnt some new words! Great video! But there are critics as well.”
Adjusted to (1)
take aback – vyvést z konceptu
convenience – příhodnost, pohodlí
1) Read the article and
match each of the headings to a paragraph.
1 Many people follow the
videos
2 MonkeyEnglish is very
successful
3 Children remember more
from the videos
4 Videos are short free and
attractive
5 English videos have been
made by two Jihlava teachers
2) Read the article and
answer the questions.
1 Who are Lukáš Javorek and
Lukáš Heřman?
2 What do they do? What does
their project refer to?
3 What is MonkeyEnglish?
What are its pluses?
4 Who is their audience?
5 What feedback do they get?
3) Explain the following
words and phrases.
1 gym
teacher
2 pronounce
correctly
3 regular lessons
4 targeted
students from our own school
5 feedback
4) Answer the following
questions.
Who supports this
project? What else do you know about the videos? How often are they published? How
long are they? What topics do they include? How is vocabulary presented? Why
are the videos so popular? Why do students learn more when watching them?
Video:
Tips,
sources of information:
Source:
(1)
LAZAROVÁ,
Daniela. Jihlava primary school teachers bring creative approach to the
classroom. Český rozhlas [online]. 2015 [cit. 2015-09-21]. Available
at:
http://radio.cz/en/section/panorama/jihlava-primary-school-teachers-bring-creative-approach-to-the-classroom
