Jihlava primary school teachers bring creative approach to the classroom

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:

http://www.monkeyenglish.cz/

Tips, sources of information:

http://www.monkeyenglish.cz/

http://www.zsrosi.cz/

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