Recently, video has played a larger role in my communication classes as a result of an increase in focus on students’ interactive competence. In part, this stems from educational technology such as Flip, which has made it easier to incorporate short, focused video feedback in a communication class. Therefore, I was delighted when Kim Alejandro Soriano Jiménez, who supervises the English program at the Universidad del Noreste in Tamaulipas, Mexico, introduced me to learner self-evaluated video during a call last Friday.
I met Kim at an ANUPI/COPEI English conference in Huatulco, Oaxaca back in 2018, and he contacted me last week to discuss video interchange opportunities for students.
LSEV
Tim Murphey and Tom Kenney developed Learner self-evaluated videoing (LSEV) in 19951. Since almost 30 years have passed, talking about it now feels a bit necromantic. Nevertheless, the technique, which required a large investment of time and effort at the time of writing, has become far less work intensive with modern technology, so it might warrant another visit.
In the study, Murphey & Kenny recorded students weekly and asked them to complete a self-evaluation survey after watching the recordings. I have transcribed the self-evaluation form from the article below.
The questions are more general and holistic than what I would use in an English for academic purposes class. In addition, since the focus of much academic work is the group discussion, I would task students to work in groups rather than pairs. Below, I’ve added an example that incorporates learning objectives from the courses I teach at an EAP program:
Alternatively, here’s a holistic rubric I might use if I were grading the discussions:
When Murphey & Kenny developed LSEV, students could not have seen their video immediately afterwards, but with modern technology such as Flip, students can review the video right away.
Therefore, instead of completing the form as homework, I might direct groups to complete the form in-class after recording in order to talk through the various points with their partners. In this way, students can help each other notice shortcomings in communicative performance.
Kim shared the video below by the National Foreign Language Resource Center at the University of Hawai’i, in which you can see the method:
All those VHS tapes would have presented quite an obstacle for the average language school to implement in 1995.
LSEV may have been ahead of its time.
References
Murphey, T., & Kenny, T. (1996, September). Learner self-evaluated videoing (LSEV). In On JALT 95: Proceedings of the JALT 1995 Conference (pp. 198-202). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED402769.pdf#page=211
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