Over the last few decades, the use of comprehension strategies to help students read has become increasingly popular. Unlike traditional reading skills that support word reading, such as phonemic awareness and vocabulary, comprehension strategies help students become active, self-regulated thinkers about the meanings of texts that they are reading.

Skilled readers regularly employ various cognitive strategies to understand what they’re reading, and teaching this set of strategies results in significant improvements in comprehension for struggling students (Brown et al., 1996; Brown, 2008; Duffy et al., 1988; Pressley et al., 1989).

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I asked a dozen teaching colleagues (identified below by their initials) for reflections on the advantages and disadvantages of using authentic materials in the classroom. From their comments – many of which were generously long and thoughtful – three main ideas emerged:

1) We need to define the term ‘authentic’ and also include in the discussion the ideas of ‘adapted’ and ‘semi-authentic’ materials.

2) Authentic materials offer great advantage over materials written for the purpose of language learning.

3) There are also many disadvantages to using them.

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In the first of a short series of posts, Unlock author Lewis Lansford looks at why we should be using video in the ELT classroom.

1. Video speaks to Generation V

Skype was released in 2003 and YouTube followed in 2005. The iPad was unveiled in 2010. Internet usage has increased from 16% of the world’s population in 2005 to about 40% today (nearly 80% in developed countries). My own kids – aged 8 and 10 – routinely communicate with their grandparents via video chat. For Generation V (the V stands for ‘video’, in case you hadn’t guessed), video isn’t just a passive form of entertainment, it’s also the mode of delivery for interactive communication, and for information accessed on a daily basis. Our students are accustomed to using video, and we teachers can use that to our advantage.

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