Authentic+Materials

This space is for our ideas on using authentic materials.
Here's the clip on viral marketing that I used for my assignment.( I added an article from The Economist to give the whole thing more gravitas.)

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What do you think of the clip? Solveig

A great example of viral marketing

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What do you make of it? Apart from being fun and an oddity is there any scope for teaching?

Here is a link to another viral marketing website. It's a game called FREERICE and the home page explains it all. Might be fun for very good students

[|FREE RICE]

Gillian

[|Online interactive quizzes][[image:http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.24.2/t.gif link="http://money.guardian.co.uk/quiz/"]]
Here's a link to a whole series of online interactive quizzes produced for [|EducationGuardian.co.uk]. I don't know how you feel about it, but rather than giving the link to the quizzes as a whole, I am selecting them and directing my students to individual quizzes and then asking for feedback. What do you think?

[|Finance][[image:http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.24.2/t.gif link="http://www.youtube.com/user/savingandinvesting"]]
Here is an activity suitable I think for upper-int students using a video clips produced by the investment consultant [|Michael Fischer]. Gillian provided the link and I'd be interested in your opinion on this activity and any suggestions for improving it.

In this first episode Michael Fischer gives us some background information concerning his career and his motives for writing his book [|Saving and Investing], which his series of videocasts is designed to promote.
 * Episode one**

__Before watching__ Read through the following questions: __As you watch__ Now watch the video clip and and make a note of your answers to the questions above. Don't forget to note down any new or useful vocabulary you hear.
 * What was it that amazed Michael Fischer and provided him with the motivation to write his book?
 * Why does he consider the subject he talks about "the basis of our western civilization"? Do you agree?

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__After watching__ Michael Fischer says that many people don't know the difference between a stock and a bond. Can you explain the difference? He also says that most people don't know what mutual or index funds are? Do you? Can you explain what they are? Add you answers to these questions in a comment using the discussion tab and also add any useful links you may know or find for these topics.

If you like this material then there is a whole series of short clips that you can find [|here].

[|Finding audio & video material] The following is an extract of a review of an exciting new web-based application called Podzinger:

A recently launched service called [|Podzinger] offers a set of sophisticated tools for searching text in the ever-expanding supply of podcasts. Created by BBN Technologies, Podzinger automatically ingests thousands of podcasts and applies speech-to-text conversion and indexing to yield a list of relevant results comparable to Google's searches of Web-based text.

Each Podzinger search result includes an embedded player, which eliminates the need to download a podcast before listening to it. You can play any program right from Podzinger's search results screen. A list of transcribed excerpts accompanies each search result, showing the time and context of every occurrence of your search term. Conveniently, you can click on the time code to jump directly to that excerpt. The embedded player includes controls that let you rewind, fast forward, and pause playback, as well as subscription buttons to add the selected podcast to your Yahoo! or iTunes collections.

If you would like to read the full review it's available at [|here] at the PC Magazine website. I've embedded the Podzinger search tool here on the left in the sidebar (scroll down a little). Why not try it? The search engine finds both audio and video material. Select EVERYZING and then enter your search details.

Here's something from our course:

What makes a text sexy from a teacher’s point of view?
 * Text Appeal**

• has mass appeal • tackles perennial issues • tells you something you didn’t know • is controversial – even provocative • doesn’t get bogged down in detail • is lexically rich (perhaps enriched) • does not exceed 600 words (U.Int) (450 for Intermediate ) (250 for Pre-Intermediate)

The guidelines are particularly useful when adapting materials for general use - such as for a course book. With students of business, you might want to alter the balance a little from time to time and also use texts that are a little drier, a little meatier in terms of content.

Here's something from our course on using advertisements:


 * How to use ads?**

__Some general ideas__:

• Assess / evaluate ads • sequence of ads then vote awards • cultural values

__A specific idea__

One idea would be to use an advertisement on the screen as the visual aid for a presentation. Students pretend they created it and then present the thinking behind it, etc. Team work suitable for all levels – students can be to taught to engage with the audience by eliciting responses from them – which would make the activity still more interactive.


 * Movie Clips (Mark July 26, 2007)**

I managed to find a lot of the movie extracts I referred to on the CertTEB (plus one or two used //In Company Upper Intermediate//) on YouTube, so you needn't get the DVDs just to use the clips. Here they are:

[|Braveheart][[image:http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.24.2/t.gif link="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiDiM-9VSpQ"]]
Braveheart: ‘I am William Wallace…’ Differs slightly from the screenplay. Apparently, Mel made up some of his own lines.

[|Dirty Harry][[image:http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.24.2/t.gif]]
Dirty Harry: I know what you’re thinking…’ You’ve got the whole build-up and follow-up to the speech here.

[|Wall Street][[image:http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.24.2/t.gif link="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_icgdMQ4MdQ"]]
Wall Street: ‘Greed is good…’ Great stuff. Michael Douglas on Oscar-winning form as Gordon Gekko, corporate raider in the ‘age of greed’.

[|Other People's Money][[image:http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.24.2/t.gif link="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfL7STmWZ1c"]]
Other People’s Money: The Danny DeVito speech, ‘Amen, amen and amen…’ Unfortunately, can’t seem to find Gregory Peck’s speech on YouTube.

[|The Witches of Eastwick][[image:http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.24.2/t.gif link="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sD9hjDEF7w"]]
The Witches of Eastwick: just use 6:12-6.57 if you want to avoid the rude words. Good example of piling on the adjectives. Great scene between Cher and |Jack Nicholson if you want to watch it all. Jack plays ‘the Devil comes to small town America’ if you don’t know the movie. Cher plays one of three women ('witches') he woos, the other two being Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer. Lucky Jack.

[|Glengarry Glen Ross][[image:http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.24.2/t.gif link="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TROhlThs9qY"]]
Glengarry Glen Ross: just use 1.04-1.51 if you want to skip the expletives (wouldn’t be an American movie without them). Alec Baldwin on good form as the hateful over-achieving sales manager from head office insulting the sales team (inc. Jack Lemmon and Ed Harris). Good use of repetition and rhetorical questions. Might also be good with people who work in sales - pressure, the commission system, incentives and bonuses, establishing leads. closing sales etc.

[|Blade Runner][[image:http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.24.2/t.gif link="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2GWiP7xV2Y"]]
Blade Runner: ‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…’. Rutger Hauer superb as android replicant Roy Batty in Ridley Scott’s 80s sci-fi classic. Just for fun, this one. If you still haven't seen this film and you're into dark and brooding sci-fi with an intelligent script and lavish atmospheric scenes, rent the DVD.

===**[|Business Issues: Authentic Video] (Mark July 29, 2007)**=== A selection of Tom Peters presentations – Tom’s style can be a bit haranguing and he has an irritating habit of reading out his PowerPoint slides, but he does make some powerful points and usually has some amazing statistics to back them up. OK for presentation skills input, but even better for discussing some of the issues themselves: women CEOs, the Chinese phenomenon, offshoring, hiring the right people etc.

[|Richard Branson][[image:http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.24.2/t.gif link="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDk8QmoaS_s"]]
A selection of Richard Branson presentations and interviews including a Virgin Galactic promo for commercial space travel and the CNN interview he did with Al Gore on industry and global warming. Great stuff for discussion work. Richard's presentation style is very laid back and (over long distances) lacks energy a bit. Like most easy-going presenters, he comes over better in interviews than on the platform.

[|Emailing][[image:http://i.ixnp.com/images/v2.24.2/t.gif link="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NItfF5H4T0"]]
Here's the video Mark based his Ripplegram activity on: media type="youtube" key="1NItfF5H4T0" width="425" height="350" If you would like to download the clip onto your own hard drive follow this link:

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Podcasts & online articles
In the following extract from the last in the current series of Peter Day's BBC Radio 4 programme [|In Business] we hear James Womack, who is Chairman and Founder of the [|Lean Enterprise Institute], giving a brilliantly succinct account of the rise and fall of the American car industry and explaining how [|Toyota] has overtaken [|General Motors] to become the world’s leading carmaker.

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In the full version of the programme (available [|here]) we also hear from the head of Toyota Fujio Cho, who gives some fascinating insights into the philosophy behind the much vaunted JIT production methods Toyota have used so effectively. Also available are Peter Day’s related articles [|Bold moves on the road to ruin]? and [|Mr Toyota' is shy about being No 1].

This BBC Radio 4 programme with its weekly podcast (which you can subscribe to using iTunes) and Peter Day's related [|Work In Progress] articles are a marvellous source of material for strong intermediate to advanced students. And as the extract above demonstrates, once you have the podcast downloaded it is possible to edit it so you can use precisely the part(s) you need. No more stressful minutes frantically trying to find the right place to begin the recording! Of course, once you have identified and saved the material in a format that is readily available and easy to deliver, the next step is thinking up ways of exploiting it effectively, but that, as they say, is whole new ball game!