Suggested Inclusion of Video Material in Paul Nations’ Four Strands

This study suggests the inclusion of video material in four main types of activities that make up a language course. As it is proposed by Paul Nation (1996), four stages that should be allotted roughly equal amounts of time are meaning focused input, meaning focused output, language focused learning, and fluency practice. Video material considering its rich entities to facilitate different modality of learning has the potential to be applied in all of the four stages. As a source of input, video provides visual and auditory clues to complement language samples in context in which later on help them to produce the language (language output). As a means for language focus activity, video material could be replayed for the students to notice the language use in the context. The video could also be edited to emphasize and practice the focused language element or grammar. Whereas, for the sake of language fluency practice, video material provides various choices of activities leading to fluent use of the language element or grammar in appropriate communication needs. In this paper, samples of language tasks denoting the application of video material in those steps are presented.