Music Video Clips as a Method for Development of Listening Skills in Foreign Language Classes at University
The paper deals with the topical problem of listening skills development in foreign language classes at higher school. It is of interest to teachers of higher education establishments implementing communicative approach and multimedia methods in language education. The target audience is students of higher education institutions with different levels of language proficiency whose curriculum includes foreign language classes in groups (beginner, intermediate). One of the possible solutions of this problem consists of introducing authentic musical audiovisual materials. The authors take a music video clip as a short video segment (4 or 5 minutes at most) that accompanies a musical composition in foreign language. The text deals with the main advantages of using music videos in class, analyzes the influence of this educational material on learning grammar structures, phonetics, vocabulary expansion, perception of social and cultural context, developing other language activities. The paper examines key criteria for selecting music video clips and summarizes some methodological principles of foreign language teaching with the help of this material. In terms of the traditional model of development of listening skills the authors also suggest some typical exercises to improve listening on each stage (pre-listening, listening, post-listening) that can be used in class while teaching to students of higher education institutions with different levels of language knowledge. In conclusion you can find a list of websites with methodical and training materials for English and French classes.