National Film and Sound Archive, Australia (NFSA)

What is NFSA?

The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) is an audiovisual archive which stores thousands of videos and clips available for streaming and downloading. The NFSA is responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting, and providing access to a national collection of audiovisual materials and related items. Under the tab 'learning', there are lots of digital learning resources which can be used for language learning.

How can teachers use NFSA?

Teachers may use this website in teaching language by incorporating some content in the lesson. For example, teachers may use the video 'On the rails: Exploring Australia by Train'. Other than learning language, students get to know about the history of the Australian railway. For this activity, students may click and go straight to teh activity while teachers are provided with a guide by clicking on 'Are you a teacher?'. Other than that, if you are only interested in watching the videos, there is a button which brings you to all the videos.

In this activity, students are to listen to the description and the history of the rails. After that, they are required to watch a video clip and answer questions at the end of the clip. The activity goes on the same way in which students will listen to description, watch videos, and answer questions. 

Teachers may also use related videos for pre-reading activities in order to activate students' schemata and to provide background knowledge to students. In addition, it may also be suitable to introduce particular vocabulary to students before their reading activities. 

In a listening lesson, teachers may use this video for the listening activity and get students to answer some questions based on the video. 

What I like about NFSA...

1. Teacher can print the guideline for teachers.
2. Balance of audio and visual.
3. It promotes content and language integrated learning (CLIL).
4. Wide range of videos from arts, history, to biography.
5. Allow students to practise listening, writing, and perhaps speaking.
6. Provides variety to language teaching and learning.
7. Easy to search for topics. 

What I dislike about NFSA...

1. No control of the audio and video. We have to listen until it finished in order to move on to the next activity and we cannot skip it. 
2. Most of the videos are about Australia. Therefore, may not be appropriate for students from different context. Teachers need to first give background information to students.
3. Students may get bored watching several videos in one lesson.

Posted in: Autonomous learning, Content and Language Integrated Learning, Listening, Videos, visual