Digital Learning Sources: National Film and Sound Archive [Australia]

NFSA

which stands for National Film and Sound Archive is an Australian nation's living archive that collects, preserves and share their audiovisual heritage. The collection includes films, television and radio programs, videos, audio tapes, records, compact discs, phonograph cylinders and wire recordings. It also encompasses documents and artifacts such as photographs, posters, lobby cards, publicity items, scripts, costumes, props, memorabilia, oral histories, and vintage equipment. (taken from the website)

One of the useful contents in the website which can help the English learning is the Digital Learning Resources that are specifically offered for education. Learners can choose a variety of resources from the digital resources finder or simply click on the any featured topic that you like. I would like to remind you that all the contents in this website are about Australia. However, both teacher and learners can still make use of this website for teaching and learning purposes. It will be a good source of improving language as well as gaining knowledge about Australia. This tool will provide the listening materials as well as the guidelines on how to use the materials. Some topics have the examples of activities which are available and ready to be used in the classroom.

I am going to show you how to make use of the website. If you scroll down the digital learning page, you will find a topic which is Talkback Classroom learning journeys. Click on the topic and you will be directed to Learning Journeys webpage. Then I choose the learning journey under the topic of 'Energy'. Click on the learning journey button and you will see a list of digital resources tagged with 'Learning Journey Energy' which are differ on the topic and level of learners.

You can choose any topic that you like but here I have chosen Global Warming issue for Year 7 and 8. Click on the link and you will find a webpage with a video clip and all the information about the clip.

You can see on the right hand side, a box which shows what are on the page - about the page, curriculum focus, background information, classroom activities and further resources - and on the left hand side, the links to download the video clip. So if teacher and learners were to use the content on this website, they can easily download the content, refer to the information provided as well as the suggested classroom activities to assist the teaching and learning process.

What I like about this website:

1. The website offers a wide range of topics for the learners to choose such as environment, history, culture etc.
2. The listening materials and the activities are arranged according to different levels to suit learners abilities.
3. It is free for educational use and always free to download the copy of the audio and video clips.
4. It is printer friendly page.
5. Learners can use the contents of the website and the further resources link to widen their knowledge about Australia.

I can say that this website is very effective and practical for learners to enhance their language skills. One thing that is for sure is it is an Australia-based archive so the contents are limited to Australian context only. Hence some learners might not be able to engage with the activities because they are not familiar with the content. However, this will be a good opportunity for them to discover a new knowledge.

-Suze-