I love using TED talks to teach ESL writing, so in the following I want to share a few ideas that I have used or not yet implemented:
1. Use TED talks to teach prediction skills or at least spark students' interest in writing. The following talk, how to control someone else's arm with your brain by Greg Gage in 2015 is one of my favorites. To make the full use of this talk, teachers can first show students the title of the talk and ask them to predict in what ways the person is going to achieve that. Afterwards, teachers can play the video to the class. Before the scene of the female volunteer in the talk controlling the male volunteer's arm, teachers can stop and ask the class, "what do you think might happen?" Once students give their prediction, then resume the video. At the end, ask students to compare their prediction they had in the first place with what actually happened and write a revision.
2. Use TED talks to teach summarizing and paraphrasing. The talk given by Gabriel Barcia-Colombo, capturing memories in video arts, is a good one to use. Before playing the talk, teachers need to tell students to keep in mind what the talk is mainly about because they later need to write a summary. After playing the video, teachers can either assign students to write a summary of the talk on Padlet in pairs or individually depending on their levels. Once everyone is finished with writing, then teachers can give feedback for each group and teach characteristics of summary writing. In addition to teaching summarizing skills, teachers can also select a certain excerpt of the talk and then ask students to practice paraphrasing the excerpt.
