The Flatmates

T.V. shows are perhaps the most popular sources for gaining exposure to the target language. Many American shows, like FRIENDS, have been immensely popular among the English language learners in India, not just as a means of getting to know the American culture better but also as an entertaining medium of language learning.

When I saw The Flatmates, an online soap opera on the BBC site, I thought it was such an innovative way of incorporating TV/radio shows, almost something like the FRIENDS, in classroom language teaching. The series is specifically designed to help learners develop their English language skills, where each episode covers a specific Language Point.  The For Teachers section again provides many interesting ideas like prediction, what happened next and role-play, on how each of these episodes can be effectively used in the classroom.  I think I would use this in my class once a week, to break the monotony of studying from the prescribed course book.  I feel once I introduce the series in class, my young adult learners would get hooked on to it and would most likely start learning from it on their own.  Hence, this site would be very helpful in making the learning process more learner-centric.

Another way of using this resource would be to extend the role-play activity and to get students involved in creating something similar of their own. The students don’t necessarily have to use high-end technology to produce a Youtube video or even an audio clip. Instead, the teacher can introduce the series at the beginning of the semester and then encourage students to create their own series in groups and act out an episode in class every week. The students may or may not choose these episodes as models. But, the idea is to keep it as an ongoing process of creating and building narrative in the target language.