In Action

When I was a child, I was absolutely held in thrall by an educational programme that would occasionally screen in the mornings on ABC.

The ABC had a programming schedule that would alternate between educational programmes and children's entertainment, depending on the day of the week.  I can't remember exactly which day was which, but if you were watching morning television on, say, a Monday you would see cartoons and such, but if you watched on a Tuesday you'd see programmes about maths and chemistry.  I loved those.

They were part of an educational support programme that ABC was running for schools in the 80s and 90s.  The broadcaster would have a schedule of programmes, which it would send to teachers, and those teachers could then arrange to have their class watch TV at that particular time.  My grade 5 class watched the entire series of something to do with Australian settlers (I can't remember what it was called, but it was something generic like The Colonials).  However, I think most classes at the time couldn't quite structure themselves around live TV, so most teachers asked their schools to buy the videos, if such things were available.

Sadly, my mother insisted on sending me to school, so I didn't get to see many of the educational programmes on ABC but, thanks to the fact that Aunty* ran its scheduling based on the school calendar for the southern states, I could watch a couple of weeks a year when the Queensland holidays ran a week earlier or later.  I was always secretly pleased when any sick days coincided with an episode of Square One (a maths programme), or something equally dorky.

But the show I loved most - and one that would occasionally be screened early on Saturday mornings - was French in Action.

It was actually my mother who got me onto that show.  She had an idea, at the time, that we would watch the programme together and learn French - one she vehemently denies, now.  I don't know how she heard of it, but I do remember her saying that she heard it was a particularly good language programme.

It was.  In fact, I've never seen anything that can compare to it - not just in languages, but in televised classes in general.  FIA was simply one of the best examples of education design I've ever seen.  Even today, whenever I watch an educational show or listen to a podcast, I find myself thinking "that's kind of like what they did in FIA, only FIA did it better..."

If I explain the format, you'll recognise most of it.  Other programmes have used similar techniques before and since.  There was a plot running through the entire series - each episode would show a few short chapters of this ongoing story.  Snippets would be repeated, with particular words highlighted.  Those words would be shown in other context, spoken by a variety of other people in a variety of other settings.  The spelling of the word would be shown, and a mime would act it out - just to drive it home.

Everything (apart from an introduction right at the beginning of each episode explaining what we were about to see) would be entirely in French.  Even the "class discussion" (there was a "class" who would often discuss what was happening in the story) was done entirely in French.  The learner was expected to "pick up" the meaning of the words based on the context(s).

Did it work?

Well, on the one hand I don't speak French. On the other hand, I did spend a lot of my childhood randomly spouting French things like "Je déteste ce!" and "J'suis malade" - these are things I picked up from the programme, and still remember to this day.  I didn't pick up useful things like counting and the days of the week.  They might have been in the episodes I didn't see, or they might have been left out entirely.

When I took myself to French evening classes for one semester in high school, I found myself in the peculiar position of being the only person in the class who couldn't count to ten, but could say entire sentences (albeit rather short ones).

And I have to admit that I'm finding what little French I do know a bit sticky.  I'll occasionally come up with the French word when I'm trying to think of the German or Estonian (both languages I am actually trying to learn at present, as opposed to French, which I'm not).  One day I'll probably start learning French again, and I expect I'll find a few more traces of FIA floating in the back of my brain.

I think I can safely say that FIA gave me a foundation in French that would have proved rather useful if I had built on it by continuing with the language.  What it definitely did, though, was give me a benchmark for educational design.  So often I find myself wondering how we can bring the FIA way of doing things into our own educational what-nots.

And so, just to indulge myself more than anything else, I'd like to finish by outlining six educational design principles that I first discovered in FIA, which I believe are worth pinning to a notice board if you are going to work on a series of vodcasts or podcasts:

1. Never underestimate the value of light entertainment (people engage with stories and anecdotes - they always have and they always will)
2. Give people a heads-up - let them know what they should be seeing and learning as a result of watching (or listening to) this thing.
3. Repeat your keywords.  Feel free to repeat them a little too often.  They become stickier by being slightly annoying.
4. Embrace the pastiche.  By mixing and matching different techniques to emphasis the important parts of your message, you are making sure your audience doesn't start tuning your "voice" out as background noise.
5. Write short and write long.  Each part should be able to stand on its own, but become richer when experienced as part of a bigger picture.  One episode on its own should be perfectly fine.  Three episodes in sequence should be even better.
6. Offer context.  Offer lots of context.  Let them see what you are talking about, and see it from a variety of different angles.

*"Aunty" is a common nickname in Australia for the ABC (from back when it was the Australian Broadcasting Commission).  It indicates something that is a part of the family, but a little bit dowdy.