'World map' photo (c) 2010, Martyn Wright - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

One of the variety of classes I teach every year is a Geography course for Beginning and Intermediate students.

As we study different countries and regions, my students are videotaping questions they have and sharing them with English classes in those areas of the world. Students in both of our classes get experience with an authentic audience, and my students generate more geography knowledge. Of course, if students in those other countries have questions about the U.S., we’d be happy to answer them, too.

It’s a simple short-term activity that only requires each class to produce short simple videos once or twice (I’m not a big fan of longer-term “pen pal” relationships — in my experience, at least, they can become a bit of a burden).

We’re starting off studying Latin and South America, and have created our first videos for English classes in Brazil taught or mentored by Ana Maria Menezes and by Carla Arena.

I’ve embedded a couple of our videos below, and you can see them all here at our class blog.

If you are teaching an English class of secondary or above students in any country other than the United States and are interested in doing something like this with us, please let me know in the comments section….