The Marzio School

Real English® DVD Video & Video Workbooks for Classroom Use

On this page you will find the Real English® DVD Contents.

Mark Ellison Taylor of the EFLWEB has written a critical review of the Real English® Video series. Here are a few excerpts printed with his permission.

"Classroom English is all too often 'perfect' – slow short phrases spoken by teachers... This is fine until we actually meet genuine Anglo–Saxons, to discover that nobody, in the real world, speaks 'classroom English'.

It is for this reason that Mike Marzio and his interviewers went out into the real world and found real world people to speak their Real English for them. Passers–by, tourists, businessmen and children on the streets of New York, London and Dublin and a dozen other cities are all interviewed. The collection of responses is an effective and entertaining tool for the classroom. Changing accents and the good humour of both interviewer and interviewee ensure that the sequences are always engaging. Even teachers will find it entertaining.

For each video there is a Video Workbook printed in black and white so that teachers can photocopy the exercises for students. The exercises relate to the sequences on video. All three books use illustrations to enhance the exercises. Transcripts of the videos and answer keys are also included at the back of each book.

The Marzio School has designed the scheme so that it can be used with or without a teacher – as part of a teaching curriculum, or at home, for self–study.

The instructions in the front of each book ask you to watch each sequence 2 or 3 times and then complete the corresponding exercise in the book. Each sequence contains several interviews. If you have problems understanding the sequences you are directed to watch the video again, pausing after each interview you have not understood. Once completed, you can check your answers in the back of the book. To verify further that you have understood what has been said, you can follow the transcript to the video.

Video 1 is 38 minutes long and contains 14 sequences. Hi; Name; ABC; From; How old; Married; Job; Liberty Street; Colour; This is; Time; Weather; Astrological Sign; Five Nationalities and Bye. These provide practice of greetings, possessive adjectives, the alphabet, addresses and telephone numbers, possessive pronouns, the weather, maps and adjectives describing people.

A problem with classroom-based teaching is the absence of variety. If students cannot understand the language outside the classroom because they have become so familiar with the accents of their own teacher, the course has failed. This series meets this requirement by bringing practice with real people to the classroom.

The videos are broken up with musical interludes – Folk-ish guitar songs that often lead nicely into each new sequence. The sequence number and title also appear on screen. This makes finding your place in the video easy if you plan to use parts of it over the course of a term. Visual landmarks are also well used. In one interview in the exercise on 'Time', you can clearly see the time on Big Ben. A New York cop is asked his name in a bustling New York street. The screen changes colour appropriately as interviewees are asked about their favourite colour. Pictures of star signs are shown during the 'Astrological Sign' sequence.

The second video in the series is, at 32 minutes, slightly shorter in running time than its companions. It contains 15 sequences. These include Doing; Wearing; Going to a place; Can you play; Can you cook; What else can you do; Directions 'lost in England'; Have got; Do you have?; Do (work); Do (fun); Time and frequency; Live; Like; How long does it take; Bath; and Think of English. These provide practice of the present continuous, Can, Directions, and the present simple. Pictures of maps of cities or countries are used skillfully to identify the site of each place in the 'Live' excercise.

The 38-minute Video 3 contains 21 sequences including Like to do; Like doing; Going to do; Born; Good at school?; Yesterday; When did you meet?; When you left school?; Used to do; Comparatives; Superlatives; The most beautiful language; Have done; For / Since; Abroad; Have been / Did; Have been doing; Best Year; If you won...?; Achieve and Coincidence. These provide practice of the simple past, the present perfect and conditionals.

To prevent these fast paced interviews from dulling the senses, humour is introduced. There are a few visual jokes. For example, when the interviewer attempts to elicit a response from a vagrant holding a beer. My favourite sequence had the interviewer walk up to unsuspecting interviewees and ask 'What are you doing?' in the Doing Exercise of Video 2. The friendly tone is helped also by the often merry attitude of the interviewees themselves. Not an unhappy soul in the place. This makes all three videos attractive to watch. The use of interviewees from several non-English speaking countries will help an EFL student to identify with them.

All three videos are well produced by the Marzio School. Often they are edited to highlight the contrast between nationalities. The archetypal British gentleman is followed by young American tourists, a German is followed by a French shopper.

Usefully they come in VHS Pal, Secam and NTSC. So wherever you are in the world, there should be a version just for you. Real English videos are, without question, extremely useful resources for any EFL teacher's bag of tricks."
From a review by Mark Ellison Taylor, quoted with permission.

The videocassettes were taped and edited by Mike Marzio with Charlie McBride. The video workbooks were written by Helen King, Mike Marzio, Alex Rossi, and Hilary Venekas.

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