Teacher Discussion Forums

MikeV · Joined: 03 Feb 2011 Posts: 5

Youtube is known from most of the students nowadays. Of course, we know that most of them will not necessarily watch useful videos for their English culture and knowledge. However, as teachers, we can make good use of youtube by finding both interesting and entertaining videos that can motivate students to learn more about specific topics. For instance, if we have an unit on jobs to give, finding videos on "Odd jobs" can be quite simple and very interesting for students. We have almost unlimited choices on youtube. Therefore, why not taking advantage of it during class, for both our students and for us?

Emhan3 · Joined: 03 Feb 2011 Posts: 5 Location: Canada

I also think that Youtube is a gold mine for interesting and entertaining videos that can motivate students to learn about certain topics. Youtube videos can serve as trigger activities that aim to introduce a topic. During my practicum, one of the teachers I observed showed a video about a young man who learned to play piano with his feet because he lost his arms in order to start a discussion about dreams and perseverance. Then, my teacher used Youtube video to show students how to draw a dragon because she was doing an LES about dragons with her students. I will definitely use Youtube as a source to provide my students more interesting content in order to motivate them to learn and also show them that learning can be fun.

mesmark · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 276 Location: Nagano, Japan

There are also videos strictly for learning. you can find English vocabulary videos , grammar videos, and teaching videos with model lesson plans, tips for the classroom and activities.

longshikong · Joined: 26 Oct 2009 Posts: 82

kirstindijon · Joined: 06 Jun 2012 Posts: 4 Location: Dijon, France

I don't often take videos directly from YouTube, for the reasons you've mentioned. Sometimes it's even impossible to find good videos if you know exactly what you're looking for. I definitely wouldn't use a video to explain a vocabulary item, but more to stimulate discussion on something that has been introduced earlier. A point I would like to add is that a short video is a good video. Authentic materials are generally vocabulary-heavy, and students will need guidance to follow (rather than be overwhelmed by) video.

An excellent website is : http://bigthink.com/ - Here you can find business-focussed video (and text) as well as video on various topic areas.