How to use Youtube videos in your ESL classes

 I love using Youtube videos in my conversation classes. They allow my students to hear authentic English in context, often spoken in a different accent than mine. They're also a perfect learning tool because they offer limitless potential for vocabulary exercises, grammar practice,  and stimulating conversation. Read on for my process of choosing a video and developing a class around it.

How do I choose the right Youtube video?

1. The topic itself should be interesting on its own and provide plenty of opportunities for conversation. 

2. The video should not be made specifically for English language learners; I only choose videos with authentic English.

3. The video should be relatively short, say 7-8 minutes max. Anything longer than that can be assigned as homework and then discussed during the next class (this strategy is also known as "flipped classroom").

4. The video should be appropriate for the student's age and level of English. The pace and clarity of the narration is an important factor to consider.

5. The video should be visually pleasing and enjoyable to watch, not just, for example, a slideshow of stock photos accompanying the narration.

How do I use the video in class?

Idea 1: Listen for key vocabulary. Before the class, watch the video through a couple of times and write down sentences that contain phrasal verbs, idioms, or vocabulary terms that you want your student to learn or that you think they may not know. Create a gap fill exercise by then removing one word from each idiom or phrasal verb (or the entire vocabulary word). The student should look at this exercise prior to watching the video and fill in any words that they already know. Then, ask the student to complete the sentence while watching the video. After, discuss the meanings of the key terms with your student. I also always develop some conversation questions that incorporate the new vocabulary so that students can practice it in context.

Idea 2: Predict the video's content. Show the title of the video to your student. Upon seeing the topic, instruct your student to write down 2 questions that come to mind that they would like to know the answer to or that they expect the video will answer.

Idea 3: Put your student's comprehension to the test. Write some short answer questions for your student to answer after watching the video. I prefer to make sure they understood the video's big ideas so we can follow the exercise with some engaging, productive conversation instead of targeting little details like statistics, years, or names.

Idea 4: Ask conversation questions. Give your student a chance to voice their opinions about the video's topic. Alternatively, I often ask the student to come up with a few conversation questions on their own that they want to talk about regarding either the topic of the video or that contain the terms learned above in Activity 1. This helps the student take initiative and maintain an active role in their learning process.

Idea 5. Start a debate. Pick out any controversial statements made in the video. Read one to your student and have them choose whether they agree or disagree. Ask them to develop their stance with some specific reasons/examples to support it. Play the opponent and engage in a healthy debate.

Idea 6: Build a unique activity. There are so many more opportunities for activities you can develop around a video if you just keep an open mind and get creative with the video's subject matter. Here are examples of some exercises I've created based on specific videos:

• "Why Starbucks Failed in Australia": I created a case study of another company looking to break into a new market. I asked my student to develop a launch plan, paying special attention to address and avoid the blunders Starbucks made in this video.
• "Noma 2.0: Reinventing the Best Restaurant in the World": I came up with several scenarios that the restaurant could face in the future (e.g., all of Noma's competitors are integrating AI into the restaurant experience or Copenhagen experiences a drought that affects local food production). My student and I then discussed how Noma--and restaurants in general--could adapt to these scenarios.
• "What's the Best Advice You've Every Received?": I instructed my student to analyze the responses people gave by generation (interviewees in this video belong to 4 different generations). I asked them to identify the themes common among members of the same generation and draw conclusions from those implications.

If you're looking for ready-to-go lessons that don't require developing your own activities, you can find my no-prep video-based lesson plans here, including the lessons I developed for the videos linked above.

I hope these ideas are helpful! Thanks for reading.