Using youtobe in ESL class: Boosting students’ motivation, confidence, listening and speaking skills

Context

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF7zsz8fi64

One of the main issues regarding the emerging technologies, for instance youtobe, in ESL class is probably teachers’ awareness. By that I mean that, youtobe might have been very popular to both teachers and learners, yet the teachers might not be aware about the potential benefits of using it in their ESL/EFL classs. Thus, sharing the benefits of using youtobe and what activities can be done in ESL class would be worth trying.

What is youtobe?

“Youtobe is a public communication site allowing registered users to upload videos. It was designed by three employees of paypall online payment service: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim in 2005 and Google  purchased it for about 1.65 billion dollars” (Feldman, 2007). It can be used for a broad range of purposes, for instance to promote a business product, or to campaign a political party. For educational purposes, many language teachers have been using it to upload and to download videos regarding ESL teaching materials.  

Why using youtobe in ESL class.

I found several reasons why youtobe is quite rich learning sources for ESL class, especially in listening and speaking activities. The following are some of the ideas:

·      Youtobe can increase students’ confidence.

·      It gives learners more opportuninities to expose themselves to authentic spoken English.

·     The videos downloaded from youtobe can be played in their PC, laptops or smartphone, in the classroom or at learners’ own time.

·      Not only improving students listening, but it does give learners excellent model of speaking.

·    There is a broad range of videos, like songs, films, talks shows comedies, etc,  in youtobe from which students’ can learn and these diverse audio visual learning source provides “unlimited” appealing stuff which would make ESL learning more enjoyable.

·      It is quite accessible although internet limited access might be the issue.

Examples of listening and speaking activities with youtobe

For listening Acitivities, karaoke song would be really excellent actitivity because it is both entertaining and provides learners with song lyrics on the screen. This will help the learners to improve their pronunciation in an ejoyable way. Jess (2012) suggests that using karaoke is really fun especially for younger learners. She also recommends that finding popular song to start with will engage the learners to sing while at the same time building their confidence.

Youtobe will certainly allows teachers to develop their creativity especially in speaking class. For intance, after watching the videos, teachers can ask students to talk about the videos. They can express their viewpoints about the contents. However, teachers must be aware of students who might not feel confident to speak or may not want to speak about the videos. As Jess (2012) experienced, many of her learners did not speak much. They only said “ the movies are good” or " I like it" and that was it. With regard to that, spending some more time to think about speaking activities beforehand would be a good thing for teachers to make the class become more interactive.

Avoiding negative backwash of youtobe.

It is worth bearing in mind that, youtobe, may contain videos which might not be suitable to your learners as anyone can upload their videos. For that reason, teachers need to do some prior activities such as videos selection before introducing learners to such a media. Here are a few things for teachers that are worth considering:

·     Search the videos suitable with the teaching and learning objectives.

·     Remember that some videos aren't always appropriate, and are always so long and excruciating to watch. So pick videos last no more than 4 minutes (Jess, 2012)

·     List the recommended videos to watch or to download.

·   The video links can be put in teachers’ blog where students can directly navigate from there. Doing this will limit students exposure to the other contents of youtobe that might not be approrpriate. 

Recommendation

With that in mind, why not trying to optimize the use of this realy rich learning source?. Either you’re teaching for lower level learners or adult, you will find this technology resourceful. Hopefully, by using this existing source, you are able to enhance your learners’ motivation and confidence along with their listening and speaking skills.

References

Feldman, J.B. (2007). YouTube: What Is It and Why Use It?. Retrieved on September 12, 2013 from http://www.surfnetkids.com/tech/1200/youtube-what-is-it-and-why-use-it/

Jess. (2012). Using Youtube in the ESL Classroom: Karaoke and more. Retrieved on September 12, 2013. From http://quetzalista.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/using-youtube-in-esl-classroom-karaoke.html