Get Students Practicing Language With Video

One of the most useful practical skills that any language student can have is to be able to verbally explain what they what to communicate. But so many times there is a vast divide that must be crossed in order for a student to feel comfortable connecting words when speaking.

Practice is the only way that students can jump that vast divide to be comfortable speaking. How can a teacher manage a group of 2 or 3 dozen students and ensure that all of them practice speaking? Using video is one great way, and that is what this article will focus on.

A Private Collaborative Youtube Playlist

In a previous article on getting language students speaking, I discussed several activities where students are prompted to describe what they see, or have a conversation with someone else. While these activities get students speaking, they don’t give the class much material to build on learning.

This is why it’s a great idea to take the activities discussed in my previous article, have students video their responses, then upload these videos to a private class Youtube Playlist.

To get started, you’ll want to create a Youtube Channel dedicated to your classes. Then you need to create a Playlist that can be shared with collaborators (see the link for how to do…