Saturday 15 August 2015

5 Great YouTube Channels for EFL Classroom

Image source: wikipedia

There are so many great posts by blogging teachers who praise the benefits of using videos in the classroom that it's become a must, and rightly so. Authentic material that can engage students and promote further discussion or enhance grammar/vocabulary skills deserves the highest credit. Besides, let's be honest, students love watching videos and prefer them to coursebook exercises and routines. What can be challenging for a teacher in this situation is how to select a proper video for the EFL classroom. My top criteria are:

- it should be relevant to the learning goals
- it should be easy to understand but contain some unknown vocabulary
- it should be interesting for students

In this post, I would like to outline 5 YouTube channels that I normally browse to find videos for my classroom. Naturally, there are much more than that but before I start looking for specific videos using search filters, I resort to these. One thing that these channels have in common is that it's possible to find videos on any topic. This is especially important for me as I have a textbook-based course that involves dealing with various subject areas. What is more, the videos are short and of high quality.

Here we go!

1. Open University

This is a great channel to find short videos on academia related topics (philosophy, social sciences etc.). In addition, the way of presenting information could well be the subject of study for students.

2. CrashCourse

The name speaks for itself. Any topic is presented in a concise and engaging manner. Great to use for ESP. On average, the videos are 12 minutes long.

3. Mental Floss

If you seek some thought provoking stuff, this channel is a right place to start. The authors of the videos have a goal to debunk common misconceptions about anything they lay their eyes on.

4. The School of Life

The videos on this channel try to answer important questions of life with the help of culture. "How To Find Fulfilling Work?", "What Is Success?" are among them. What's more, they use engaging infographic.

5. WatchMojo

This is a wonderful infotainment channel that has separate channels for areas like Travel, Fashion, Lifestyle etc.  Normally, the videos present top-ten lists on anything related to popular culture.








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