FluentU and VoiceTube---Real English to learn

FluentU and VoiceTube---Real English to learn

Films and some funny videos are good resources for ESL students to learn real English. Many teachers choose videos from internet for their classes. However there is always a big issue with it, especially for those teachers in China. Those videos on the internet usually have Chinese subtitles. Students may rely on those subtitles to understand what they hear. As a result, it is meaningless to use those videos as a practice. Sometimes you can find some videos with English subtitles, but it takes a long time. Of course, if films are the only resources you want to use, you can buy DVD disks, but it is really a big sum of money. So I gave up to use videos in class for quite a long time.

However, two websites introduced in ICT class help me solve the problem: one is FluentU, and the other is VoiceTube. Here, I'd like to show you how it works.

FluentU

After signing up (it is free), click 'Videos' below 'BROWSE' on the left. You will see a lot of videos. They have been placed in different categories. You can sort by 'DIFFICULTY', 'TOPICS' and 'FORMATS'.

After click 'elementary', there are quite lot videos for you to choose.  Most of them are cartoons that are suitable for young learners.

Click whatever you want.

 You can 'watch' or 'learn'. I think I'd like to let the students watch it first(of course without subtitles), and then learn it. Below these two tools, you can see 'Dialogue' and 'Vocab'. Click 'Vocab', you will find it has helped you list all the vocabulary from the video. As a result, these words can learned before watching the video or after. 

However, the biggest problem of this is you need to upgrade if you want to learn. 

Voice Tube

For those Chinese students and teachers, I suggest Voicetube which is totally free. What's more there are more videos on various topics, even speeches of TED. 

Those unknown vocabulary can be looked up automatically when you single click. Every word you have looked up will be listed on the right below the script. 

You can even adjust the speaking speed. 

Evaluation

VoiceTube is useful both for teachers and students. Teachers can use it either in class or sign a task for student to complete after class. For those high level learners, this is really a great tool for self-learning. As my students are those preparing for IELTS, so these materials are suitable for them to learn authentic English. I think I'd like to use the VoiceTube once a week. Every week I will choose different topics that are related to IELTS listening and reading content. 

However, there are still some limits with these two tools. One is that these tools are not so interactive. You can contribute your comment if you sign in with facebook account, but there are few people will response you. Another problem is this software was designed by Taiwan company, so all the levels are based on their criterions.