YouTube Video

ESL/EFL Lessons with a YouTube video can make our classes much more interesting and memorable for our students.

First of all, videos provide ESL/EFL learners with real-life English. The English is spoken at normal speed and uses vocabulary and sentence structure that native English-speaking people employ.

Moreover, good YouTube videos are free to access, short in duration and therefore, much easier to plan into an ESL/EFL lesson – and planning is important if we want to make sure we incorporate the videos into the overall class objectives.

A Sample ESL Lesson Plan for a YouTube video

As I noted in a previous post, it is important to prepare our students for the material they are going to watch. We need to give them background to what they are going to watch so that they can put it in context and link it to what they already know in their own language, as well as what they have already learned in their ESL/EFL/ESOL classes. Remember we want to stretch their English – not overwhelm them with unrelated information or grammatical and lexical material. 

For this reason, it is very important that we preview the video first. We know our English learners and we know which lexical expressions or grammatical structure could be too challenging for them.

The basic ESL/EFL lesson plans have 3 parts: Preparation, Presentation of new language material, Application  – and that is the organization I will be following in this lesson plan for this YouTube video.

The YouTube video I’ve chosen is called “Break Up”. It has won several awards and was produced in 2007 for the Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions. It appears to be a story about a romantic relationship that is coming to an end… but is it? It brings in the some of the vocabulary and body language of dating… But it is more…. Read the shirts of the man and the woman. What is the real story here?

With a general group of ESL/EFL learners, we could use in lessons dealing with vocabulary dealing with relationships. With business ESL/EFL clients the video could be incorporated into a training with dealing with communication skills and body language. These are just some ideas; there are many other ways that this video could be tied into a lesson.    

ESL Learner: upper-intermediate to advanced 
Class time: about 90 minutes
Material Needed: YouTube video, video player or computer large enough for your ESL learners to see and hear.

Preparation

Questions you could ask ESL/EFL learners

In your country/culture:
- How do young people date? (you might need to explain ”date”.) 
- How did you first meet your boyfriend/girlfriend or wife/husband?
- Did you go out to eat in special places? Who paid for the meal?
- Do you feel that men understand women? How or How not? 
- Do you feel that men listen to women? How or how not? 
- Do women understand and listen to men? How or how not?

Presentation of new language material

New vocabulary in context:

Prepare your ESL students for the English language they are going to hear by either explaining or having exercises ready for them to do. Some words or phrases they might have difficult understanding could be the following:

• “I just put down a mil on a TV commercial just to talk to you.”  What does “mil” mean here?
• “We don’t even hang out in the same places anymore.” What does the phrasal verb “hang out” mean?
• “You can’t tell me you missed the billboard in Times Square?” What does the verb “miss” mean here? “Billboard”? What is that?
• “Coupons, you want coupons.” What are “coupons”?
• “Let’s just hug.” What is “hug”?
• “I’m out of here!” What does the idiomatic expression”to be out of here” mean?
• “Let’s be like the old days.” Old days? What does this expression mean here?

The Video “Break Up”:

Show the introductory part of the video. Stop, check for oral comprehension, answer any questions students might have.

Continue showing video, stopping and checking for comprehension as needed. Then show the video all the way through from start to finish.

 Application and Follow-up questions

• who does the man represent?
• who does the woman represent?
• what does the woman want?
• what’s the man’s reaction?
• what’s  her main compliant?
• what does he know about the woman?
• how does he think he can make her happy?
• what is her reaction to his suggestions?
• As a customer do you want to be in dialogue with your service and product producers?
• How do you let your service and product producers know what you want?
• Why do you start using a service or product?
• Why do you stop using a service or product?

There are any number of questions, role plays, etc., that you can could use here in the application part of the ESL/EFL lesson…. How would you apply this video?

Eileen