Let's improve English through YouTube! (e-tivity 7)

Hi everyone!

Today I’m going to write about YouTube. I think we all know what this website is about because it’s very interesting and famous. Anyway, if you want to get more information click here.
I found out this tool some years ago thanks to my boyfriend, and I immediately thought it was great, and I still think that. YouTube gathers a huge collection of videos, which can be watched by everyone. This website is clearly organized and easy to use. There’s a search engine at the top of the homepage. You have just to write a world and click on ‘search’: the website will show you all the videos related to the key word/s you wrote. Then, you have to click on the video you’re interested in. That’s all! Isn’t it easy? The website also gives a list of other interesting websites related to the video you're watching so you can find other useful sources very easily.

Let’s stop for a while and think about the title of the website: ‘YouTube. Broadcast yourself.’ What does it mean? It means that everyone can add his/her own videos. We are the authors of the website, and we collaborate in order to widen it. We have just to register for YouTube and then we can upload our videos, which can deal with ourselves, science, politics, current affairs, music, nature…whatever we want.
The website links people who want not only to share their own videos with others, but also to offer useful and interesting sources to others. Unfortunately you can find stupid or offensive videos too, if they were not flagged as inappropriate. This happen when people don’t respect others, or don’t understand the importance of YouTube as a source.
Comments and groups are other ways to link YouTube users. When people have a YouTube account, they can leave comments on videos, or taking part in groups in order to discuss issues with others. I think this can be helpful in order to know others’ points of view. When people share their videos, they share their ideas as well.
Another positive aspect of YouTube are categories. If you click on ‘categories’ (you find this button at the top of the homepage), you can see that videos are divided into different topics, such as ‘comedy’, ‘news and politics’, 'entertainment'. This can make your search easier.

Videos are really good sources: while you’re watching them, you're learning from them and enjoying yourself. The collection of videos widens every day, and you always have the opportunity to find something you’re interested in. For example, if you don’t know anything about a town or a musician, you can search for some videos. That’s fantastic! You can get information just with a click.

This is true for language learning as well. I can find many interesting English videos to practise my listening and enrich my vocabulary, even when they don’t deal directly with language learning. For example, as I'm keen on music, TV, and cinema, I like searching for songs, pieces of movies, documentaries in English. I must admit I've always used YouTube only for these purposes. Anyway, I found out that there are videos aimed at ESL/EFL students too. They could help me improving my listening and enriching my vocabulary, or learning more about a topic (e.g. I found a video about essay writing, and a YouTube member offering videos for ESL teachers and students). There's another website dealing with teaching and videos. It's entitled 'TeacherTube'. Even though I'll search for more videos about language learning, I think I'll concentrate better on videos about my interests in order to combine learning with pleasure.

As we learnt how to use podcasts in order to improve our English, let’s compare YouTube videos to podcasts. Audio and video podcasts are useful because you can upload them onto your mp3 player, whereas if you want to watch a video on YouTube, you have to sit at your computer. Anyway, I think that YouTube contains a lot of interesting videos, which are very easy to find, whereas podcasts are scattered across the Web. I think that YouTube and podcasts are two different sources, but they're both useful to improve language learning. Do you agree with me?

I know that some people don't like YouTube because they find it confusing, and also because they think that using YouTube is a waste of time. What do you think about it?

Let me know!

See you!

Giovanna

(photo source)