Learning English by using YouTube

Abstract

This portfolio is designed for a small group of mixed gender young adults who want to improve their practical use of English by using YouTube video clips. Among many different kinds of YouTube video clips, I choose to video clips about self-improvement because it is life-related topic for the target students and it can provide positive influences to them. Using these interesting and authentic materials can encourage them to improve learning motivation because it is directly related to their own life. They will get meaningful information for their own life as they are improving their English proficiency by using English to complete the tasks. As they focus on getting the meaning from the materials and complete the task, they will develop their English skills more naturally in authentic context. Students can have better social and cultural knowledge of the target language, because YouTube allow learners to listen to many different English speakers from all over the world, presenting variety of interesting topics. Also, Students can be more confident with their accent or pronunciation by exposing from different English speakers. Since the target students have not exposed to real-English before, students may have hard time to tackle the authentic video clips. Students will learn and practice various listening strategies to deal with authentic materials better. By learning and practicing strategies, students will learn how to use strategies depends on different purpose and they will figure out which strategy is the best for them.