There are many engaging ways to use video and video creation projects in teaching English. There are also, of course, numerous videos online that can be useful in various English teaching contexts. Video streaming sites such as Vimeo and YouTube provide access to a seemingly endless supply of video content, but this can quickly result in the sensation of being overwhelmed and leave teachers uncertain of where to begin.

Fortunately, the most useful and valuable of these video collections are intentionally archived and curated for instructional purposes. These often benefit from inclusion of a focus on specific topics, lesson types, language levels, and teaching contexts. Increasingly, there are collections of such media accompanied by extensive documentation to support implementation or even teachers’ manuals and lesson plans. So many recent useful and impressive projects have focused on the use of TED Talks that I will focus on these for this first article. Next month, I’ll share thoughts about other video applications. Continue reading →