User guides – TeachVid Blog

Creating video content with TeachVid in mind…

Published on March 22, 2020March 22, 2020 by mlapworthLeave a comment

This post is aimed at those who may be considering creating TeachVid content based on their own YouTube videos, and it is divided into 2 sections: first, some general principles for producing content that we feel will work best on TeachVid; then, some simple low-tech ideas for the sorts of videos that will work great on TeachVid.

1) What sort of video content works best on TeachVid?

TeachVid is not really about extensive listening. Nor is it primarily about comprehension questions (although that is one of the many activity options available).

Primarily, TeachVid resources are aimed at getting students to engage with the video transcript via a range of interactive text-reconstruction activities, with each activity broken down into several mini-tasks directly linked to the video sections / captions.

(For more about this for those not particularly familiar with TeachVid, see: the methodology page on TeachVid | this “Learn Mode” blog post | this “Activity Mode” blog post | this parallel texts blog post)

Bearing in mind all of the above, the following are some general principles which we feel will help you to produce the sort of content that works best with TeachVid’s interactive activity tools:

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Is TeachVid FREE?

Published on March 9, 2020March 20, 2020 by mlapworthLeave a comment

This is a question that gets asked quite a lot on social media, and the simple answer is: well, yes, and no…

This post looks at what you can do for FREE on TeachVid.

1) FREE, but without registering

Anybody can go to the TeachVid site and do the following, without even registering or logging in:

• Public resources
Browse and search through the many publicly available TeachVid resources via the resources page, using the selectors available to search by video language, translation, category, level, etc. (No advanced search though: this is available to subscribers only.)
See the TeachVid resources page

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Clipchat / Movietalk summaries with TeachVid

Published on October 12, 2019October 19, 2019 by mlapworthLeave a comment

Clipchat, or Movietalk (as it is often called, apparently incorrectly), is a technique used by teachers who embrace a comprehensible input approach to language acquisition, whereby they provide students with tons of comprehensible input by asking questions and talking about stills or short sections from a short video.

The short videos used often have no dialogue, which means that they can be used to teach any language, and that the level of the “chat” can be adapted to suit the level of the students in your class.

Good sources of Clipchat videos include Birdbox Studio, and the wonderful Simon’s Cat.

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How can I use a TeachVid resource with my students?

Published on September 27, 2019October 5, 2019 by mlapworth1 Comment

This post looks at 5 different ways of exploiting a TeachVid resource with your students…

1) The Resource Page

Students (or you) can search the resources to find one that they (or you) want to use. Spend time in Learn Mode listening, watching, pausing the video, comparing the languages, clicking the subtitles for text-to-speech and chunk notes etc. Students (if working individually) can then do any of the available activities in any order and have their scores and progress saved by TeachVid.

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Introducing LIVE SESSIONS on TeachVid

Published on September 1, 2019March 20, 2020 by mlapworth5 Comments

We’ve added a whole new side to TeachVid: Live Sessions !!

A Live Session is a time-limited competition based on a TeachVid resource, where students score points on the Live Session scoreboard based on the number and accuracy of their interactions.

Live Sessions are a great way of injecting some excitement and an element of competition into a TeachVid video resource, either in class or at home 🙂

There are 2 types of Live Sessions:

Classroom Live Sessions (for teacher subscribers only)
Temporary Live Sessions (for all registered users with featured resources)

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How long should video captions be on TeachVid?

Published on August 11, 2019August 11, 2019 by mlapworthLeave a comment

Some questions to consider when creating transcript-based resources on TeachVid:

How long should each caption be?
Where’s the best place to split text?
When should I join separate lines into a single caption?

The image at the top of the post shows step 3.2 of the resource creation process, where every line of text in your transcript (from step 3.1) is shown as a blue “caption bubble”.

At this point, you can click anywhere within a caption bubble to split it into more than one caption. You would typically do this if your Continue reading “How long should video captions be on TeachVid?” →

“Activity mode” in TeachVid

Published on June 19, 2019July 6, 2019 by mlapworth6 Comments

You may have already come across our blog post introducing “Learn mode” in TeachVid, in which we describe how TeachVid’s unique interactive player + captions + transcript / translation + various other tools combine to help students to engage with the video content even before they embark on any of the activities. (If not, here it is…)

Well, this blog post is all about “Activity mode”, which is arguably where the learning really begins…

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“Learn mode” in TeachVid

Published on April 21, 2019January 2, 2020 by mlapworth7 Comments

Every TeachVid resource has its own resource page, which includes things such as printable pdfs, the video transcript, information about the resource, information about the YouTube channel, a link to the video on YouTube, and, at the top of the page, an “Open resource” button which is how you Continue reading ““Learn mode” in TeachVid” →

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