Making an EFL/ESL video

I thought I'd share some teaching ideas that I have tried with you. They have worked for me but they may need to be amended to fit in with your learning situation.

Lesson plan

1 Ask you students if they have heard of any weird, strange or odd stories in the media.



2 Now explain to them that they will watch BBC's Odd Box broadcast which has 10 unusual stories every week. Put them in groups of two - four and show them the clip (about 4-5 minutes long), first without sound and ask them to guess what they story might be about.

3 Students then discuss their guesses and write a sentence for each.

4 Show the sequence again, this time with sound.

5 Student work together as groups then as a class in order to come up with a definitive answer.

6 Now tell learners that they will make their own version of Odd Box using stories and video on the internet.

First phase - Finding stories.

A useful starting places include the BBC's Also in the News page, Yahoo's Odd News, Reuter's Oddly Enough etc.

Second Phase -Finding footage.

Ask students to choose five stories that would be interesting for a Greek TV audience. Next stage involves finding video that goes with the story on Youtube or Google Video.

Third phase - Editing video

In order to use download and edit the videos I would recommend Real Player (which allows you to download and convert videos) and Windows Movie Maker (which comes as standards with every copy of Windows) to edit the videos and add titles and voice over. Both programs are free and relatively easy to use, though the more you familiarise yourself with them the more comfortable you'll feel when teaching.

The students then work in groups so as to edit a two minute video with their own voiceover. Alternatively, student add their own video presentation segments which can be recorded with mobile/cell phones, vieo camera or a digital camera.

Fourth phase - Presenting the video

We screen the videos and decide which one would be best for a class blog/web page etc.


Of course such exercises have all kinds of potential pit falls which may ruin the lesson but I feel that the learning payoff involved is worth the risk. How long can we go on using 19th century technology to promote medieval learning paradigms?

Weird scenes inside the classroom

This exercise is aimed at post-intermediate EFL/ESL students and is a great way to practice listening skills using real life examples.

1 - Ask students if they have heard any strange or unusual stories in the news. If the subject matter is too difficult for them to express in English allow some limited use of L1 or get them to write down the words they need in L1, translate them and write on the board. The others have to guess the story's content.

2 Do the same thing from one of Yahoo Odd News stories. For example (click here);

flowers, sorry, 92 year-old, burglary, England,

3 Students write down a few sentences about what they story could be about and then compare them with their partners.

4 Give out a photocopy of the story or get them to find the story using the words in a Google search.

5 Students then compare and contrast their own version with official one. This is great practice for students doing the FCE/CAE/CPE exams.

6 Next, explain to students that they are going to hear ten weird stories from the BBC's Newsbeat Odd Box. They have to write down as many details of the story as possible.



Just be careful about which ones you choose as some stories may be unsuitable for younger students.

7 After playing the video once allow students to check their answers with each other. Play it again.

8 Students then work as a class to write a paragraph for each video. They then take turns in reading out their paragraphs.

9 Explain to students that they are in charge of a national TV station and that they time for just two of the stories mentioned. They discuss in groups which ones would be most intereting for a national audience and why.

10 Elict answers

As a follow up ask students to choose one of the stories from Odd Box and find out more information about it. this could be presented in the form of a TV report which can be recorded by students using the video camera on their mobile phones and posted via YouTube onto a class blog.