5 fun lesson ideas to use YouTube for listening practice of English

Wanna know why YouTube is a great tool to do listening practice of English? Because students are already doing it of their own accord! At least, my students do 🙂 They’re on YouTube all the time and they love it. YouTube is an incredibly awesome source for videos. There’s so much to see, learn, try and practice. But how can you use their videos in your lessons? Below, I will explain to you how I use the platform.

First, not all YouTube videos are appropriate, so as a teacher, you must always make sure you know the source of the video and with what goal you’re using a video. It’s good to talk about digital literacy (using information found online wisely). You also have to gauge the level of each video. I’ve sometimes found videos that looked cutesy and easy enough for my students, but the language was actually too difficult. And it happened the other way around too – in fact it did yesterday – when I found a very sophisticated looking video that was really way too easy for my students. I always use this free Lush Listening Lesson Cheat Sheet to make sure I choose the right videos or audio files. Download it here to use for your lessons!

Now, on to the fun part!

How to use YouTube for teaching

It’s great to do a lot of listening to practice English! So here are the ways I use YouTube in my lessons. I try to vary the moments I use it, and the student-made exercises (last point) I only use in specific grades. This way, my activities stay interesting and fresh, and we can all enjoy them when they’re up.

Listening practice of English with YouTube as a lesson starter

I like to introduce the topic of my lesson with a video that fits it. For example, I started a lesson about sports vocabulary with a video of a football match and had students identify some sports words. And at the beginning of my lesson on the Past Simple tense they watched a video about dinosaurs. Then they had to tell me what happened to the poor fellas. It’s a great way to spark curiosity about the topic and get students thinking.

Use YouTube for listening practice as a lesson finisher

I always want my students to show some kind of transfer of what they’ve just learned at the end of each lesson. A great way to do that is to have them describe what they just saw in a video. At the end of my lesson on classroom supplies vocabulary, I showed them a video of students using all kinds of classroom supplies to create a poster. Students had to then use the vocabulary they had just learned to write a report on the video in their journal.

YouTube to investigate topics that are in the news

I like to have my students watch news broadcasts to keep up with current affairs. I’ll have them answer questions I pre-made, or simply summarize what they just learned. This activity is not specifically aimed at listening practice in English, but students are still doing it without them realizing it.

YouTube as a collection of student work

For my lesson series on giving instructions I had my students create a How to.. Video, and they posted all their videos to a secure and private group on the platform. It was fun to have them all in the same place so we could all watch, and good not to have them on my computer.

YouTube for student-made exercises (YouTube Tuesday)

I have this awesome assignment going on in most of my groups in which students prepare two exercises about a video of their choice for their classmates. Each week, two students each bring a video of no more than 5 minutes. Or two students pair up to bring a 10-minute video if the students are older and more advanced. And students bring 2 exercises about the video. They’ll introduce their video and lead the exercises as well. It’s a super fun activity each week and students look forward to the video their classmates bring!

Listening practice in English the fun way

Try these activities, you’ll love them! If you’d like to know more about how I set up my YouTube Tuesday activity (it takes about 5 lessons to properly prepare students for it), go to the link below to get the lesson plan I made:

YouTube Tuesday Listening Practice Lesson Plan

To find out why I also like to do listening practice skills with PODCASTS, check out this post:

5 Cool Ways to Use Podcasts to Practice Listening Skills