Sunday 24 November 2013

Making videos and adding subtitles to YouTube uploads

Videos are a wonderful resource for language teachers.
They engage learners, and can bring 'authentic' language and culture into the classroom.

Here is an example of a list I prepared to accompany my lessons with Year 9
who are starting a module about Healthy Living, and I am trying to organise the playlists on my YouTube channel so that I can retrieve videos easily.  (This will be a long job!)

A couple of years ago I followed a course on how to use FRAPS to capture video made in Second life. make videos in Second Life and I owe a great deal to my colleagues there for teaching me, in particular Carol Rainbow. There is another course starting in January, and anyone is welcome to join.  It's free!  I have now bought 'Camtasia' for making videos.

Here is the page which recorded the process and here is the document which summarises my advice to others doing the same.  I made four films about a French man and his English wife hiring a gîte in Arcachon, and I thoroughly enjoyed coordinating my 'team' of two French people, one Belgian, one German domiciled in France, and two English people!

I uploaded the results onto my YouTube channel.  (See links below)

I deliberately did not include captions in the films, as I wanted to leave the resource flexible ....
BUT ..... I have been meaning to learn how to add subtitles to YouTube for ages, and today I have learnt!
Here is a link to the Google document I have prepared to describe the process of adding subtitles.
Ironically, the Camtasia film I made of the process failed to render :(  I will do that another time!

So now, I present to you .. the films .. now with the option of turning on French captions!


Episode 1:

Episode 2:
Episode 3:

Episode 4: