I would like to start this week's post with an anecdote. One of my students has once sent me a message (anonymously screenshotted here). I know you might not understand Arabic, so I'll tell you what her question was about. Basically, she was telling me that she was no longer interested in going to specialised institutions to learn English because she was not getting the education that she was expecting. Therefore, she has decided to start working on developing her own skills independently using different tools on the internet, especially YouTube. What she wanted from me was some recommendations for specific websites and YouTube channels which could help her learn autonomously. Thus, I recommended to her a few YouTube channels, most prominently English with Lucy.
What is English with Lucy about?
English with Lucy is an amazing YouTube channel which offers to students free English lessons. Through her tutorial videos, Lucy not only explains language lessons about various topics but also helps students develop different strategies for learning the language independently. See the video below, for example, through which she recommends some tricks and strategies to make English (or any second language you are interested in learning) part of your everyday life:
Who can benefit from this channel?
Well, everybody can follow English with Lucy and benefit from her lessons. However, from my experience with Palestinian students majoring in English, I have found that they have always complained that the course plan does not offer enough modules which would "teach" them aural/oral skills or all grammatical structures they want to learn since a great deal of the modules largely focuses on topics such as literature, drama, TEFL, etc. My answer to this issue has always been that students could work on developing their speaking and listening skills (or any skill, of course) because the major aim of the undergraduate programme is to focus on developing the students' knowledge and competence of their specialisation, yet it definitely is not able to cover EVERYTHING!
Why this Channel in particular?
What I love about English with Lucy is that the videos uploaded on it are filmed with high quality. Learners will usually be highly engaged with the material and the explanation that she presents without getting distracted in any way. Moreover, having a teacher with a great smile and sense of humour is absolutely necessary for keeping learners motivated. In Lucy's videos, she brilliantly maintains a very engaging sense of humour. As a result, students get eager to watch more videos because they enjoy the funny way through which she addresses her topics.
In addition, some students may be in great need for English classes, but they might not be able to financially afford to get enrolled in ones. The great thing about YouTube, in general, and English with Lucy, in particular, is that students can enjoy the videos without having to pay a single penny. Moreover, students can kill two birds with one stone when watching videos presented by teachers whose first language is English. In addition to focusing on the content of the video and developing students' knowledge, Lucy offers an authentic context for learners which is very similar to the context of attending a lecture in an English-speaking country.
Besides the unique content briefly foreshadowed above, Lucy offers very helpful pronunciation tips which students, especially those majoring in English, can understand and practice quite easily, for they usually study pronunciation theoretically without getting the chance to apply the knowledge and master the skill. For instance, here is a video about the pronunciation of the -ed morpheme which is added to regular verbs to form the past tense:
Any Challenges?
However, the fact that Lucy is a native speaker and speaks with natural fluent English might be overwhelming for many students, especially for learners who have not got much exposure to natural spoken English. Nevertheless, I promise; just give yourself some time and you will discover that listening skills easily and quickly develop. From my experience with my students, this process happened much faster than they expected.
Moreover, Students need to be aware that Lucy is not the only teacher they can access online. She is absolutely competent, and watching her videos is both fun and rewarding, but they should always check other YouTube channels that are equally helpful. I suggest EngVid and Learn English with Papa Teach me.
When you came to our lecture with Miss Dana at Najah University at the beginning, you were talking at high speed. Because most of the students from the Department of Methods were not able to follow you or to be frank, I did not understand every word you say to us at the end of the lecture. To this degree and asked you ways to help me and your answer was that you caught the pen and wrote a channel to learn English with Lucy and when I arrived home visited almost a video of most of the posts posted by Miss and I was fortunate to know it helped me a lot to develop myself thanks
ReplyDeleteI'm spending my time watching YouTube movies so I can learn to speak but speak fast, but this app will help me more and the beautiful side is youtube because no matter how tired you are. بتول عيسى
ReplyDeletethanks yousef to help us
ReplyDeleteIt's a good channel but I was hoping to give us more channels I was told a lot of this channel but I could not understand a few words because of the quick pronunciation it's useful and good thanks
ReplyDeletemariam salim
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ReplyDeleteI have to say that her videos is so helpful , interesting and easy to understand
ReplyDeleteI like this idea because explains language lessons about various topics and helps students develop different strategies for learning the language independently.
ReplyDeleteGood work Lucy,I have subscribed to your YouTube channel and I hope to watch more future videos up loaded,and now I have a better idea of how to pronounce many sentences in English
ReplyDeleteBy:Hiba Yasser
When I was at school, every single student in the class would read aloud, and the teacher would point and comment on the mistakes the students have made. It was actually great because whenever we make a mistake, we tend to pay more attention in order to avoid it which improved our pronunciation. I even started to watch YouTube videos and listen to songs with lyrics. What I mean here is no one will improve your English other than yourself. It’s also important to learn the correct pronunciation from a native speaker.
ReplyDeleteVery useful method to correct pronunciation .
DeleteYou know, we can consider this as a basic to the language practicing app you mentioned above. By watching, we can't learn a language. So we have to follow by another step which is practicing.
ReplyDeleteLearning skills like speaking is very important for English learners,those channels give a good way to show us the right pronunciation since Arabic and English have very different pronunciation in vowels and other sounds.
ReplyDeleteLucy has a great way to communicate and facilitate information. It is indeed a great channel for teaching English because it contains hundreds of useful sections. This channel provides a lot of effort and money for learners. Lucy's style is great to attract learners because she enjoys a lot of vitality and activity.
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ReplyDeleteThank you for this recommendation , we as English students need to improve our language and know how to use it in our daily life . This channel will be benefit and interesting since Lucy seems a kind person . Actaully I've tried many diffrent ways to enhance my language. For example,I watched movies,listened to music and read books . However, I still need to know more about grammatical rules and pronunciation. So I will follow this channel and I feel confident that I will get better.
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ReplyDeleteHonestly, a few years ago I was not able to understand what an English speaker says or even hear the pronunciation oh his language. So I started to watch some English movies, series and songs with their caption. This way helped me alot to understand English.Also, YouTube channels were very helpful for me. English students in our University should practice speaking English with each other. I am sure this will improve our language.
ReplyDeleteThis channel is very benifit since it helps the students to improve their language and teaches them how pronaunce the word in correct way.As lam student in english language and literature major this channel will be very usefull
ReplyDeletefor me so l follow this channel to make my language better and to learn how can I speak english in my daily life. I tried many ways to improve my english language like,I listined to english songs and I read books but I think this channel will help me and make my language very good. Also,it teaches how to speak english in correct way so it helps the students to speak english fluently.Thank you for this benefit channel.
think that we need to follow this channal because it will help us to learn an important skill which is speaking and it will help us and show us the appropriate way for pronunciation.
ReplyDeleteLooking back to school days, I remember when we were often called out by the teacher to read aloud any piece of information we were studying. The teacher would point out our mistakes and correct us. Indeed, this is obviously one of the most important techniques used to improve our pronunciation skills. To improve my language skills even more, I even started watching YouTube videos and listening to English songs with lyrics in order to pay attention to the words on the screen. I would see them, examine them, practice them and finally, learn them. The point to learn here is; no one can help you but yourself. You are the only one who is capable of improving your English skills. In fact, a suggested method is to listen to a native speaker talk. Listen to the way he/she pronounces different words and acknowledge them. Try saying the words the same way they do. Remember, you are the only one that can help yourself.
ReplyDeletei think lucy channel will help the students especially to become better in english language for example.
ReplyDeletei watched three vedios to her and i noticed that her vedios are easy to follow . In those three vedios which i watched i learned much more from these vedios .
Once I watched this channel, I followed it immediately because learning English language requires an attractive method to familiarize English learners with the language. The important thing is that this channel focuses on speaking and listening skills because some universities do not teach these skills in an appropriate and effective way.
ReplyDeleteI love this channel because it helps me a lot to imrove my speaking ,pronunciation and knowing more new words.Also, it is easy to follow.So,thanks for this amazing channel! (اية فلاحة)
ReplyDeleteThe way she is helping people to learn English is really inspiring , and all you have to do is click on the video , i really like her accent .
ReplyDeleteBy Eman Zuhd
Well yes! Cources online are a good way to learn, refresh or revise the rules of any language.. However, the fact that she teaches in English ,and with that accent, will limit the audience..
ReplyDeleteI actually disagree, as she doesn't really speak the fast English you would here from an English native speaker. She's way too slower than that.
DeleteMy dear what I meant was that it would limit students as for the case of bigginers..( When start to learn English from scratch)...
DeleteThe time I saw the Channel, I started opening the videos one by one until i lost my feeling of time. However, in addition to this channel being interesting, listening to English from a native speaker can really improve your skills. One can also have the chance to listen to the accent especially that she doesn't speak that much fast a native speaker usually speaks. And Away from learning the language through her tips, one can actually learn English only through listening to her.
ReplyDeleteShe is really humorous, I loved her way in telling the information. She assured the consistancy in using English in order to improve it. I am going to follow her very soon.
ReplyDeleteI want to say that this is one of the best ways for me in learning a second language. I really loved the idea that she gives instructions to learn English on a daily basis. The ways of learning she provides are very simple and available for all of us! They are effective at the same time.
ReplyDeleteWhat is also really cool about her is her sense of humor and the way she gives information.
I will definitely start watching her videos!
Maybe one thing that might distract beginners is her fluency in speaking. But watching her daily will make it easier to understand and it will also improve your language.
-Lena Ismail
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ReplyDeleteI can say that Lucy channel is one of the best methods of learning a forign language .I liked her accent and the way she gives the information. Also, this channel will save effort and money for the learners because it is free and easy to use . I will definitely follow her from now .
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ReplyDeleteI really liked her videos and her way in teaching. What I loved is her accent. I will always adore the British accent. Watching YouTube Videos for learning languages is an amazing way in spending time effectively.
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DeleteI think using Webquests is very useful because They encourage critical thinking skills, including: comparing, classifying, deducing, analysing errors, abstraction, analysing perspectives, etc. Learners are not able to simply regurgitate information they find, but are guided towards a transformation of that information in order to achieve a given task.
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ReplyDeleteYouTube is a vast resource for educational content . The site is home to over 10 million videos tagged as educational, many of submitted by our teachers. As a result, this huge and varied resource is used in the classroom. For example bringing in videos that show students a more fun side of the lesson .
ReplyDeleteI really liked the way of teaching because what we learn in most of our life it is theoritical pronunciation and we don't learn it by practice . So this application give us the opportunity to practice and to become better in English and to speak like native speaker and this what we lost in own language because they concentrate on grammar , vocabulary and theoritical pronunciation . and the most important thing the humor that explain the lesson with it which attract us to watch more videos
ReplyDeleteThe channel is very useful because it helps students improve their language and teach them how to get the word right. The main literature students of this channel would be very helpful to follow this channel to make my language better and learn how I can speak English in my daily life
ReplyDeleteBy أريج سليمان قواريق
It's a very benefit way for learning a language and every thing we lesten or watch in that language help us to improve ourselves. But what we all need is to work hard on ourselves regularly and not giving up anyway. Thanks a lot for this help keep go on.
ReplyDeleteنرمين جمال
I am one of the people who follow this channel, I benefited from it. I used to take the meanings and write them and benefit from the instructions that may help me in developing the English language.
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