Video Vocabulary Notes

Many adult ESL students ask me how to improve their listening skills, especially with conversational English used by native speakers.

The answer: more focused, active listening with authentic materials.

This simple worksheet turns an everyday leisure activity (watching videos) into a powerful learning strategy.

We listen actively by...

Picking out a few new words and studying them in the context of the video.

Listening for familiar words.

Focusing on the big picture of the video.

While I have used this worksheet with ESL students, it works well for learning any foreign language.

The first two instruction pages give tips and show how I personally use this activity for learning Japanese (with one English learner example). The actual worksheets don't have much direction written on them and can be modified to fit your situation.