HOWCAST !

By Carlos Gontow*

As teachers, we are always looking for interesting materials to show our students. Finding nice videos to use in the classroom is many times a challenge. It is also a lot of hard work.

As I mentioned in my post last January, showing videos in the classroom is also a way to show students that they can understand videos in English and this way encourage them to do so on their own.

This time I have a recommendation for you. Have you ever heard of Howcast?

Howcast is an online video company that produces how-to videos. I find these videos extremely interesting and I think our students can have a lot of fun and learn a lot from them. Howcast has millions of videos from “How to Fold a T-Shirt in 2 Seconds” to “How to Make People Think You’re More Attractive Than You Are.” Some of them are pretty funny, too.

All the videos show a list of things you need to perform the task. They show clear step-by-step instructions on how to do it, and at the end they always present some curiosity related to the topic. And you can also read the transcript, which is right below the video.

All the videos are free. They’re also fun and very useful. Another advantage is the fact that they are short. They can be easily included in your lesson plan.

There is a great variety of topics, which makes them attractive to everyone. You can find the videos on Howcast https://www.howcast.com or on youtube ( https://www.youtube.com/ – type “howcast” in the search box).

Here are a few examples of videos you can find:

How to Fold a T-shirt in 2 seconds:

How to Turn a Pizza Box into a Solar Oven:

How to Survive Without Air Conditioning:

How to Dribble a Soccer Ball:
https://www.howcast.com/videos/24596-How-To-Dribble-a-Soccer-Ball

How to Make Fortune Cookies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80beqJ1t_1k

You can show the movies in class if they are related to the topic you are teaching. Or you can just show them to motivate your students to watch them at home. You can tell them the videos are fun and also very short, so if they don’t understand them they can watch them again.

Someone has said that we teachers don’t teach anything – we motivate our students and they learn. If this is true – and I believe it is – Howcast can be a good tool for that!

Carlos Gontow is an English teacher, actor and teacher trainer. He has had about 25 years of experience teaching children, teenagers and adults. He’s involved with teaching English through theater, games and songs. He’s the author of the books “The Classroom is a Stage – 40 Short Plays for English Students” and “101 Dicas Para Você Aprender Inglês Com Sucesso,” both published by DISAL. He’s also the author of the blog “Dicas Para Aprender Inglês”

https://dicasingles.wordpress.com

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