A Quick Way to Improve Your Vocabulary - Subtitled Videos

One of the problems that we usually face when learning English is how to learn new vocabulary. At school we are usually taught new vocabulary by learning by heart big lists of words in English with their corresponding translation.

I personally think that this method is of limited value for several reasons:

• It’s not a natural way of teaching but a “brute force” method.
• It’s not useful to memorize a word and then never use it again; you’ll surely forget it in less than a week.
• When you learn a word from a list you only learn how to write it but not how to pronounce or how to use it in context (in a sentence).

However, there is no doubt that the process of learning new vocabulary is a process of repetition where memory has vital importance. The better your memory, the fewer the number of times you’ll have to repeat a word in order to learn it.

I believe that you learn a word in English when you know how to pronounce it properly, write it and use it (in a sentence).

I’m going to describe below a method that I’ve used to learn new vocabulary. The idea is to use subtitled videos in English (in this case videos from TED mentioned in this post). You choose a video that you like and then through watching it several times you see the evolution in its understanding and learning of new words.

Subtitled videos are an excellent tool because they allow you to see the word (you learn how to write it), listen to it (how to pronounce it) and you see in which situations it’s used (its context).

Videos from TED are made by people that speak fluent English therefore they are recommended for people with an upper-intermediate or advanced level. Nevertheless, if you wish don’t hesitate to use this technique. You can also use it with other videos that are more appropriate for your level of English.

What does this method to learn new vocabulary consist of?

First thing you have to do is choose a video. In my case I chose the video which talks about the mathematics of war.



Link to the video

Then try to watch the video without subtitles and estimate how much you understood. In my case I understood 80%.

Watch the video a second time (without subtitles) and estimate your understanding again. In my case 85%.

Now a third time but turn on the subtitles in English. I understood 90%.

A fourth time with the subtitles again. I understood 90%.

In my case the improvement between the third and the fourth time is zero. This is because I wasn’t able to understand more words on account of the context; plus the words that I didn’t know I needed to look up in a dictionary.

I got down to work and I created the following table with four columns (Word, Meaning, Form and Example of use).

I watched the video again, stopping at those words that I didn’t know and filling in the following table:

Note: You might have to adapt the Meaning column to your native language.

Table 1: New Vocabulary from the Video

Word	Meaning	Form	Example of use
Naive	Ingenuo	Adjective	As a naive New Zealander I thought, well, I’ll go to thePentagon.
Stream	Canal	Noun	If we can get enough of these streams of information together.
Raw	Sin tratar, sin filtrar	Adjective	We brought this raw data in and we filtered it
Pull out	Sacar, extraer	Verb	It’s all in the streams of information we consume daily; we just have to know how to pull it out.
Plot	Trazar, marcar	Verb	We plot data for sample on this (in a graph window).
Blew my mind	Me rompió los esquemas, me dejó “flipando”	Verb	… of theway attacks are ordered in this conflict, and this blew our minds.
Clustered	Apiñarse, agruparse	Verb	The slope of these lines clustered around this value of Alpha equals 2.5.
Slope	Pendiente (término matemático)	Noun	Negative Alpha is the slope of that line I showed you before.
Coalescence	Coalescencia – propiedad de las cosas de unirse o fundirse.	Noun	So we look at a process of group dynamics coalescence and fragmentation.
Seemingly	Aparentemente	Adverb	Why should these different, seemingly different conflicts have the same patterns?
Surge	Levantamiento	Noun	The system gets perturbed, it moves upwards to a fragmented state and this is when the surge happens.

A week later I reviewed the learned vocabulary and I watched the video one more time (without subtitles). I understood 98% - 99%.

Is it that simple?

Well, the way of learning depends a lot on everyone. If you want to optimize this particular method you’ll have to adapt to the way you learn and have regard to your own personal qualities. In my case I have a normal memory and thus it’s necessary for me to REPEAT things several times. If you have a good memory (which is really good to learn languages) you’ll probably be ok if you watch the video a couple of times.

Visit TED’s website and put this method into practise! :)

You have read this article Advanced - C1 / Videos / Vocabulary with the title Advanced - C1. You can bookmark this page URL http://apostolosmakrides.blogspot.com/2009/06/a-quick-way-to-improve-your-vocabulary.html. Thanks!

English for Advanced Learners - Practise with Videos

Have you hit a wall and don’t know how to improve your English as an advanced student? How does watching videos in English and answering questions about them sound? This exercise will definitely help you and give your English a good push to the next level.

One of the best ways to learn English (or any language) is listening to it. A lot! When you listen to a language you learn new vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar simultaneously. Moreover, if you pair listening with an image (video) the results are impressive because videos allow viewers to understand more through association.

Watching videos in English is an excellent exercise for improving your English skills. In the blog we have already recommended different websites and channels in Youtube where you can watch great videos in English on any subject. But Diana (helping-you-learn-english) and I wanted to help even more, so we decided to select interesting videos from various topics and write a series of related questions. The combination of watching, listening and answering the questions will help you practice and improve your English.

The first video we selected, focuses on a new system (ESTA) that travellers need to apply for in order to travel to the US. We found the video from CNN’s video library and it is read at a normal pace, perfectly suited for learners at an advanced English level. Although if you have a lower English level and still want to try, go right ahead!


ESTA US security application

Warm up questions before you watch the video:

1. Have you ever travelled to the US before?
2. What was your experience like with security?
3. What changes would you make to security to make things safer? More comfortable?

The video:



Watch the video and while you watch the video try to answer the following questions:

1. What does the new US system ESTA stand for?
2. This is a big change to the US travel system. When did the last big change like this occur?
3. The US is the only country introducing ESTA. True or False
4. How long can you stay in the US once your application has been approved?
5. Does ESTA replace your need for a passport?
6. What are authorities encouraging travellers to do in order to make the process easier?
7. Can you travel in the case of an Emergency or last minute booking with the ESTA system?
8. What is the typical waiting period for ESTA application approval?
9. If I told you I paid $100 for my ESTA application, would you congratulate me on getting it for less than $300? Why or why not?
10. What is the cheapest way to apply for ESTA approval?

Final questions:

1. Describe the four steps of the ESTA process.
2. Do you think that ESTA will make travelling safer?
3. Why would the US introduce this form of security?

Answers to the questions, PA stands for possible answer:

ESTA US security application

Warm up questions before you watch the video.

1. Have you ever travelled to the US before? PA: Yes I have. I went to Florida, Disney World about 10 Years ago.
2. What was your experience like with security? PA: I remember the security and passport control people were very serious. I felt nervous like I had done something wrong and they were going to find out...even though I KNEW I hadn't done anything wrong.
3. What changes would you make to security to make things safer? More comfortable? PA: Um, maybe if they had eye scans in addition to passports...or a finger print scanner. Something that makes it next to impossible to impersonate someone. That sounds really futureistic though.

Watch the video and while you watch the video try to answer the following questions.

1. What does the new US system ESTA stand for? PA: It stands for Electronic System for Travel Authorization
2. This is a big change to the US travel system. When did the last big change like this occur? PA: This is the biggest change to occur in the last 25 years.
3. The US is the only country introducing ESTA. True or False A: False. It is also being introduced in much of the European Union, Japan and Australia
4. How long can you stay in the US once your application has been approved? PA: You can stay in the US for up to Two Years or when your passport expires. Whichever happens sooner.
5. Does ESTA replace your need for a passport? PA: No it does not. You still need a passport to travel in the US.
6. What are authorities encouraging travellers to do in order to make the process easier? PA: Authorities recommend applying as soon as travel plans are made and to apply no later than 72 hours before travelling.
7. Can you travel in the case of an Emergency or last minute booking with the ESTA system? PA: Yes you can. You can make the application last minute but for your peace of mind it is better to do it as soon as possible.
8. What is the typical waiting period for ESTA application approval? PA: Typically ESTA applications are approved within 6 seconds (99% of applicants will experience this quick approval).
9. If I told you I paid $100 for my ESTA application, would you congratulate me on getting it for less than $300? Why or why not? PA: No I wouldn't. I would have told you that you had been ripped off because anyone and do the application for FREE online.
10. What is the cheapest way to apply for ESTA approval? PA: The cheapest way to apply is online because it is FREE.

Final questions:

1. Describe the four steps of the ESTA process. PA: Step 1, complete your application. Step 2 Submit your application. Step 3 Recieve and record your application number. Step 4Recieve confirmation of your application.
2. Do you think that ESTA will make travelling safer? PA: I am not sure if ESTA will make travelling safter but it will provide authorities with more information about each traveller.
3. Why would the US introduce this form of security? PA: I believe that it is trying to increase security and reduce the risk of terrist attacks on the country. Being more informed about who is travelling within the US might prove useful in future situations.

This document has been written in collaboration with Diana Tower, an English teacher with 3 years teaching experience. She is also the author of the free Web page Helping you learn English.

You have read this article Advanced - C1 / Exercises / Videos with the title Advanced - C1. You can bookmark this page URL http://apostolosmakrides.blogspot.com/2009/01/english-for-advanced-learners-practise.html. Thanks!