Use of YouTube in Language Learning
As far as language learning is concerned, YouTube is an unlimited resource for
language acquisition/learning. To illustrate, one can listen to all kinds of spoken language
(formal, neutral, informal) and genres (songs, parodies, debates, political
speeches, talk shows, lectures) and learn a lot of vocabulary in context, which, without
doubt, will help memorize more easily. Language teachers can easily benefit from
YouTube in terms of reading comprehension and use YouTube texts to start discussion/
writing tasks. YouTube can offer more as well as its authentic texts heavily addressing
cultural competence and pragmatic considerations. It is also a widespread
perception that students should be provided with real life language as much as possible
and that language teachers should help their students explore the world of online
language learning possibilities (Groß and Wolf 2001; Jarvis 2004). In this regard,
YouTube may be particularly valuable to cater to learners’ needs for real world language
use and their interests in exploring the world. Further, language teachers can
take advantage of YouTube in their classrooms to make the learning process more
meaningful, more fun and more independent.