Embedplus is a nice tool that’s on The Best Tools For Cutting-Out & Saving Portions Of Online Videos (Or Annotating Them) list. They recently added a really neat dictionary feature called Learn how to pronounce words (and use them).
You type in a word, and it shows you multiple short clips from videos where the word is used. Jeez, so many dictionaries are next to useless for English Language Learners because they either just show the word in writing or only pronounce the word itself. Some might include a written sentence demonstrating it in context. But you can’t beat literally seeing and hearing it!
Of course, the videos are all from YouTube, which make it inaccessible for most schools. But students certainly use it at home.
I’m adding it to The Best Reference Websites For English Language Learners.
Larry,
I have been following your blog for a while now and am enjoying the posts. I think this video dictionary is a great idea. However, one concern I have in going to the page is that when I chose “clothes”, the videos were of two college professors talking about ancient Greece. I was hoping to see relevant examples that would be accessible to English learners at the lower levels. I also looked up “happiness, sad” and a few other words lower level students might look up and ran into the same issue: language above their heads, even though in context. I think they’ve got a great idea for this dictionary; now if they can bring it down to an intermediate or advanced language learner level! Thanks for sharing! I’ll be following their website to see how it develops.
Great points, Leah!
Larry