Friday, June 13, 2008

Make Your Own English Language Learning DVDs Using These Seven Simple Steps


Having Trouble Learning English?
When you find yourself having problems with learning English or some other foreign language, you can quickly and easily produce your very own language practice and study aids. How? By making your own videos and sound pronunciation practice files and putting them on a CD or DVD. Here’s what you’ll need to do.

Here are Seven simple Steps for Making Your Own English Language DVDs

Choose a Grammar Point or Other English Language Element
What do you wish to work on? Is it grammar? To improve your English pronunciation? Do you have a vocabulary list? Do you want to learn some idioms, expressions or even slang in English? You could even just use a point from a text book, a reading passage or poem, for example.

Find a Native or Near-native English Speaker
You’ll near someone with good pronunciation and speaking skills in English to videotape or record. The person should be a native or near-native English speaker, but they do NOT necessarily need to be an English or language teacher.

Get Permission to Record
Talk to the person or persons explaining to them why you want to record them. You should be sure to make them feel comfortable about the process without placing any pressure on them. It’s important that they are relaxed and are willing to help you.

Prepare Your Recording Device
Before you record, check your equipment carefully. Are the batteries fully charged? Is the memory empty and ready for your new recording file? Do you understand the steps to make a good sound or audio recording using this device? You and your recording device, i.e., video camera, digital voice recorder, camcorder, etc. should be ready for the session in advance.

Upload to a Computer
After recording your materials or video, the file needs to be uploaded to a computer. If you don’t know how to do this perhaps you can take your device to an internet cafĂ©, photo shop or electronics store and have the file uploaded to a computer. It’s also important to have your video or audio file edited if necessary for best quality. Make sure the file format is readable by your computer, CD or DVD player, MP3, MP4 or other device that you might have.

Burn the File Onto a CD or DVD
Using software like NERO, you can then burn your audio r video files onto a CD or DVD. CDs are frequently used for data and sound files. DVDs are most often used for video image files which can be quite large or not fit onto a regular data CD. You can usually get this done at one of the businesses mentioned earlier. Many photocopy centers can also burn CD or DVD files onto a disk for you.

Use Your DVD to Practice
Now, with your finished CD or DVD, you can play and practice whatever you need, whenever or wherever you like. It can also be copied and shared with your friends or classmates. If you have any other problem areas in English, you could repeat this process and record your models, examples or correct pronunciation forms for those too.

Make Your Own Study and Learning Aids
Using these seven simple steps make your own English language learning DVDs and CDs quickly and easily. These will be most helpful to you as English language leaning, pronunciation and study aids. Not only that, it will soon become quite a lot of fun for you too.


Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an EFL Teacher Trainer, Intellectual Development Specialist, author and speaker. He has written ESP, foreign language learning, English language teaching texts and hundreds of articles used in more than 100 countries. Get your FREE E-book,"If you Want to Teach English Abroad, Here's What You Need to Know" by requesting the title at: lynchlarrym@gmail.com Need a blogger or copywriter to promote your school, institution, service or business or an experienced writer and vibrant SEO content for your website, blog or newsletter? Then E-mail me for further information.


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