Woodpecker App - Creating a video lesson about UBI

Woodpecker App

I was contacted a few weeks ago and asked to check out a new app called Woodpecker.

The purpose of the app is to immerse language learners in content designed for native speakers. It breaks down the language barriers of authentic online content like videos and news articles, enabling English learners to enjoy the web without being overwhelmed by native English.  The app allows students to access over 400 channels such as TED, Khan Academy, Comedy Central, and Vevo music and consists of more than 200,000 videos. It enables learners to view the videos in the app and to read along with an interactive transcript: when a word is touched, both the video and transcript pause and the translation of the word is displayed in the student’s chosen language.

Many of my lessons use authentic materials, like YouTube videos and news articles, so I was interested to find out more about this app and to explore how I would be able to use it in my lessons and how my students could use it as a self-study tool.

The Woodpecker Learning app is extremely user-friendly and contains a variety of useful tools for language learners. You can read detailed information about how to use the app on the Woodpecker website:

https://www.woodpeckerlearning.com/blog/en/help-for-online-teachers/ https://www.woodpeckerlearning.com/blog/en/woodpecker-watch-faq/

I decided to create a number of different kinds of lesson plans, to explore and demonstrate how the app can enhance my materials and my student’s learning experience.

Information about the app
Although the company has a website, it is an app and only works on Android or Apple mobile phones or tablets.

To download the app:

• Go to: Google Play Store or App Store
• App Name: Woodpecker - Language Learning
• Hold your phone in portrait mode and follow the instructions.
• Which language are your learning? English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese (My students should choose English)

• Which language do you know? The languages that are currently available are German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Vietnamese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. (My students should choose their native language)
• Open the app on your phone, hold your phone in portrait mode.  Start by touching a video on the "Homepage" and follow the introduction to the video browser in order to understand more about the browser functions.

       

* Note - The developers are currently working on a monolingual English dictionary which will make the app practical for all English language learners by offering a definition in English rather than a translation.

Key Woodpecker functions used in this lesson

Back icons

Enable the student to go back either 1 sentence or 5 seconds and listen again to a particular expression or sentence.

Built-in bilingual dictionary

Touch a word in the subtitles that appear in the lower half of your phone screen, to view the definition of the word in your chosen language. You can also touch on the “speaker’ icon to hear the word played out loud.  

Word History

When a word is touched it is automatically added to the "Word History", which can be found in the "Main Menu".  To export words from the "Word history" to a range of apps or to copy to a file, touch the three horizontal dots on the top right of the screen. Then, tick the circle next to the words that you would like to export. Finally, touch the green export icon in the menu bar at the top of the screen. Choose either “Copy to clipboard” or “Export as file”.

*Note: The export function is a payable add-on, which can be purchased by touching the "Main Menu" icon (top left of the screen) and then "Add-ons" (bottom right of the Main Menu). It is a one-time payment and costs approximately US$1.

Creating a lesson plan based on a video within the Woodpecker Learning app

Choose a video

This is the hardest part.  Finding a suitable topic for your students and finding a video of an appropriate length is always the most difficult part of creating such lessons. The Woodpecker app makes this easier by displaying a selection of new videos on its "Home Page" for inspiration.  To search further, touch the "Main Menu" (top left of the screen- three horizontal bars) and under "WATCH", choose one of the following categories:

- Touch the search icon to view subcategories.

- Within the search box of an individual channel, you can choose to rank the videos in order of things like date and duration of the video.

Once you have chosen your video

Step one - Open the video in portrait mode in the app.  Then, click on the "Share" button (top right of the video screen) and send a link to yourself by email. You will add this link to your lesson materials so that your student can go directly to the chosen video in the Woodpecker app.

Step two - Read through the subtitles of the chosen video and touch words that you would like to work on in your lesson.

Step three - (Optional) Open the video in YouTube, on your PC/Laptop, click on the "Options" menu (three dots on the right hand side, under the video). Click "Open transcript", the transcript will appear at the top right of the screen and can be copied and pasted into your lesson plan in order to create a reading/fill the gap/find the expression type of exercise.

Lesson objectives

I usually use short videos of about 3-4 minutes, for my one-on-one online lessons. The majority of the videos in the app are longer than this. Therefore, for this lesson plan, I have experimented with an 8-minute video. I believe that the topic of the video, Universal Basic Income, will be interesting and promote discussion for both my Conversation and Business English students. In addition, the video contains interesting and challenging vocabulary and expressions.  I decided to focus on the first half of the video in class and then instruct the students to use the app to work on the second half for their homework.

The Lesson Plan

I created a lesson plan that consists of a brief warm-up exercise and 5 tasks to complete one-on-one with an online teacher. However, the lesson could easily be adapted for a class.  I had originally planned to create an intermediate level lesson, but due to the content of the video and the key vocabulary that is covered in the lesson, I think that the level is a little higher.

Task 1 - Language Exercise
I took the key vocabulary that I had previously touched in the video's subtitles in the app. These can be found in the apps ”Word History”. I exported the words to a Google Docs file. I then copied and pasted the sentences that contained the same words and expressions from the YouTube transcript and created a “match the words with their definitions” exercise.
Woodpecker app Tip: There is a US$1 (approximately) one time, in-app purchase that allows you to export your "Word History" or copy it to a clipboard. This can be a real time saver and make creating vocabulary exercises faster and easier.

Task 2 - True or False Questions
This task consists of 8 True or False statements. The statements should be read before watching the first part of the video to help the student listen for particular information. The video could be screen/system sound shared using Skype/Zoom in an online class. Subtitles should be removed in order to work on the student’s listening comprehension skills. The student could watch the video on their own device using YouTube or they could open the video in their Woodpecker app, without subtitles. If they have great difficulty comprehending, of course, they could use the app with subtitles to help them through the video.

Woodpecker app Tip: When watching a video in the app, if the phone is turned horizontally, the subtitle/translation function does not work. If the student taps the CC icon and clicks “None” (to toggle off the YouTube subtitles too) they can then focus on listening. When they turn their phone back to portrait mode, the subtitles with the built-in dictionary function return.

Task 3 - Understanding
Instruct the student to read the questions and then watch the first part of the video again. Ideally without subtitles and then answer the questions. If they find this challenging, they could use the subtitle function on the app to search for the answers in the text.

Task 4 - Your Opinion
Encourage the student to share their opinions, explain why, and give examples. This is their opportunity to speak about the topic. Remind them to try to use the language from Task 1.

Task 5 - Debate
Give the student a few minutes to take notes and prepare their side of the debate. They could use the subtitles in the app to search for useful expressions and facts to enhance their debate.

Homework
The self-study activity has five parts, they will need to use the Woodpecker Learning app in order to complete it.

Part 1 - Revision and Improve Listening skills

They should turn their phone to horizontal mode, tap on the CC (None) and watch the first part of the video once more.

Part 2 - Improve understanding skills
Students should turn their phone to Portrait mode and watch the first part a final time, reading along with the text and tapping on words that they would like to add to their "Word History" in the app.

Part 3 - Expand Vocabulary
Students should watch the remaining part of the video using the app to help them comprehend and to add new vocabulary to their Word History.

Part 4 - Improve comprehension and pronunciation:
Advise the student to use the “Go-back-one-sentence” button and the “Go-back-five-seconds” button on the Woodpecker player to re-listen to chunks of text, in order to understand better. Encourage them to pause the video and repeat the chunks of language saying them out loud. Remind them to copy the native speaker’s pronunciation and intonation.

Part 5 - Review New Vocabulary
Your student should review the words that they have added to their Word History (found in the main menu) when they have finished watching the video. If they wish to purchase the in-app function (approximately US$1) they can use the "Export" option, to export their vocabulary list to a text file or even to a Quizlet file in order to continue working on the expressions.

Part 6 - Writing and vocabulary review
Your student should write a paragraph expressing their opinion of UBI. They should try to use as many of the words/expressions that they added to their "Word History" in the app and the expressions from Task 1 in the lesson materials.

The lesson materials:

Click to view the lesson materials in Google Docs.

Click to view the video in the Woodpecker app (only works on a mobile).

Click to view the video on YouTube.

Conclusion:

I have thoroughly enjoyed using the Woodpecker app to create this lesson plan and am certain that my students are going to find the app extremely useful. I am looking forward to the update of the app which will contain the monolingual English dictionary, simply because I don’t usually recommend that students translate. Having this function will enable learners to read the definitions in English, which will be more beneficial, in my opinion, to their language development. Having said that, I’m sure that my students will find the ability to translate, in the current version, very convenient.

In my next blog post, I will explore how to use a video from one of the Teacher Channels on Woodpecker and incorporate it into a lesson plan.

Please feel free to comment, I appreciate any feedback.  If you are a Google+ member please comment below. If you're on Facebook please message me there and of course, you can always contact me through my website: http://talk2meenglish.wixsite.com/lessons