Review: This is Language

As part of my research for the second edition of Becoming an Outstanding Languages Teacher, I have been researching all sorts of digital technology tools for language teachers. As part of this fact-finding mission, I asked This is Language if they would let me try out the site. I have known about This is Language for a few years, but understood that some new functionality had been added and was interested to see what's it's all about in more detail.

Anna from This is Language kindly gave me a run-through of the site via Zoom and has let me try it out the French material for a few days. Other available languages are Spanish, German, Italian and English (this is not clear on the website, as far as I can make out).

As well as the authentic short video interviews, for which the site is best known, there are other very useful and fun activities. Here is a screenshot from the homepage to show you what's available.

The foundation of This is Language is its archive of thousands of short, authentic video interviews with teenagers from various countries. Many are now matched to specific GCSE themes, but this should not stop users from around the world using the site. Many do, I understand. many of the interviews will also be accessible to KS3 pupils - you'd need to pick and choose carefully. For French, Anna told me that there are around 2000 videos. The other languages have a similar number. Each interview is carried out on the spot, unedited and lasts between around 30 seconds to one minute. This is a great length not to overload students and to allow for some intensive comprehension and language manipulation work.

Here's a screenshot from a video page.

Each video is star coded for difficulty level and the national origin of the speaker is indicated with a flag. For each video there is a range of scaffolded, interactive tasks. This is what you see when it comes to using a video interview. Pupils have the option of slowing down the speed of the language by about 30%.

So pupils can work through, in order, the different activities. Jigsaw is essentially a gap-fill with options to choose from, Video Vocab focuses on individual words used in the videos, Gap-fill requires typing in of words and Comprehension is a multi-choice task with English prompts. An exercise type using chunks would be a good addition, I think. Students can choose to see a transcript of the interview which can be copied and pasted by the teacher and used for other purposes. The option is there for up to four exercises to be printed off as a worksheet in Word. This is great, since teachers could edit it, or add other material. Anna told me teachers use the site in many different ways, adapting it to their needs and preferences.

Next, the Vocabulary section of the site. Pupils choose a topic area, matched to GCSE themes. They can then do simple interactive exercises to revise words. Good, solid stuff, though less fun then the popular Nutty Tilez (pronounced 'tiles') game, where pupils can compete with other pupils around the world. It's simply a question of translating from English into the target language, one word or two word phrase at a time (at least for the easiest level). I tried the out and found it was a race against time and I can imagine pupils would like this. There are league tables, as there are for the Vocabulary section.

The Nutty Tilez page looks like this. I competed against three other people and only came first on the second attempt!

The Grammar section is again matched to various exams, often includes 2-minute video descriptions, followed by explanations and interactive exercises based around parts of the speech. The videos are quite fun, amusing in parts, accessible and pupil-friendly. Nice job! (Recorded by the boss of This is Language, I'm told).

Grammar modules can be assigned to pupils and would make for useful homework. I'd say that, after the fun videos, this section is relatively formal, will appeal to some learners and teachers, maybe not all. It certainly focuses on declarative knowledge of grammar, with plenty of grammatical metalanguage. In a typical exercise students are asked to identify where parts of speech or function words are in the sentence. This is okay as a start, but not much focus on meaning is needed. We are often urged to design grammar exercises where students are forced to make form-meaning mappings, not just identify and name forms. The drag and job sentence creation questions are better in this regard.

Here is a screenshot of an "identifying a form" question.

Here is a screenshot of a drag and drop question.

Maybe there could be a way of developing exercises which are more focused on meaning at the same time as grammatical form.

Finally, the newest addition to the site is the Speaking section. This is quite tightly matched to GCSE-style conversation questions. Students choose a topic, a questions and record their answer. they can listen back to their recording, refine it, then assess it against exam board mark schemes. The teacher can also assess what students do. The screenshot shows just some of the topic areas.

Needless to say, perhaps, teachers can assign exercises for pupils (they see them when they log on) and create and track classes as part of the whole programme.

Overall I am very impressed with what the This is Language team in Oxford have done over the years. No wonder the site has won so many accolades. It's not a cheap tool, but it satisfies many language learner and teacher needs. The videos are great and are still the main draw of the site, easy to search, providing an excellent source of listening input for students. The site works smoothly, is uncluttered and cleverly matched to the needs of pupils, especially in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. But other students elsewhere in the world, including those who are learning English, are well catered for. It would certainly have been near the top of my list of digital resources which provide comprehensible language and a chance to interact with it. 

Personally, my favourite elements are the Videos and new Speaking section which allows pupils to practise and refine their conversation skills. I imagine pupils might favour Nutty Tilez.

I am told that teachers use the site in different ways, sometimes showing videos from the front of the class, using worksheets provided on the site, sometimes assigning tasks for homework, classroom devices or the computer room. I would happily have done all three.

I believe the small team in Oxford are always looking for ways to develop the site and one suggestion I would humbly make is to develop more chunk-based activities rather than so frequently focusing on isolated words.

So how much do schools pay?

This is Language have their own video introduction on the site.