There are a lot of ways you can use the videos to learn English. You can…
- listen (…duh!)
- take notes
- summarize
- pause, repeat
- copy the accent
- act it out
- discuss the topic with friends or classmates
- look up words in a dictionary
- translate passages the old way
- translate words and passages using Google Translate
- print out some paragraphs or the whole video transcript and then use the website at http://l.georges.online.fr/tools/cloze.html to make gap-fill exercises (cut and paste, click on Interactive and fill them in as you listen
- make beautiful word clouds with Wordle
- find other speeches or clips by the same speakers or actors and make a gorgeous fan page at www.scoop.it
- The site YouSpeakIt has an interesting tool for learners: you can repeat and loop while listening to selected videos on their site. It’s a paid service.
- more…
Suggest some of your own uses on our comment page.
Let’s start!
- Michael D Higgins: Acceptance Speech
- Keith Barry: Brain Magic
- Jill Bolte Taylor: A stroke of insight
- Margaret Thatcher: “No, No, No!” (1990)
- Marianne Williamson: Our Deepest Fear. (‘Coach Carter,’ 2005)
- US President Lyndon B. Johnson: War on Poverty, 1964
- Jawaharlal Nehru: “India will awake” 1947
- Lupita Nyong’o: Best Supporting Actress, Oscars, 2014
- Princess Diana: Headway Lunch, 1993
- Randy Pausch: The Last Lecture, Carnegie Mellon University, 2007

i wish to cheer
Using this site in combination with http://wordsift.com/ is another way to learn English in an interesting / fun way.
Thanks very much for the suggestion? Any speeches you would like to see added?