How to download the perfect ESL video on YouTube step-by-step

Want to make your ESL students sit up and listen in class? Just announce ‘We’ve got a video today’.  A video, and especially a funny video, instantly perks up the hardest to inspire students. Learn to find and download the perfect ESL video without a YouTube Premium account.

It doesn’t matter what age group or gender, video is going to be more compelling for your students.  Research has shown that video is most effective when it is shown for not more than 10 minutes at a time and can show an educational relationship to the material being learned in class.

Don’t panic if you’ve never downloaded something from the internet. We’re going to go through it step by step.

There are two things to learn today:

1. How to find the perfect ESL video to match your student’s needs (with English subtitles!)
2. How to download it onto your computer for free without YouTube Premium.

In my last blog, ‘How to find ‘perfect’ ESL teaching materials online quickly and make a flashcard game’ we used the example of finding a lesson on ‘How to give bad news’.

Let’s continue with that lesson idea and add a video.

By now your student has learned several common expressions so he’s ready to reinforce that by watching a video. Even if he’s a lower level, he should be able to follow the video since he will already be familiar with the expressions.

Step N° 1  Go to Google Chrome and enter the same search words as you did when you were looking for the text with expressions: type in ‘ESL giving bad news’. When the search is complete you’ll see the same listing of texts.

Now we’re going to look for videos.

 Click ‘videos’ and you will see a long listing of thumbnail photos of videos to choose from.  Scan through the list to see which video seems to fit your needs.

The first video at the top of the list is for giving good and bad news. Click on it and view it.

A Youtube screen will open and just click the ‘play’ button for viewing.

You may have to click ‘Ignore Ad’ or wait for the advertisement to finish before you can view the video.

What do you think of the video? Frankly, I don’t like the computerized voice and secondly, we’re looking for expressions for ‘giving bad news’ only today.

But hey, in the column on the ‘right-hand side’ of the screen are similar videos and the one at the top definitely looks like an ESL video lesson. It’s called ‘How to give bad news’ from Beta

English College. Let’s click on that and view it.

I like it.  Let’s download this one.

Step 2: Download the perfect ESL video to your computer

• Restart the video and then ‘pause’ it anywhere. Just make sure the ads are finished.
• Look up at the search bar above the viewing window where the URL (or link address) is written.
• Put your cursor just before the word YouTube in the URL and double-click.
• Then type in the three letters ‘pwn’
• And hit ‘enter’.

This will take you to the video downloader and converter website called deturl.com.

1) Do you see your video thumbnail photo and its URL? Just below, there are several programs you can choose from for downloading.  Click on ‘Save From’.  I like this program. It’s easy.

2) A new window will open.  Be patient while the video is being transferred to the website. Wait for the blue dots to stop scrolling across the page.

They want you to subscribe to the Pro version but that’s not necessary. Just look around for the “fine print” that says download at slow speed or download at low definition and click on that. It’s a little hard to find but worth it.

2) Choose a format for downloading the file.  Choose the MP4 format.  Almost any video player can play this format and choose the higher resolution 720.

3) Then click the ‘download’ button. You will be prompted to choose the directory and folder where you’d like to save your video.  Et viola!

4) When the video has been downloaded, you can watch the progress in the download bar at the bottom of the screen,  click on it to make sure that it opens and plays correctly in your media player.  (We will talk next time about a famous video player called VLC  which you can download.)

5) To return to YouTube to view some other videos: Just close the ‘tab’ for the Save From.com  site and then click the ‘back’ arrow on the dturl.com window to return to your video in YouTube.  You may decide to view and download some other videos listed in the right-hand column.

TIP:  This is what I usually do: download two or three videos then choose the one I like best.  Or sometimes in class, you may decide to watch two or three short videos on the same theme with your student if he feels inclined.

How to find the perfect ESL video with subtitles for low levels

Lower levels will really appreciate having subtitles in English when watching a video in class.  But there are not as many videos with subtitles to choose from.  But hey, let’s give it a try.  You never know what you might find.

1) Click back to the Google Chrome search for  ‘ESL giving bad news’ and we’re still searching for videos but this time lets click on the ‘Search Tools’  drop-down menu.

 and choose closed captions.

2) A whole new listing of videos with CC (closed captions) will appear.

I’d like to view the first one ‘Writing a bad-news letter’.

3) If you like it, repeat the same sequence to download and save to your computer:

• type in ‘pwn’ before the word youtube in the URL,
• chose the program ‘Save From’.  Wait for the blue dots to stop scrolling.
• In the drop-down menu for MP4, you will see ‘subtitles’ listed. Click on that.

• Choose English subtitles.

and save the ‘.srt’ file in the same folder you plan to store your video.  ‘.srt’ is the extension for subtitles.  That’s done.

This is very important that both files have the same name and are in the same folder.  Wait for the download to complete.  (Watch the progress in the download bar at the bottom of the screen).

After several tries, you will be a pro at finding and downloading perfect ESL videos.  There are certainly other means of downloading YouTube videos but this one has always worked for me.

TIP:  Sometimes you will watch a video on another website like CNN or BBC or TEDtalks.  This procedure described above only works for YouTube videos.  So take note of the video title and do a Google search for it in ‘YouTube’.  Just like we did above.  Maybe you’ll find it on YouTube where it’s not protected.

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I hope this was helpful.  Maybe you know of an easier way to download videos? Please share your experiences with using  ESL videos in the comments section below. Why not subscribe to my newsletter where you can receive lesson plans for business English and TOEIC test preparation classes as well as tips for EdTech so you can go digital in your classes?

Related blog post on organizing and reusing everything you download from the internet

This is my way of saving time in lesson preparation by resuing lessons. I make a cross-reference table in Excel of lessons on my computer and where to find them on the internet. Read about how to use my Excel template to make your own cross-reference table of lessons. /organize-your-esl-lessons-and-reuse-them-with-excel/