I this video I am going to talk about how the English Language Club got started.
I am not able to make too many videos because each one takes a lot of time to prepare and write. This will be a way to make some smaller videos in between the main videos covering the more significant points of english.
So lets get started with the first comment. This comment was on the first version of the interactive chart video that I made. Bala Subramanian says: [quote style=”boxed”]This interactive chart of English phonetic symbols is undoubtedly innovative and bound to be very useful for inquisitive learners, but its execution lacks expertise and imagination, as there is no logicality in the selection of symbols taken for individual pronunciation. These symbols ought to have be segregated into three logical and distinct segments, and presented in three different colours. Pronunciation of the sound value of each symbol should have assiduously repeated at least thrice for their learning them with ease and confidence. Consequently, it suffers and tends to lose its sheen and charm. Why has it been done in such a haphazardly hotchpotch manner ?” Prof. V.K. Bala[/quote]
Thanks very much for this comment Bala and you are right, that video was a bit messy. What you may not now is that that was actually the first video I made for this channel, it was kind of an experiment and YouTube has changed a lot since then. So this is a good opportunity for me to explain the story of how English Language club got started.
My background is not in phonetics, it is not even in teaching. I studied film making and I ended up teaching, kind of accidentally as most teachers do, when i travelled to Paraguay where I have family.
This was about 2010 I had just started teaching and at about the same time Youtube added the feature where you can ad annotations to videos to link to other videos or your channel page etc. I thought I would be cool to use the annotation in a more creative way to make videos interactive.
There were several website that had interactive phonemic charts and I thought, just as an experiment I would try to make one in YouTube. It took me about a day to do and after I kind of forgot all about it, that is is why it seems to be done in such a ‘hotchpotch manner’. I didn’t even go to YouTube for a few months but when I did I was really surprised to see that it was getting a couple of thousand views a day and I was gaining subscribers that wanted more.
But I was teaching and doing some other things and I did not really have time to make more videos, until 2014 when i decided that seeing as I had built an audience that was interested in Phonetics I would make some more videos giving them more of what they want.
YouTube had also improved a lot in that time. It was now possible to make videos in HD which it wasn’t before so I decided to make a couple of other versions of the phonetic chart with a bit more space I put the different sounds in different sections like Prof. Bala suggested.
Even though I have made new and improved updated versions of the video I decided to leave the original live. Because it has been there for a few years it does well in YouTube searches and a lot of people find my channel via that video. If I removed it a lot less people would find me.
Now I have made a video of each of the individual sounds as well as an introduction to phonetics, a video explaining the phonetic chart overall and a video on each of sections, Vowels, Diphthongs, Single Consonants and Paired Consonants.
It all kind of happened accidentally and I am not a expert in phonetics, I am just trying to help people. The videos are not perfect but I am doing my best and most people give me comments like this one from Fatima Walker:
[quote style=”boxed”]Thank you! This is one of the best channels regarding phonology and phonetics. It really helped me a lot.[/quote]
I really am pleased that these videos that I made a few years ago continue to help thousand of people every day.
Now moving forward I am moving into grammar videos and I hope that they will be even more useful.
What would you like me to do more of in the future? Why don’t you leave me a comment to let me know.
Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss future videos. Check out some of my other videos and if you want to support my work, check me out on Patreon and I’ll see you next time.
