Yabla Review

 http://english.yabla.com/

Note: Yabla is not only available in English, but also Spanish, Chinese, French, German, and Italian.

Yabla describes itself as an online video magazine with authentic videos in the desired language. It also advertises these features to help language learners:

• Pitch Corrected Slow Play
• Translation Captions
• Instant Click Dictionaries
• Phrase Repeat
• 100% Native Speakers
• Fun Listening Game 

Upon initiating the demo, a "yabla player" box popped up with a tutorial. You select your native language (in my case, it's already English, so I picked German, another language I speak well). The video plays in English and the text is displayed in both English (target language) and German (the "native" language I chose). You can pause and play at any time to study the text. You can also slow down the audio, while still maintaining the proper pitch, which is helpful for any learner. In the player, there is also a dictionary function where you can instantly look up any word. Finally, there is a "yable game" where you are presented with ten clips of the video you just watched with words missing (randomly generated to encourage repetition). It's your job to listen to the video again carefully and correctly fill in the word.

After the demo, I tried some of the actual videos in English and found that they revolve around grammatical functions (like the verb "to throw"). Their approach is not overly-grammatical and laden with rules but seems to be more directed at getting the user to speak the language in a natural way. There is a difficulty rating at the top (this one is 3/5) so a learner can self-monitor where he or she is at with their learning and you can also choose between different types of English (USA, UK, Australia, ect.).

Finally, I tried Yabla German which is a much better test since I am now the student of the language and found that it was pretty awesome. You get practice listening to authentic German, reading German (and comparing it to the English if you need to), and the speakers in the video discuss grammatical functions in an easy way. And the dictionary is there if you need it! I'm currently learning Japanese and really wish they had a Yable Japanese!

I see older students using this website (high school or adults). I see little tech support as necessary; the application is easy to use. I envision assigning Yabla mostly as part of home practice. I suppose you could use it in class by having all students watch the same video and spend some time with it and then have they come away from the computer and practice what they learned in a meaningful interaction with their classmates.