For ESL Teachers ·
What you'll accomplish
By the end of this guide, you'll be using Twee to take any YouTube video and automatically generate a complete set of ESL learning activities — comprehension questions, vocabulary exercises, discussion prompts, and gap-fill activities — in under 3 minutes. Authentic video content (news clips, how-to videos, interviews, workplace scenarios) is powerful for ESL learners, but creating activities from scratch takes 30–45 minutes. Twee does it in 2 minutes.
What you'll need
What you should see: A simple interface with a search bar or YouTube URL field at the top.
The best videos for adult ESL learners have:
Good sources: YouTube channels like "English with Lucy," local government public service announcements, National Park Service educational videos, BrainPOP ESL, workplace safety training videos, VOA Learning English.
For a specific topic, search YouTube for "[topic] for beginners" or "[topic] explained simply."
What you should see: Twee processes the video (uses the transcript/captions) and generates a full activity set. This takes 30–60 seconds.
Twee typically generates several activity types. Review each:
What you should see: A tabbed interface showing different activity types. Click through each tab to review.
Troubleshooting: If Twee says "no captions found," the video doesn't have auto-generated or manual captions. Try a different video, or use Diffit with the video's topic instead. Videos with manual captions (look for "CC" button on YouTube) work best.
Click Edit on any activity to modify questions, adjust vocabulary, or change the gap-fill words. You can delete activities that aren't useful and keep the ones that fit your lesson.
Click Export or Print to download the complete activity worksheet. Options usually include: