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How to use archive.org’s US-English news collection as a language learning corpus with QUIK-like speaking samples

  1. Much of TV news nowadays seems to amount to not much more than a constant stream of sound bites  – however, exactly this brevity,
  2. the large archive and simple search interface: image
  3. the research/browsing capabilities visible on the left here, including the varied sources – of which Arabic and French and other European TV likely provide a somewhat different perspectives on Edward Snowden –
  4. image
  5. and the caption-like transcription, make it all the more accessible for intermediate learners of English.
  6. image
  7. video clips of only 30 seconds length is hardly enough for instruction, however, you can have students work with corpus-QUIK-like spoken samples, and have them string a news history together if you design webquest-like research assignments – with the major added benefits, that this corpus is spoken and trains listening.
  8. For more background info on archive.org’s transcribed TV news, consult this NYTimes article.