Videos are great for teaching concepts. When used in a education make it easier for teachers to transmit knowledge and for students to assimilate it. Video lectures are useful for teaching. They are specifically designed to facilitate understanding and retention of the content. The trend to create multilingual educational videos continues to grow due to their multiple advantages for teaching:
– Students are able to review content more than once, until the subject matter is understood, at the time when they are most willing to learn.
– Videos are more engaging and motivating than listening to a slide show or reviewing written content
– Online courses saw exponential growth during Covid
– Videos allow to reach easily an international audience
Here are some preliminary tips or pre production questions to ask yourself:
1. Create content with your international audience in mind
Creating videos for a multilingual audience requires an intercultural approach. You should eliminate any cultural references. This includes metaphors, comments on religious topics, or talking about sports that are not popular in the target regions. In addition, you should try to exclude from your video any information that might change from one country to another for any reason.
Also note that too sophisticated a speech will not make your course look smarter. Rather, it will turn your educational video into a translator’s nightmare.
Take cultural differences into account. Cultural differences are more visible in videos than in textual content, so care must be taken to ensure that images do not offend the target audience. There is no one-size-fits-all approach when creating video content for multinational audiences.
2. Subtitles or voice-over?
If you choose multilingual voice-over, it is important to maintain a high standard of sound quality, which is why you should always hire native voice-over actors, or use the latest generation of synthetic voices. If the narrator is difficult to understand, students may drop out of your course. Synthetic voice-over is interesting for educational courses that will need to be modified frequently: it is quite simple to reproduce the audio,
3. Keep space at the bottom of the video for subtitles
Do not add text at the bottom of the screen so that if you want to add subtitles, students are not bothered. Place important visuals and any text in the first two-thirds of the screen for maximum visibility.
4. A slow pace for good subtitle readability and understanding
Another good practice in an educational video translation process is to maintain a slow tempo when recording the original voice-over. This way, students have enough time to read the translated subtitles orto listen to the translated voice-over.
Ideally, your voice-over should not say, on average, more than 190 words per minute. This may not seem much, but remember that video content also relies on visual elements to tell the story.Not only does a slower narrative allow people to read the subtitles, but it also helps people understand and appreciate your message.
5. Produce a video that is localization / translation ready
When translating educational video content, you need to work out a series of technical details that will help the translators. In addition to the original video, translators also need a series of files.
For instance, make sure that you make available all the video files and images that will need to be translated, as well as a file containing the text to be translated on screen.
6. Define the topic
By choosing the topic, you define the type of video and the content to be worked on. Tip: present a maximum of three main ideas per video.
7. Create the script
It is easy for teachers to stand in front of a group of students and deliver a whole lecture without much effort. But in front of the camera, this is different, so the script will help to define the speech to be delivered in the time available.
8. Choose the setting
This will depend on the type of video, if you are the main speaker you can record yourself in an office, but if we are talking about a tutorial video the scenario loses importance, since the screen of a computer will be shown, in any case if you wish your image can appear in a small box.
Production phase for creating videos for students
9. Video recording
Prepare and test with a camera (this can be a webcam or digital camera) and a microphone, in case of recording a video tutorial, you will require an additional programme that captures the images of your screen, you can find several on the net and free to use such as Screen Cast or Matic. Although, as indicated above, the script will be your guide, it is important to practice so that recording comes out as natural as possible.
10. Be careful with the audio
Bad audio can lower the quality of your video even if the content is very good. Avoid ambient noises and try not to get too close to the microphone. Tip: do an audio test before recording all the content.
11. Length of the educational video
Make short videos, 6 to 10 minutes long, this will keep the students’ attention.
12. The different stages of the video
A suggested technique is to start your video with a short introduction of what will be seen, then share the topic and finally make a short summary or relation of the topic to the real context of the learner.
13. Transmit energy
Your mood will be expressed in the image and audio of the video, so try to feel comfortable, and use clear diction that conveys your emotion.
Post-production stage for creating multilingual educational videos
14. Editing the video
Once you have finished recording the video, you will have to edit it, adding some texts, transitions or images that visually reinforce the content. For this, there are programmes that facilitate this task, among them Camtasia, Movie Maker (Windows) or IMovie (iOS) and the Youtube editing option.
15. Translating the video for your international students
Here you need to add either translated voice-over, either subtitles or both. Remember that you might also need to get some elements of the videos, such as graphics or text, translated.
16. Always translate metadata
When translating educational videos, every detail must be translated to increase the visibility of your online content. In other words, when you publish your translated educational videos on different platforms, you need to translate the titles, descriptions and tags for each target language. So make sure your translators receive the original metadata, as well as a set of local keywords that work well in your target markets.
17. Publishing the video
The only thing left to do is to publishing the video, the channel you use will depend on the privacy and on platforms you are using you have available with the students, Some options are: Youtube, Vimeo, Youtube, a Learning Management Ssytem, your website, or share it through Google Drive, Dropbox…
If you want to be found on Youtube, add subtitles with separate files, such as VTT or SRT files. If you would like to use your video so as to get more visibility on Google, then you should publish it on your website. In this case, think about publishing the transcribed audio content under the video, to improve SEO.
We encourage you to create your educational videos, the work of making them will be rewarded. If you need expert help, just contact the LenseUp team, we will be happy to help you.
