Seasoning 8 Bilibli --- An Informative learning platform for Chinese students!

Good morning/afternoon/night, ladies and gentlemen 👫! Today I’m gonna introduce a Chinese version of YouTube---Bilibili, nicknamed B Site. 

What is Bilibili?

It is a video-sharing website, where users can submit, view and comment on videos. It has become one of the major Chinese streaming platforms that programs critically acclaimed and popular documentaries, variety shows, and original programming. Here, you can reach out to tons of high-quality videos on various themes, including anime, music, education, dance, science and technology, movies, drama, fashion and video games. And English learners can find a great number of useful English materials posted by native speakers, non-native speakers, bilingual and multilingual speakers.

The link is: https://www.bilibili.com/ 

Blibli and English learning 💭

Although Blibli is not a platform that is established exclusively for language learning, it does provide abundant English learning lessons and tutorials. By watching these videos, Chinese students can immerse themselves in the language environment virtually and get access to the more authentic English resources outside the school. Students can take full advantage of the free and up-to-date English lessons posted by excellent English speakers, including skilful non-native users, to gain a more in-depth understanding of the targeted language points. When it comes to the improvement of skills, Bilibili offers students great opportunities to listen to the materials, repeat and drill their spoken English. The speed of speaking can be changed easily so that students can adjust the speed according to their preferences and needs.

 

Advantages 👍

(1) No advertisement

Many of us feel disturbed to watching ads. Compared with other video websites, no ads before or during the playing of the videos is really a huge attraction of Bilibili. Learners can watch videos without unnecessary distractions, and fully immerse themselves in learning English.

(2) Cater to individuals’ interests and tastes

Bilibili has dozens of different zones. The clear zones will help viewers find what they want to watch easily among a large number of videos. It fully caters to the tastes and interests of learners since it offers multiple zone choices, such as fashion, animation, and music, to let students learn English in a less boring way. The way that English is integrated into different authentic contents is motivating and encourages students to put English into practical use in real-life scenarios.

(3) Unique attractions and harmonious internet environment

Since the users in Bilibili are mainly young people, the learning environment is comparatively more active than on other websites. Besides, a great rapport has been built between users. That means users can help each other and make progress together.

 

Limitations 😕

(1) Information gap

All the suitable educational resources here should be explored by users themselves. It is a little bit demanding to let young users have a clear understanding of their own capability, level, and precisely identify the content that best suits them. So there is obviously an information gap that needs learners to fill autonomously.

(2) Lack of follow-up practices

The videos in Bilibili can only provide students with teaching content, they ‘teach and go’. It is far from the actual mastery of knowledge since practices and follow-up teaching activities are pivotal in the internalisation of new knowledge. Since Bilibili does not provide matching special practices, the effectiveness of learning cannot be guaranteed. It depends highly on the student's self-motivation and autonomy to practice day by day.

 
Example and Tutorial 😀

Here, I would strongly recommend you to follow my favourite content creator: Ella聊美语(Talk in English with Ella). She is an excellent English blogger having garnered over 60k followers, and also a non-native speaker who has achieved a high level of English proficiency.

She posted hundreds of videos, in which you could learn many authentic expressions and learning strategies within contexts. Moreover, she usually posts some insightful videos to address some misconceptions of English learning and life issues. Those knowledge and skills are transferable and applicable in real life, shedding light on followers’ learning pathways.

For example, from this video, you can learn how to organise and form your personal wiki here:

 

And in this video, you can learn how to think critically when facing rejection.

 

 Turorial

If you are interested, feel free to try this website ✌! If you have any questions, please leave a comment down below and I will come back to you later 💗.