This semester I have two foreign exchange students in my Civics course. One student is from Germany and the other is from Italy. This should be a great experience for them as well as for my local students particularly when we begin to compare systems of government. One of the challenges for my foreign exchange students is the language barrier. This semester whenever possible I’ll use Dot Sub to play the videos that I use in class. Dot Sub offers subtitled translations of many of the videos that I will use.

Dot Sub is useful not only for helping my foreign exchange students, but also for my struggling readers. After reading a tip in a post by Wes Fryer I began turning on the English subtitles whenever possible. At first the kids groan, but after the initial groaning they get used to it. The idea being that the kids have the option of reading the words in addition to hearing them spoken in a video.

Here is a related item that may be of interest to you:
Two Good Options for Subtitling Videos