Hello and welcome to this week's newsletter!

This week saw us post two long form videos to the channel, one of which we shot a couple months ago during the Spring Festival. Another video discusses whether or not it's worth it to go overseas to teach, be it for the money or the experience. And, just for this newsletter, would you watch a faceless YouTube channel to learn a language?

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This Week’s Line up

1. 🏮 Beijing Temple Fair – LongTanHu 2025 – A walk through this year’s temple fair, featuring games, food, and cultural activities. Watch here

2. 🌍 Teaching ESL Overseas (2025) – Is it worth it? What to consider before you go. Watch here

3. 🧠 Voice Cloning, Faceless Channels, and the End of the Perfect Take – A look at how AI is reshaping education and content creation. [Read below]

Beijing Temple Fair – LongTanHu 2025

Shot at the end of January, this video takes a walk through LongTanHu Temple Fair (庙会 (miàohuì)) Beijing. Many thanks to my video editor for putting this piece together as I kinda just plopped all of the videos into a folder and hoped it made sense. I think the result is pretty good as it showcases what the typical Spring Festival Temple Fair looks like. Yes, it's a couple months late, but better late than never!

We look at:

• 🎯 Games and activities typical of temple fairs

• 🍢 Snacks and street food popular during Spring Festival

• 🧧 The general vibe of a modern Chinese festival

These events only happen a few times a year, and this one felt especially alive.

📹 Watch here: YouTube Link

Teaching ESL Overseas (2025)

A walk home from campus and a practical answer to a common question:

Is it still worth teaching English abroad in 2025?

Yes—but this video gives you some things to consider before taking the leap.

This video covers:

• Why it might be a good fit

• What to think about before signing a contract

• How goals and expectations shape your experience

📹 Watch here: YouTube Link

Voice Cloning, Faceless Channels, and Learning a Language

We haven't made this into a video just yet as it's an idea that easier to explain in words than demonstrate with visuals, but it has been on my mind since returning to the classroom.

Would you watch a faceless YouTube channel to learn a language such as English or Chinese?

I've been mulling this over in my head for a little while as I received an email from a viewer a while back who directed me to start making more videos about life in China and to create a second channel dedicated to learning languages. I laughed because the initial inspiration for my channel, Steven's Language Vlog, was to be a replacement of my job. That is, it was supposed to be a language learning channel, not a travel and culture vlog.

But, as time went on, I guess that changed.

That still leaves me with a problem, however: am I still learning my target languages (Mandarin Chinese and Russian)? And how do I reconcile my offline work with my online "work"?

That same viewer has also shown interest in learning Mandarin Chinese. You might recall that I created an email-based Chinese course (SIGN UP HERE) for those intending to come to China. The viewer also suggested crafting stories based on Western stories in order to teacher Chinese and to create images, text, and voice recordings to demonstrate simple words and characters.

Not a bad idea, but how to make this work? I have never thought of myself as a Chinese teacher. Is it right for me to try to teach the language?

Consider this, however, that it would be completely possible (and not too difficult) to create a Chinese course that could in theory take someone from zero Chinese to HSK 3 or 4. I could create that. But I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable pronouncing all of those words.

Enter AI and modern technology.

I've been experimenting with AI and other automation tools for the last little while. Zapier, Eleven Labs, ChatGPT, Google Groups, etc. It's all available, not always for free, but it is possible to learn and use quickly.

So this got me thinking: could I create a language bot that crawls the internet each day for an article of interest, summarizes it and then translates it into good, simplified language in a target language (eg, Mandarin Chinese), and then have that emailed out?

The idea would be to use Zapier to coordinate the communication between APPs and programs, ChatGPT or Zapier to modify the article and translate it into an appropriate level of language, and then have that article fed into a cloned voice by Eleven Labs AND matched with an image or video (possibly just a text video?) and then uploaded onto YouTube.

I would do this for two reasons:

1. I want to practice my AI skills.
2. They say the best way to learn a language is to teach it. I would also be creating these same tools to take me from HSK 5 to 6.

To be clear, these videos and this learning style isn't meant to replace a teacher, it's meant to force contact with your target language so that you learn in bits and pieces throughout the day rather than trying to fit it all in at one time.

Does this sound like a good idea? Am I on the right track or am I so far off even Mohe seems central? (Mohe is the furthest point of China and lies on the border with Russia.)

Not only that, this could be done for just about any language, though I'd probably only target English and Chinese for now. Possibly Russian.

Let me know.

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Thanks for reading. For questions or ideas, reply to this email or leave a comment on YouTube.

Need help with your studies? Reach out anytime: stevenslanguagechannel@gmail.com

Thanks again,

Steve