My 10 Best Language Learning Apps for the English Classroom.pptx
- 1. My 10 Best Language Learning Apps
- 2. Quizlet Purpose & Use: Construct, store, edit, and publically share study sets (e.g., vocabulary lists, definitions, grammatical structures, idioms, phrasal verbs). Student Feedback: Correct and wrong answers are highlighted - no student specific feedback! Higher thinking skills: Self-assessed learning, individual learning, learning how to learn best, learner autonomy, goal setting, constructing individual learning material Practicality: Creating and studying with flashcards is easy/convenient.
- 3. Quizlet Privacy: Information about users' activities on Quizlet may be displayed publicly, for example, information included on a user's profile, classes they have joined, high scores they have achieved, or sets they have studied may be visible to others. User-created content may contain errors or intentionally misleading information! Curriculum Standards: Quizlet does not reinforce curriculum standards directly, but since students can create their own learning content, which should be based on the school’s curriculum, the app promotes students' ability to monitor and assess their own learning. Comprehensibility & Instructions: Quizlet is very straightforward. Creating and sharing vocabulary sets is easy for LL.
- 4. Kahoot! Purpose & Use: Deliver and present questions to students in quiz format (game-like character). (e.g., brainstorming ideas, testing pre-existing knowledge, creating and sharing answers on a live question bank, gathering student work, icebreaker activities, graduation time etc.) Student Feedback: Correct and wrong answers are highlighted - no student specific feedback! Teacher has to provide feedback for whole class. Higher thinking skills: Tests knowledge and class related content, promotes fast thinking and reaction time, reiterate important concepts, and help students retain information. Practicality: may be time-consuming for teachers to create Kahoot! quizzes in the beginning stage.
- 5. Kahoot! Privacy: Kahoot! does not collect, retain, use or share students' personal information, except as necessary for authorized school purposes. Users can only see public kahoots. Private kahoots must be shared with others and will be found under Shared with you on one's Library page. Keyword and username terms are not case-sensitive. Curriculum Standard: Kahoot! is not a language learning app per se, as it does not provide constructive feedback based on the students' individual learning needs and skills. However, it can be used to include technology in an engaging and encouraging way in the classroom! Comprehensibility & Instructions: Kahoot makes it easy to find or duplicate already existing Kahoot quizzes, create new quizzes and share these quizzes with an embedded code for students to enter.
- 6. Padlet Purpose & Use: Online post-it-wall that allows learners (large/ small groups) to post comments, questions, and resources in one place that is easily accessible to everyone. Great tool to brainstorm ideas, upload homework assignment and collaborate in groups. Student Feedback: No immediate feedback provided by the app! Feedback has to be provided by the teacher (e.g., comments on students' posts). Higher thinking skills: Development of independent learning and planning skills, sharing ideas and collaborating with others/team online. Practicality: Needs some instructions and guidelines by the teacher in order to be used effectively and independently by the students (e.g., behavioral expectations and rules)
- 7. Padlet Privacy: Padlet boards are only accessible to the creator of the padlet and any users who have the link (invitation). The link will be hidden from Google and public areas of Padlet. Secret or private padlets are password protected. In general, all student posts are anonymous; however, students' posts can be personalized if teachers ask students to add their name to each post title. Curriculum Standard: Padlet is a digital bulletin board for educators and students. Learners can post and save all types of content – videos, images, websites, gifs, and text to name a few on padlet. Padlet is a multi-use sharing space. Skills: use of and knowledge about new digital tool, technology and websites - great for auditory and visual learners. Comprehensibility & Instructions: Yes! The videos below show how easy it is to create and upload content/comments etc. on Padlet.
- 8. Memrise Purpose & Use: Uses spaced repetition of flashcards to increase the rate of learning and offers user-generated content on a wide range of other subjects and languages. Therefore, this learning app can be used in and outside the classroom for class related purposes and personal language goals. Student Feedback: Memrise provides constructive feedback based on students' learning needs and individual progress. Higher thinking skills: Expansion of mental lexicon and acquisition of grammatical structures (listening to audios and watching short videos - repetition of words). However, it lacks in teaching speaking skills and fluency, and is not ideal for advanced language learners. Practicality: Yes, similar to duolingo.
- 9. Memrise Privacy: Memrise collects log data, cookies, device information, and usage information to authenticate users, provide the services, process transactions and respond to consumers' requests. https://www.memrise.com/privacy Curriculum Standard: Ideal for beginner and intermediate language learners - helps beginners jump from zero to the independent B1/B2 level, covering around 3000 of the most frequent words, providing pronunciation basics, and teaching some grammar. Therefore, this app shares aspects and content areas of curriculum standards (e.g., acquisition of daily vocabulary, promotion of communicative skills and strategies, etc.). Comprehensibility & Instructions: Easy and straightforward by using spaced repetition of vocabulary flashcards to generate the perfect learning content based on language learners’ progress.
- 10. Fluyo Purpose & Use: All-in-one language learning app designed to be the most fun and effective way to learn a language. Like Duolingo, it helps LL pick up a language by doing quizzes, listening to audio recordings, repeating sentences, etc.). Student Feedback: Gives full information and feedback on the content presented and students' answers to help them remember and understand grammatical concepts. Higher thinking skills: Expansion of mental lexicon and acquisition of grammatical structures (e.g., listening to audios and watching short videos - repetition of content words). Practicing real-life interactions and conversations with AI generated avatars + receiving feedback! Practicality: Unknown but predictions indicate “yes”.
- 11. Fluyo Privacy: Since Fluyo is not yet available for LL, I recommend waiting and observing its development, since the privacy policy needs some trialing and refining. Curriculum Standard: ideal for beginner and intermediate language learners - Fluyo shares aspects and content areas of curriculum standards (e.g., acquisition of daily vocabulary, communicative skills and strategies, taking turns, etc.). The only difference between this app and other language learning apps is that its design and features are very similar to interactive video games, making language learning more engaging and fun. Comprehensibility & Instructions: Fluyo is not yet on the market but it claims to offer the most engaging and efficient way to learn a language. Fluyo is designed like a video game, including virtual interactions with video game characters (avatars). Therefore, the instructions should be comprehensible and easy to follow. The avatars guide the LL through the app and explain precisely what needs to be done. They also provide language related feedback.
- 12. Miro Purpose & Use: Allows students to create notes, branches, mind maps, and clusters of information, so they can communicate the most accurate visual representation of their idea, plan, or strategy. Great for group work activities or individual projects - helps students organize their ideas better. Student Feedback: Does not provide feedback to the students, since it's main purpose is to help organizing and structuring ideas and planning projects. Higher thinking skills: Development of independent learning strategies (e.g., mind-mapping) and planning skills, sharing ideas and collaborating with others/team online. Practicality: Needs some instructions and guidelines by the teacher in order to be used effectively and independently by the students.
- 13. Miro Privacy: Miro collects information about devices accessing the Services, including the type of device, operating system used, device settings, application IDs, unique device identifiers and crash data. Curriculum Standard: Organizing and planning individual learning, mind mapping; fosters learner autonomy Comprehensibility & Instructions: Like Padlet, Miro has tons of functions and features to organize, plan and brainstorm ideas and projects; therefore, watching YT tutorials beforehand and giving students clear instructions on how to use this app should be a priority for teachers.
- 14. Grammaropolis Purpose & Use: Provides students with a more effective way to visualize and internalize the roles of the parts of speech (= story-based learning). Grammaropolis is aligned to Common Core and individual state standards. Student Feedback: Gives full information and feedback on the content presented and students' answers to help them remember and understand grammatical concepts. Higher thinking skills: Uses parts of speech as animated characters starring in books, songs, videos, and interactive games. Consequently, students do not require higher learning skills beside being motivated to learn with the app. Practicality: Easy and straightforward! Progress tracking with student logins means students can access the wor ld of Grammaropolis from home or at school! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDQR-eI0C4
- 15. Grammaropolis Privacy: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)—United States; Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)—United States; California Student Online Personal Information Protection Act (SOPIPA); New York Education Law §2-d; Connecticut Conn. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 10-234aa-dd; California Assembly Bill 1584 (AB 1584) Curriculum Standard: The skills reinforced in this app are definitely part of middle school curriculums (e.g., acquisition of English grammar and the use of digital tools and learning platforms). Comprehensibility & Instructions: Definitely easy to follow. Units and chapters are connected to specific topics, which illustrate the grammatical structures appropriately.
- 16. English Grammar in Use Purpose & Use: Free app with English grammar lessons and English test features to help LL improve English skill. Easy to use in and outside the classroom. Student Feedback: Structured and designed like an actual workbook with cloze test items, explanations and other activities. Constructive feedback provided by the app is rather limited and substituted by general grammar explanations. Higher thinking skills: General knowledge about English grammar, sentence structure, and frequent vocabulary. Practicality: Straightforward and easy to use (like Grammaropolis).
- 17. English Grammar in Use Privacy: Uses data that is linked to the user (and also not directly linked to the user) for third-party advertising, Moreover, this app uses data to track users (device ID, advertising data). Curriculum Standard: The skills reinforced in this app are definitely part of curriculums for low and high intermediate learners (e.g., topic related vocabulary, grammar, phrasal verbs, idioms, whole texts etc.). Comprehensibility & Instructions: Like Grammaropolis but more advanced, including higher level vocabulary!
- 18. Johnny Grammar’s Word Challenge Purpose & Use: Quiz app for English learners to test common vocabulary, spelling and grammatical structures that appears in everyday English. Student Feedback: Includes cloze test items and gap-fill exercises for grammar and vocabulary (spelling). Students receive feedback on wrong answers with general grammar explanations. Higher thinking skills: General knowledge about English grammar, sentence structure, and frequent vocabulary (3 difficulty levels). Practicality: Yes. It includes 3 quiz categories – words, grammar, spelling; 3 proficiency levels - easy, medium, hard; 10 common topics to practise vocabulary – food & restaurants, travel, small talk, hobbies etc.,12 grammar topics; feedback on wrong answers to learn how to improve.
- 19. Johnny Grammar’s Word Challenge Privacy: This app may share these data types with third parties (Device or other IDs). This app may collect these data types (Location, App activity, and App info and performance). Data is encrypted in transit and users can request that data be deleted. Curriculum Standard: Definitely part of curriculums for low and high intermediate learners (e.g., topic related vocabulary, grammar, phrasal verbs, idioms, etc.). Comprehensibility & Instructions: Like Grammaropolis but more advanced and including more vocabulary depending on the difficulty level!
- 20. Echo Purpose & Use: Perfect for LL who want to improve their pronunciation in a second or foreign language. Student Feedback: Does not provide individual feedback for the user. It simply records voices and makes it easier for LL to compare their own pronunciation with native speakers’ speeches. Higher thinking skills: Improvement of pronunciation in target language, reflective and selective hearing, paying attention to details in native speakers' speeches. Practicality: Sort of! Android users need two apps in order to use Echo successfully and run two audio recordings simultaneously. App is not available for iPhones!
- 21. Echo Privacy: Data will be deleted as soon as new recording starts if users do not manually save recordings in folders. Curriculum Standard: Pronunciation skills, compare and reflect on own pronunciation, mimicking target pronunciation. Comprehensibility & Instructions: Users should definitely watch a YouTube tutorial beforehand in order to know about the functions and features. Otherwise, the app is easy to use as its main purpose is to compare and contrast two audio recordings.