RESURS EDUCAIONAL DESCHIS Denumire Using Apps in Teaching

RESURSĂ EDUCAŢIONALĂ DESCHISĂ Denumire: Using Apps in Teaching English Autor: Delurințu Carmen Mihaela Unitatea de învăţământ: Colegiul Național Vocațional „Nicolae Titulescu” Slatina Disciplina: Limba engleză Scopul materialului propus: de documentare pentru cadrele didactice

The young generation considers that the PC and server based applications are becoming outdated or out of fashion. Education is increasingly incorporating mobile and wireless solutions for their processes to reduce time and improve the performance.

• It is an accepted fact that children learn quickly through games, and sporting activities. IPhone and Android apps are the way to go these days. We have all seen that children, these days, are very at ease with electronic gadgets and equipment. • They cannot imagine their lives without a mobile phone; they require it for chatting, connectivity, games, internet access and various applications.

But what’s the use of introducing apps in the classroom? • The teacher’s role is to be able to implement apps in a meaningful way so that to increase the efficiency and engagement and raise students’ interest and motivation. • On the other hand, apps can help achieve better performance in organizing, managing, and monitoring classroom activities. It is about all those hours we can save by just assigning quizzes, assignments, reading materials, and books through Google Drive and Dropbox apps.

The advantages of apps: General advantages • There is no need to waste time sitting in front of the desktop to access a particular application while all you have to do is download the same one to your mobile and access it in seconds. • You can use it anytime and anywhere. There is no need to search for internet access, your mobile phone allows you to access it at anytime and anywhere and you can complete any of your tasks through mobile phone.

The advantages of apps: Particular advantages: • instead of searching through books for a piece of literature, we could find the book online and be directed to a specific word • instead of taking out a dictionary, we could simply use the translator or the dictionary. • Sometimes a word is on the tip of our tongue, and we just can’t get it out. Mobile dictionary apps, word lists, and vocabulary practice tools are a great way not only to learn new words, but to figure out how to explain what you’re trying to say in multiple ways, when that one crucial word just slips your mind.

An Alternative Method of Teaching As a less formal method of teaching, teaching English through apps makes the learning process easy and efficient. A q u i c k s e a r c h o n t h e i n t e r n e t w i l l t a k e y o u t o a d o z e n of pages full with classification of the best let’s say 15… 50…. 500 best educational apps which can be used both at home and in the classroom.

Teaching Grammar There is a huge number of sites offering us a variety of educational aids. We can find apps for improving English grammar at home and on the move, e. g. practicing sample questions at Beginner, Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced level. Better grammar accuracy can be achieved by answering over practice questions across various unique activity types, including fill-in-the-blanks, reordering words and labelling.

Teaching grammar

Dictionaries • The official Dictionary. com app offers great features including idioms and phrases, history of words, and spelling suggestions. These features are all important for English learners. • Longman Dictionary is an innovative tool for keeping one of the best dictionaries at your fingertips with this app. There a range of different add-ons contained within the app, including phrasal verbs. • Advanced English Dictionary has tallied over a million downloads and is one of the most comprehensive apps for the English language. The app has over 400, 000 entries, so users can depend on its assured quality key words, and more.

Dictionaries

Teaching Pronunciation • We can also emphasize the interactive pronunciation charts which show vowels, consonants and diphthongs and also features audio playback for phonemes and sample words of the sounds. • This free pronunciation app guides users through precise pronunciation. The Interactive Phonemic Charts include both British and America English.

Teaching Pronunciation

Teaching Vocabulary • i. Learning is an efficient vocabulary trainer for school, education and personal purposes. All learning units are displayed on the app, showing the last rate of the correct answers, the lowest and highest learning level reached so far using colors, and the remaining time in days until vocabularies should be recalled. • A student’s vocabulary can be expanded through repeated exposure to new words and by thinking about word meanings. There apps that engage young children in crossword and Scrabble type games. Other apps focus on specific word meaning skills by highlighting word opposites, synonyms, and homophones.

Teaching Vocabulary

Apps for Kids • Pogg – Spelling & Verbs is an app designed for children that frames common errors children make related to spelling and speech. Through a lighthearted game featuring a green alien, it helps children have fun while learning. • Kidioms is the perfect way to help children understand idioms, especially those learning English a s e c o n d l a n g u a g e. I t b r e a k s d o w n t h e v o c a b u l a r y into useful categories that many will find helpful, including by grade level.

Apps for Kids

Apps for English Language Exams • Practice makes perfect! Do you want to improve your English skills and get the highest English test scores? These apps provide free English tests and exercises online for English learners to practice.

Apps for English Language Exams

This is an English ESL app designed for English speakers of other languages. It helps users learn to speak English as assessed appropriate for completing US High School. The software contains the words you need to survive in an English environment like an English speaking high school. The emphasis is on English words and learning how to pronounce them. Apps for listening and speaking • These are English ESL app designed for English speakers of other languages. It helps users learn to speak English as assessed appropriate for completing US High School. The software contains the words you need to survive in an English environment like an English speaking high school. The emphasis is on English words and learning how to pronounce them.

Apps for listening and speaking

Tips for using mobile technology with success Integrating technology into the classroom is a longterm strategy. If it’s to be sustainable, the following points should be considered. • To make sure students don’t get distracted by social media, set clearning objectives. Find creative ways to use social media within lesson plans. Consider how mobile technology can be used f o r e x t e n s i o n a c t i v i t i e s. ‘ W h y d o n ’ t y o u p o s t a n i m a g e of your work on your Facebook page? ’, is more engaging than ‘We don’t use Facebook in this class’.

• As a teacher, you need to engage with mobile technology yourself, before you can start to implement it into classroom practice. • If your school does not have a mobile learning policy, you need one for your class before you begin. • Do some research. It takes a lot of time to find relevant, suitable apps. There is no moderation process in place, so even with paid apps, it is difficult to know whether or not they are suitable.

• Don’t overwhelm your class with technology. Learners often fail to recognize the benefits of technology for language learning. So it helps to introduce apps and mobile learning activities one at a time. Then, as a group, you can reflect on whether they are useful. • If you do not have enough time to use mobile devices in class, think how they could be used for informal learning outside the classroom. Your students will benefit from the results of this extra practice when they’re back in the formal classroom.

Bibliography: • https: //www. britishcouncil. org/voices-magazine/teaching-tips-howstudents-can-use-mobiles-to-learn-english • http: //www. fluentu. com/english/educator/blog/best-apps-for-eslteachers/ • http: //mastersinesl. com/essential-esl-app-guide/ • http: //learnenglish. britishcouncil. org/en/apps