Website Review

Website Title: Anglomaniacy

Website URL: http://www.anglomaniacy.pl/index.html

Proficiency Level: beginners, ages 6-12

Anglomaniacy is a website that I would recommend to ESL/EFL teachers working with children. The website opens its homepage with the words, “English for Kids: Play and Learn,” and it seeks to achieve this objective of offering children opportunities to play and learn English through its cute cartoon images, array of charming characters, lessons on vocabulary and structures, fun games, colorful quizzes and tests, traditional songs, and extensive stock of supporting printables, including flashcards, games, worksheets, and more.

In Japan, I have had wonderful opportunities to work with children, both in a private language school as well as in a community service program. I have examined many student books available here. The content on this website correlates nicely with the content presented in many student books.

Purpose

The website menu offers the following content: vocabulary, grammar, expressions, songs, ABC animals, and holidays. (Designed by a teacher in Poland, it also has a Polish guide on the menu, which translates the website headings into Polish.) Although other language areas are also addressed, the language focus is on vocabulary and grammar. The ABC animals section is not about the alphabet but about animals, expanding vocabulary study in this way. Similarly the song and holiday sections introduce new vocabulary. The expression units offer short, simple dialogues, presented as episodes in a spaceship adventure story. These are structures commonly used in English, inseparable from grammar considerations. Each of the website's menu areas includes various units, for which there are printables that teachers can download for introducing or following-up on vocabulary and grammatical concepts.

Organization
The website content is nicely organized. Each section has clear menus and sub-menus as can be seen below for the lesson in the grammar section on the verb "to be":

homepage menu

grammar lessons menu

                                                    

"to be" sub-menu

"is/am/are" sub-manu

Reference materials
The site offers reference materials such as dictionaries for vocabulary, lessons for grammar, and tips for expressions. 

fruits dictionary page

"There is/are" grammar lesson page

"This/That" tip for expressions

 Some of these materials are illustrative and helpful, such as the pages on prepositions.

Some of these materials are explanatory, such as the pages on countable and uncountable nouns, and a teacher's presence may be needed for help in understanding the concepts.





Content
Vocabulary and Grammar
The vocabulary and grammar sections also offer practice games for each unit. The screenshot to the right below shows a spelling vocabulary game for the topic, "fruits." The center screenshot below displays a wide range of vocabulary topics, all of which have two or three practice games. The screenshot to the left below depicts a practice grammar game for the negative short form of the "can" verb. The list on the right of this screenshot indicates the additional areas for which there are practice games, related to the various forms of the "can" verb. The games are engaging for students and effective in helping them learn new vocabulary and grammar.

vocabulary practice game

grammar practice game

vocabulary topics

Expressions
The expressions stories are appealing for students and enact some common dialogue patterns. Students listen to the dialogue by clicking on the number tabs (i.e. 1-4), which are color-coded to the color of the speaker's spacesuit or clothing. In this way, the student can choose how quickly or slowly to listen to the dialogue. The student can also choose to repeat a specific line in the dialogue as s/he wishes or needs by clicking on the corresponding number tab. There is audio here as the characters speak. The written words also appear on the screen. Students are thus able to both hear and read the dialogue.










The expressions section is extensive as can be seen in the index screenshot below. However, it is limited in that it does not offer further practice activities, quizzes, or tests, though it does offer reference tips and supporting printables, as do all the menu areas, as mentioned above.

ABC animals, songs, and holidays

The ABC animal, song, and holiday sections are also interesting for students, as they expand their vocabulary. The animals are organized by letters of the alphabet. The index toward the top of the center screenshot below leads to facts about the animals. The index at the bottom of the center screenshot leads to some fun activities, related to the animals, for the students.

ABC index of animals

facts about jellyfish

"Find the Differences "activity

The website also offers traditional songs. There is minimal animation on this website. Character eyes blink, lights go on and off, and animals and objects make slight movements. The screenshot to the left below shows the words to the song "Head and Shoulders," but the girl character in the shot does not move to show the body parts mentioned in the song. Students can also play entertaining holiday games, as they continue to expand their vocabulary. The right screenshot lists some of the Halloween games.

"Head and Shoulders" song

Halloween games

Assessment and feedback
Each of the vocabulary and grammar units also offers quizzes and/or tests, immediate feedback, and a score. Vocabulary assessment often includes a picture test, while grammar assessment often involves identifying correct forms of written words or sentences.

The site seems to assume an ability to read beyond a beginner level. There is no audio for the written words that appear on the pages of  the reference, practice, and test sections. However, when students get their answers wrong, there are bleep or buzz sounds, and when they get their answers right, there are trumpet or applause sounds.

Some possible uses of Anglomaniacy in the classroom
As a teacher, I have used only the printables from the vocabulary section of this website in my classes. I found them very useful in helping my students talk about new ideas using structures we were studying in class. In further examining this website, I can see that the online vocabulary, grammar and expressions sections can also be used to develop students' use of English structures. The following are some possible uses of the Anglomaniacy website for the study of English structures:

For structure practice
The grammar section offers nicely illustrated reference lessons that the teacher could project onto a screen for the class to see, similar to a power point presentation. When the reference lessons are used to introduce a grammatical concept, students can take turns reading the material our loud. The teacher can make this part of the lesson more interactive by relating the content to students' lives and asking questions. eliciting responses that use the grammatical form being studied. After this introduction, students can practice the grammar by playing the games, individually, in pairs, or as a class.

Although the expressions section doesn't offer online practice activities, students can practice the dialogues by clicking on the numbered buttons, one-at-a-time, listening to a single dialogue line and repeating the line before going on to practice the next dialogue line. After students become familiar with the presented dialogue, the related lexical items or grammar concepts introduced in many of the tip sections can be shown on the screen, and  students can then try the dialogue in pairs, varying it with the new vocabulary or ideas presented.

For structure assessment
When the grammar reference lessons are used as a review, the teacher may also present these on a screen for all the students to see, stopping at each page to have the students work in pairs or small groups to think of examples of the structures, using ideas relevant to a particular topic of interest to them and then sharing their examples with the class as a whole. Students can take online quizzes or tests for grammar assessment.

Strengths of the website
The Anglomaniacy website is easy to navigate for both teachers and students. It offers a variety of activities that are attractive, entertaining, engaging and educational for students. The strengths of this website are in the vocabulary and grammar sections; these sections offer lessons, practice, and quizzes and tests. Another of the website's strengths is the collection of supporting printables the teacher can use to offer the students introductions to lessons, further practice, and follow-up for each of the six content areas listed on the homepage menu. These supporting printables include reference cards, flashcards, readers, puzzles, board games, other games, and worksheets. The screenshots below show some of the printables available.

town vocabulary printables

"There is/are" grammar printables

expressions printables

Suggestions for improvement
The website could be improved in the following ways:

1.) Providing audio for all of the written text would allow more effective participation from varied groups of students, as students have different learning styles or preferences as well as varied reading levels.

2.) Animated videos of the songs would allow students to see actions associated with the songs and to do the actions themselves as they follow along with the videos.

3.) The website could offer practice games, quizzes and tests for the expressions section. Although the dialogues are very short, there is no online practice offered. In addition, the tips reference sections present much new lexical and grammatical information. Some of this information might also be enacted in dialogue by the space characters, perhaps by clicking on appropriate boxes in the tips section, thus creating variety in the simple dialogue and further listening practice for the students.  

4.) I could not find any technical guides for this website. Guides would be useful with regards to technical issues.

Overall rating
My overall rating for this website is: Very Good
(on a scale of Excellent-Very good-Good-Fair-Poor)

Interactive Class Reflection

Many of the technology uses that Levy (2009) describes were interesting for me. With regards to grammar, I felt interested in seeing a corpus-included, parser-based NLP system. The idea of students receiving specific feedback on their errors and being able to see examples and situations the feedback is relevant for seemed to me very helpful for students. For writing, the iWRITE system, multimodal and also corpus-based, seemed very appealing. Levy describes virtual learning environments with multimodal features. I felt his description was fascinating. These are technologies I would like to explore for use in my classes.

Computers allow students familiarity with many genres for reading, writing, and creating, as Duffy (2007) explains. Class readings have helped me to think of the value of project-type tasks in relation to multiple perceptions of authenticity, including the students', real audiences, and autonomy. The web allows the processes of interaction, dialogue, expression, disagreement, negotiation, cooperation, collaboration, discovery, resolution and revision that are involved in learning to extend beyond the classroom and traditional classroom genres. The web and the world become the classroom. Students can develop a sense of agency as they engage in tasks that they perceive to be authentic and purposeful.

Thinking about these ideas in relation to my studies in rhetoric and composition, I feel that this kind of learning –insight through writing, dialogue, peer discussion and collaboration, problem-facing and resolving and empowerment—was something we sought to achieve in a traditional composition classroom, extending beyond this classroom. However, considerations of audience beyond the classroom were often, though useful, in reality still just considerations. The internet allows students to engage in the processes of learning with more participants in its variety of written and oral activities. This way of thinking about the internet as a means of really being involved with others in the world to learn and to make a difference was significant for me. I’m shy and a bit private, but I can understand that with this kind of involvement, meaningful things can be done and shared with others.

Most of all I would like to learn about multimodal virtual learning environments and how to use their features –whiteboard, video, and “breakout rooms,” amongst others. In Bangladesh, I have eight nephews and one niece (on my husband’s side), and I have many former students around the globe, many in countries where English education may have various limitations. I would like to teach them. I would like to explore a few VLEs suitable for children, study online about their use, and try.

I feel that I am learning a lot in this class. The course readings, reflections, and discussions have been useful for me. Regarding other class assignments, I sometimes felt confused about if I was proceeding properly. For instance, I felt my Share Fair activity was very simplistic compared to others. I haven’t done a lot of technology-based activities in my classes, so I was only able to offer one way in which I have used web-sites.

References:

Duffy, P. "Engaging the You Tube Generation: Strategies for Using Web 2.0 in Teaching and Learning." The Electronic Journal of e-Learning Volume 6 Issue 2, pp 119-130, available online at www.ejel.org

Levy, M. "Technologies in Use for Second Language Learning." The Modern Language Journal, 93, Focus Issue, pp 769-782. (2009)

Mobile App Evaluation: Grammar and Practice for Business

This summer I will be teaching a new class for some of the administrative staff at the university here. The class is on professional writing. For the mobile app evaluation assignment, I explored various business communications apps. Because the class I'll be teaching is a writing course and grammar is a significant concern for the staff and the university, I looked for apps that might be more related to writing rather than conversation. As we have been reading for the CALL class about the uniqueness of mobile apps in allowing for language learning from most any location at any time, I thought that an app might be useful for my busy students.

The Grammar and Practice for Business app, by Harper Collins publishers, is available at the App store and is designed for business students and professionals at the pre-intermediate and intermediate levels of English. I looked at version 1.1, which has a size of 25.7 MB, and was last updated on 10/12/2013. The language focus is on grammar.

Each of the two levels costs 720 Yen (about $6.00). I examined the intermediate level in whole and the free parts of the pre-intermediate level using Jeong-Bae Son's criteria, presented on his review form.

Overall Rating: 3 Adequate (Acceptable with reservation)

1.)Presentation and Organization: very satisfactory. The app opens to a contents page, from which students can choose to view the introduction, which offers information about the app, its organization and the authors; the pre-intermediate study level; the intermediate study level; or the student's test scores. Within each level, there is another menu of grammatical concepts, as shown below:

By tapping on a particular area of grammar study, a new menu of study units appears. In the intermediate level, in the Verbs 3 section, the following units shown below on the screenshot can be studied. If the student wishes to study verbs of reporting, for example, by tapping on that unit, the student can then choose to look at reference materials, to do practice exercises on reporting verbs, or to take the test, as shown on the screenshot below.

Each area of grammatical study is nicely presented and organized this way.

2.) Purpose and Accuracy: very satisfactory. The introduction to the app makes its purpose very clear and explains the source of the app's content and its relevance to this purpose; the grammar exercises are drawn from the Collins corpus of continuously updated illustrations of language use from real sources, oral and written,

3.) Authenticity: satisfactory. As the materials for the exercises come from real business situations, the contexts for these exercises are real. Some of the activities involve editing. Some involve writing or changing the form of a single word or phrase in sentences in larger texts. These activities may be authentic in that editing and considerations of word choice and form are real parts of business writing and communication. Other activities involve single sentences, completing single sentences, or multiple choice explanations for the grammar. These activities focus on understanding the grammar. They are authentic uses of language but isolated from context.

4.) Usefulness: very satisfactory. The app is useful in providing grammar practice with exercises using business vocabulary and situations. The grammar is organized into very specific segments, allowing students to study and practice that segment before moving on to another. In addition to the study units, the app provides other kinds of useful information related to both grammar and business. Both levels include sections on grammatical terms that define grammar terminology, each level providing terms appropriate for that level.

The pre-intermediate level also includes a business files resource, including information on industries, currencies, and business abbreviations. The intermediate level includes additional appendices on grammar. For example, there is a list of phrasal verbs; when a verb is tapped, a sample sentence appears.

5.) Flexibility: neutral. The app is flexible in that students can select which areas of grammar they wish or need to study and practice. As mentioned above, the grammar is organized into very specific segments. The app, however, does not offer a variety of learning modes or collaborations with others.

6.) Engagement: neutral. The app is interesting in the variety of kinds of written grammar activities it presents. For example,

The student is active in thinking about the situation presented in many exercises and responding appropriately, and a green check mark appears when s/he taps the "check" tab and responds correctly. However, that is the extent of interaction in the app.

7.) Support: very satisfactory. The app provides support by including a reference section for each of the grammatical units, The reference section has three pages: a.) sample sentences, b.) form, and c.) uses. It is presented and written very well. In addition, while the student does the practice exercises, s/he can tap on the "grammar" tab in the upper right corner to bring up the reference pages as needed. There is also a "reveal" tab at the bottom of the page, which shows the student the answer, if needed. (See screenshots above for tab locations.)

8.) Feedback: neutral. The app provides immediate feedback to each practice question/task when the student taps the "check" tab. When the student completes a test, the score is presented, indicating which specific exercise task or question was correct and which was not. The student may tap on a "review" tab to return to that specific exercise task. S/he may try again or hit the "reveal" tab, if needed. This app did not provide specific explanation regarding the correct answer for the tasks. The "Test Scores" section records the scores for each test, even if taken multiple times. The test tasks, however, were not different from the practice tasks; they just didn't offer the tabs for grammar, check, reveal as the practice activities did. A test with different tasks would be more significant as a measure of student understanding and use of grammar.

9.) Navigation and Reliability: neutral. Although this app is well-organized and navigation works well for the most part, there are a few reliability issues that come up occasionally, making navigation a little frustrating. Occasionally, the screen appears blank after tapping or swiping on it. Then the student has to start the unit all over, swiping carefully so that the screen doesn't go blank. A couple times, there just wasn't any screen image at all.

10.) Multimedia: very unsatisfactory. The app has some color to it. It's subtle and appropriate for a business grammar app. However, it does not offer any video or audio. While the range of written activities is quite varied, the app is not multimodal.

To conclude, this app could be improved by providing video, as well as text, of the many dialogues it offers, either to initially present the dialogue before the student then does the task or as means of checking the student's work after doing the task. Similarly, other passages offered in the grammar activities, such as explanations of charts or reports, could be presented as audio, in addition to the text.

While I think this app can provide some good practice when my students have a few minutes here or there, because of the price, I would offer this app as an option --rather than suggesting they buy it. While I looked at many apps before choosing this one to evaluate, I would like to explore others as well that might be more engaging for my students.

Share Fair Added Notes

Share Fair Activity

Share Fair Activity Worksheet

§ Target language: common vocabulary words spelled with three or four letters

§ Target student (age, level): students who do not know how to read in English, ages 5-12

§ Topic/Theme: stories

§ Skill focus: reading, short and long vowels

§ Objective: to learn how to blend letter sounds together to make words and read sentences

§ Time: 5-15 minutes per lesson for 20 lessons for conversation-focused English lessons

§ Software/Web address: starfall.com

§ Procedure for the activity:

Part 1: Looking at the index page of stories, I click on the play activities. I review the letter sounds as they are first displayed. Then I turn the volume down. As the picture is shown, students take turns clicking on the appropriate letter to spell the word. That student reads the word. All students then read the word. After the words have all been introduced and they all appear on the screen as a list, all students read all words together aloud. Sometimes, students read individually.

Part 2: Looking at the index page of stories, I click on a story and turn the volume down. Students take turns reading a page and clicking on the pictures to see the animations. Teacher and other students assist with reading when necessary.

§ Assessment (how will you know that students have learned?):

Follow-up activities offer further practice and assessment. Print readers offer stories with three letter words for continued practice of short vowels and four letters for continued practice of long vowels and for review of vocabulary. Worksheets also provide further practice of letter sound recognition, writing practice of letters and words, and reading of those words.

Students play various games, which informally check their reading and comprehension of words.

Week 3 readings

Chapelle and Liu’s (2007) chapter spurred me to think more deeply about the idea of authenticity. One idea that particularly struck me was the idea of learner perceptions being an important aspect in considering authenticity (111). CALL activities are not in and of themselves authentic, but rather the learner, participating in the activities, perceives the activities as being related to or similar to real life (112). This learner perception is one factor in determining authenticity. And authenticity, in turn, is one factor in evaluating CALL activities (124-25). Chapelle and Liu illustrate the role of learner perceptions in determining task authenticity by describing Liu’s (2005) and Jamieson and Chapelle’s (2006) study of Longman English Interactive activities, focusing on a role-play task. Both studies showed that students had some differing views of the relationship between the task and real life (121). This reading on learner’s perceptions of a task being a factor in determining authenticity was for me, as a teacher, new insight into the idea of authenticity.

This week’s readings made me think more deeply about some project work my students had completed this past academic year. I had used the computer mostly only for word processing, so they were not CALL activities beyond that. One of the projects was to write a “Profile Book.” Japanese profile books are popular among upper-elementary and junior high school girls. They involve asking their friends to fill out a page of questions about themselves. The questions are informative, personal, and sometimes silly and fun. I had used a real-life form to offer students a context for practicing the English language, but, while they seemed to enjoy it (including the boys), I don’t know what their perceptions of the task actually were in terms of authenticity.

Johnston’s (2007) reading was interesting for me as it introduced dimensions to audience analysis specific to CALL that I hadn’t yet thought too much about. Coming from a rhetoric and composition background, I had some familiarity with the ideas of audience analysis involved in process approaches to writing. Johnston discusses the broadened audience the computer may address. This is an audience the student doesn’t know, doesn’t hear, and doesn’t see as s/he would the audience of a written text and/or spoken discourse (67-68.) An audience analysis that a process writing approach might suggest seems limited in its usefulness for broader CALL communications. I felt one of the most interesting ideas Johnston explained was that as computer audiences are interested in the meaning of the message, more so than the form, they are authentic audiences, by his definition (68). I felt this was interesting because the audience of CALL activities are real people who really read the text; whereas, the intended audience for more traditional forms of class writing may or may not actually read the text.

Another of the writing tasks that my students did this past year was to write to Pencil Pals in Tokyo. (We’re in Niigata.) As with CALL audiences, the Pencil Pal audience was also unknown, and  they also really read the letters. Yet, the situation allowed them to make inferences about their pals, their ages, their possible interests, and as the letters continued they could know their pals more. While web productions may not allow students to know their audience really well, I think students may also be making inferences while doing CALL activities. At the end of two terms, my students met by Skype.

Healey’s (2007) reading offers an overview of Oxford’s classification of perspectives of autonomy in relation to CALL. I found the psychological perspective, which describes the significance of motivation and learning preferences, very interesting. Healey explains the feeling of success that students can achieve from web productions that others can see and the enthusiasm for learning more that can be further heightened (384). I also felt that Healey’s point that “technology, like all human artifacts, is not neutral” was very important (387). I feel that computer use has crept into my life in various ways, and as teachers especially, it’s important to understand the values, beliefs, and behaviors associated with computer use and its potential use.

Reading Sources:

Chapelle, Carol A., and Liu, Hsin-min. "Theory and Research: Investigating Authenticity." Egbert, J., and Hanson-Smith, E. (2007). CALL environments: Research, practice, and critical issues, 111-127. Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.

Healey, Deborah. "Theory and Research: Autonomy and Language Learning." Egbert, J., and Hanson-Smith, E. (2007). CALL environments: Research, practice, and critical issues, 377-388. Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. 

Johnston, Bill. "Theory and Research: Audience, Language Use, and Language Learning." Egbert, J., and Hanson-Smith, E. (2007). CALL environments: Research, practice, and critical issues, 61-69. Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.

First thoughts . . .

My thought on technology in language learning is that it is a valuable resource. I did not grow up with computer technology in my home or school environments, but now, such technology seems to me normal and natural to use, at least in some limited ways, both at home and in classrooms. As a valuable resource, technology and its potential uses are subjects I would like to learn more about. It's the second week of my CALL course, and I feel I've been introduced to so many ways to use computer technology for language learning. I feel I have so much to learn, and I believe that I must learn.

I teach in a community service program in Japan for students from various countries. I also teach the administrative staff at a university here. Every two years students from the community service program return to their countries, often wishing to continue their English lessons here. In their own countries English lessons may be limited, inaccessible, expensive or differently approached. Just being in the CALL course for two weeks has me envisioning the ways in which I might reach my students around the globe in a multicultural classroom via computer technology. I have strong ties to Bangladesh, in particular, the country of my heritage. Being able to teach my husband's eight nephews and one niece (ages 3-20) there would be so fulfilling while also allowing us to keep in touch through engaging conversations in English.

This is my first blog.