ELD & Technology

Social Media Addiction is a Good Thing When Acquiring English? Photograph from Article (see reference) Mint Reading is an English Learning application developed by  Chengdu Chaoyouai Education Technology. It uses the validation people seek on social media to motivate users to complete tasks in order to learn English in order to get a "like" or "share. This company is not alone in using social media to motivate users. Actually, according to the South China Morning Post (2018), "e ducational apps have increasingly leveraged social networking to create peer pressure and keep users going" (paragraph 6).  Although  some users ended up finding the application annoying (constantly sending out and receiving alerts are the user and their friends complete activities) or somewhat distracting (too much social media, not enough studying) I can find many uses for this type of thinking in the ESL classroom. One example is having students be able to share the...

Interesting Photos for Better Writing One of the Google Alerts I received this week was an article from the New York Times. The authors shared how teachers have been using one of the most famous feature of the times called “What’s Going On in This Picture?” in order to help their English Learners because better writers. They noted that, “teachers across grade levels and subjects have told us again and again how powerful of a learning tool such a simple activity can be” (Leon, Montemagno, & The Learning Network, 2018, paragraph 2). The article then goes into a detailed explanation of how the two teachers, Leon & Montemagno, who are titled E.N.L (English as a New Language) teachers used the feature in their classroom. Essentially they have their English Learners write claims about the photographs. They start by posting the picture at the beginning of the week. They give copies of the photographs to student in either paper form or on iPads. Those that use iPads use a...

Brain Hacking This week I got an update on an application (app) I have used in the past called Duolingo. If you are not familiar with Duolingo, it’s an app that helps users learn a different language. The author of the article, Minda Zetlin (2018), shared how the application is “reviewing the data on tens of thousands of their users” (paragraph 2) and “comparing when they studied with how well they were performing on the app's tests. That review led them to a simple two-step formula for improving language learning and retention: 1. Study the language right before bedtime. 2. Study every night, weekends included.” (paragraph 2) The study was completed by first dividing Duolingo users into 14 different groups “based on when [what time of the day] they did their studying” (paragraph 3) or used the application to learn a new language. “The group that studied at bedtime seven nights a week outperformed 52.9 percent of other users, while the worst performing group, which...