Bringing iPads into classroom reduces the physical weight on students’ shoulders as they replace heavy textbooks with multimedia contents and eBooks.
As the world currently is now focusing on smart technologies, there is no doubt that an iPad attracts students more than any other technological device. With thousands of educational apps available on the App store, use of iPad has become a very effective way to help students learn in their own suitable learning style and provide them with an interactive learning environment. Let me share with you the best iPad apps which are being recommended by English educators.
Kindle app suggested by Mark Anderson, “Author of Perfect ICT Every Lesson Book”:
Mark Anderson , an Assistant Head teacher and author of the successful “Perfect ICT Every Lesson book” has shared his experience of using iPad apps in English teaching on ictevangelist.com. The blog post is very informative and I’d like to let you know about Kindle app from his list of the suggested iPad apps for English learning.
Mark recommends English educators to use Kindle app on their iPad as it comes with a fantastic built with the dictionary feature. “Imagine being able to automatically look up a word that you don’t know the meaning of. Rather than the student having to (perhaps) embarrass themselves asking the meaning for the word, they can simply press on the word they want to learn about and a definition automatically appears at the bottom of the page. Also, words and passages can be highlighted. Specific segments of books can also be shared via Twitter and Facebook”, added Mark.
Kindle app provides you with a wide range of features where you can customize your reading experience by choosing margin size, line spacing, background color, font size, font style, and either portrait or landscape format. With Kindle app, categorization of books, docs and magazines can be done with a few taps. Many accessibility features make it easier for blind and visually impaired customers to navigate their Kindle libraries, read & interact with books, and more.
Grammar Up app suggested by Ruqaiyya Noor, an English teacher at Marshal University, West Virginia:
Ruqaiyya Noor , a featured contributor in education, recommended a list of apps for English educators. I’d like to let you know about Grammar Up app from that list.
Grammar Up:
Grammar Up is a multiple choice quiz system for English which includes over 1800 questions across 20 grammar categories. This app is designed to help learners to improve their grammar, word selection and vocabulary. As we know, grammar is the heart of any language, there is no doubt that Grammar app is a highly recommended app for English educators. With Grammar up app, quick grammar references are at the student’s fingertips. It enables users to easily study grammar rules by topic as all topics are well sorted and it also tells you the areas that each topic covers.
Socrative App recommended by Eric Townsley:
Socrative is a cloud–based student response system that allows teachers to easily create polls, quizzes and other educational exercises for their class and monitor their students’ response and progress in real–time. The iPad version of Socrative also works the same as its web version and provides users with easy to use navigation tools.
“We use Socrative a lot in our building. iPad app works great as does web version. Great tool for Formative Assessments!”, said Eric Townsley, Middle School Principal, IOWA.
English LaunchPad, an app designed specifically for English Teachers:
English LaunchPad is a package full of useful tools and information to help launch your English learning experience!
Features of English LaunchPad are as follows:
- Grammar Structures
- Whiteboard
- Lesson Plans
- Translator
- Practice Exercises
- Quiz Generator
- Student Register
- Student Tracking
- Flash Cards
SpeakingPal suggested by Shauni Shammas:
“Focusing on teaching the highly neglected speaking skill, SpeakingPal combines video with automatic speech recognition – simply speak with a video character in short dialogs and get instant feedback on how well you have said all of your English words and sentences!”, said Shauni Shammas, an edtech enthusiast.
SpeakingPal enables users to record and compare your speech with a native English speaker. It understands and rates your speech. SpeakingPal, winner of the International E-Learning Association Mobile Education award, is recommended as one of the best apps for English educators.
We hope this information is useful for you to know about few apps that are specially designed for English. We’d like to know about more apps like these. Please feel free to share with us the English learning apps you use in your classroom. The comment box awaits you.
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