LEARNING TO LOVE YOUR STUDENTS’ SMARTPHONESHow Mobile Apps Can Breathe New Life into Your Reading Class

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

Ground Your Practice

WHY CONSIDER APPS IN YOUR LANGUAGE CLASSROOM?

➤ Cakir (2015) suggested that when students can access English learning resources at any time from any where, they become more likely to do so in their free time.

➤ Samsiah et al. (2013) argued that a resource as ubiquitous as the smartphone must be utilized by educators in order to stay relevant.

➤ Rosen (2010) suggests that students today have been “rewired” and demand the use of technology in the classroom if we want them to remain engaged.

➤ Wu (2014) found that a group of students that used a vocabulary learning app (WordLearning) instead of traditional study methods significantly outperformed the control group in vocabulary recognition.

WHY CONSIDER APPS IN YOUR LANGUAGE CLASSROOM?

➤ Haintz, Pichler, and Ebner (2014) claimed that “the simplicity of the system and the usage of the BYOD policy led to a high acceptance and a high participation from lecturers and students. Lecturers mentioned the higher attention and engagement of the students during lecture” (54).

➤ Al-Okaily (2013) found that “a BYOD policy is both practical and can be effectively implemented in an English Language Program” (3).

➤ Ferriter (2010) aptly stated that “efforts to eliminate cell phone use are also short-sighted, especially in an era when fewer dollars are available for classroom supplies” (85).

➤ Brown (2014) argued that English language teachers should develop a theory-informed stance on cellphone use in their classrooms, cautioning against either extreme (complete prohibition or a cellphone free-for-all).

VOCABULARYBoost and Supplement

APPS FOR VOCABULARY

How to Use Special Features

Cost for Students

Cost for Teachers

Quizlet

You add words, let students define, practice at home,

then play games in class

Support for images, flashcards, multiple

gamesFree $24.99/year

Flashcards

Assign an existing word list or create your own and ask

students to practice at home

Flashcards with word lists from Common Core, Latin Roots,

TOEFL prep, and more, or create your own

Free Free

Wordflex

Use it to look up difficult words in class, encourage independent use

Gorgeous visuals, shows relationships

between wordsFree Free

READING COMPREHENSION

AND FLUENCYRead Read Read Assess Read

APPS FOR READING COMPREHENSION AND FLUENCY

How to Use Special Features

Cost for Students

Cost for Teachers

Nearpod

Use existing reading units or build your own, embedding assessment and reflection questions

with leveled texts

Can be used either as an in-class or at-home

assessment tool, and can allow for some

student choice in which Nearpods they complete

Free $12/month (optional)

QR Reader + MReader

Using your school’s leveled reader library,

attach QR code links to the inside of book

covers, letting students take the quizzes they

choose

Allows students to select the books they prefer and take the

quizzes in their own time, and teachers can keep track of student

progress through MReader

Free Free

Plickers

Do a quick, 3-5 question quiz to see if

students understood the key concepts in a

reading

Students love using Plickers cards and they

rarely think of it as assessment

Free Free

WEBSITES TO SUPPORT THE

APPS YOU USEReadings and Resources

WEBSITES TO SUPPORT THE APPS YOU USE

➤ Read Write Think

➤ Intended for K-12, but many of the lessons translate well to IEP

➤ Lessons on specific grammar, reading, and writing topics with interactive games and apps as well as worksheets and lesson plans

➤ Read Works

➤ Incredible bank of short readings with lexile measures as well as comprehension questions

➤ Lesson plans to accompany a variety of leveled novels

➤ Skill-based lessons for every grade level ➤ Vocabulary to accompany most lessons

WEBSITES TO SUPPORT THE APPS YOU USE

➤ Lit2Go

➤ A collection of short classic readings including fairy tales, short stories, and poems

➤ All have audio files

➤ Most have comprehension questions to pair with the passages

➤ Extensive Reading Foundation/MReader

➤ Hundreds of graded reader quizzes

➤ Incredible resource for those who want to encourage students to read graded readers

➤ Amazing depth of information on the benefits of extensive reading and how to set up a program in your school

SAMPLE ACTIVITIES

Explore a sample text, audio, and lesson sequence from Lit2Go.

Watch a video about setting up Plickers in your classroom.

Try a Nearpod I created to learn about Sojourner Truth.

Study a Quizlet unit my Dual Level students created to learn Latin roots.

Learn what the Extensive Reading Foundation can add to your reading class.

Tour a sample passage with supplemental vocabulary & questions from Read Works.

(Use the links or scan with your QR Reader app!)

THANK YOU!courtneyelizabethking.com

king2ce@cmich.edu

REFERENCES

Al-Okaily, R. (2013). Device neutral assignments for mobile learning in an English language classroom. QScience Proceedings, 29. doi:10.5339/qproc.2013.mlearn.29

Brown, J. (2014). Teachers’ Stances on Cell Phones in the ESL Classroom: Toward a “Theoretical” Framework. TESL Canada Journal. Retrieved from http://www.teslcanadajournal.ca/tesl/index.php/tesl/article/view/1177

Burston, J. (2014). The Reality of MALL: Still on the Fringes. CALICO Journal, 31(1), 103–125. doi:10.11139/cj.31.1.103-125

Cakir, I. (2015). Opinions and Attitudes of Prospective Teachers for the Use of Mobile Phones in Foreign Language Learning. Contemporary Educational Technology. Retrieved from http://cedtech.net/articles/63/635.pdf

Ferriter, W. M. (2010). Cell phones as teaching tools. Educational Leadership, 68(2), 85-86. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct10/vol68/num02/Cell-Phones-as-Teaching-Tools.aspx

Haintz, C., Pichler, K., & Ebner, M. (2014). Developing a Web-Based Question-Driven Audience Response System Supporting BYOD. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 20(1), 39-56. Retrieved from http://www.jucs.org/jucs_20_1/developing_a_web_based/jucs_20_01_0039_0056_haintz.pdf

Kim, H, & Kwon, Y. (2012). Exploring smartphone applications for effective mobile-assisted language learning. Multimedia-Assisted Language Learning. Retrieved from http://kmjournal.bada.cc/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/15-1-2Kim.pdf

Lin, C. (2014). Learning English reading in a mobile-assisted extensive reading program. Computers & Education, 78, 48–59. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2014.05.004

REFERENCES

Nation, P, & Coady, J. (1988). Vocabulary and reading. Vocabulary and language teaching. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=j2LXAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg =PA97&dq=Vocabulary+and+Reading+Nation&ots=ijDZO3Jll-&sig=aMRi1T-B59jccwxIWa2WNwCkc6A

Rezaei, A., Mai, N., & Pesaranghader, A. (2014). The Effect of Mobile Applications on English Vocabulary Acquisition. Jurnal Teknologi, 68(2). doi:10.11113/jt.v68.2912

Rosen, L. D., Carrier, M. L., & Cheever, N. A. (2010). Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the way they learn. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Soleimani, E., Ismail, K., & Mustaffa, R. (2014). The Acceptance of Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) among Post Graduate ESL Students in UKM. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 118, 457–462. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.02.062

Stoeckel, T., Reagan, N., & Hann, F. (2012). Extensive reading quizzes and reading attitudes. TESOL Quarterly, 46(1), 187-198.

Wu, Q. (2014). Learning ESL Vocabulary with Smartphones. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 143, 302–307. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.07.409

Yunus, M., Nordin, N., Salehi, H., Embi, M., & Mahamod, Z. (2013). Managing Problems and Planning Activities Involving ICT Tools in Teaching ESL Reading and Writing. Asian Social Science, 9(10). doi:10.5539/ass.v9n10p222