Using digital tools to enrich your learners’ vocabulary

A rich vocabulary range is important for English language learners as they need to learn so many words to make themselves understood. But what do learners need to know about vocabulary?

There are certain areas that teachers need to focus on: meaning; how words are pronounced; the forms of words, e.g., plurals, countable/uncountable nouns, dependent prepositions; how a word is used; collocations; different levels of formality; connotations; frequency of use; and what level they should be learnt at.

But what vocabulary is appropriate for each level? For exams, looking at the resources for teachers at the Cambridge website will provide you with word lists. These lists are organised alphabetically and by topic. They are a useful starting point for teaching words tested in the Cambridge exams, and include full lists for YLE’s Starters, Movers and Flyers.

But how do you find out the level of a word? You can use the English Vocabulary Profile resource that was created in 2012 and based on research on vocabulary learning. It is a good tool for decision making on what vocabulary to teach learners as they progress and how to assess them. You can create a free account to access this resource.

Another online resource is the Cambridge Online Dictionary. It also contains information about word level, and you can listen to audio files to learn how words are pronounced and any collocations and synonyms they may have. Online dictionaries are useful for lesson preparation; to help analyse vocabulary; to prepare pre‐listening or pre‐reading activities; to practise pronunciation; to provide vocabulary extension tasks for quick finishers; for team games; and as independent learning activities,

Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGtomf80_o to learn more.

Babbel and Cambridge English launches online language test

Cambridge English has partnered with the maker of Babbel, the world’s top-grossing language app, to launch the Babbel English Test. This online language assessment, utilizing the expert knowledge and experience of the Cambridge English organisation, allows adult learners of English to assess their listening and reading skills online from level A1 (beginner) up to and including B1 (intermediate).

Test takers will earn a certificate of achievement, which can be downloaded and used to demonstrate English skills to potential employers, for self-assessment, when warming up for an exam, or to enhance an online career profile.

The Babbel English Test is available now as part of the Babbel back to work bundles for HK$554, and will be released as a standalone test in October 2017 at a cost of HK$366.

The Babbel English Test features a set of around 70 different questions per session, each testing a variety of listening and reading comprehension skills. Like Babbel’s lesson content, these tasks reflect authentic, real-life situations. These include, for example, images of posters and signs, listening tasks featuring recordings of speakers with different accents, as well as radio-broadcasts and real conversations.

The exam itself has hundreds of potential variations and will never be the same twice, no matter how often it is taken.

Founded in 2007, Babbel is the world’s number one language learning app with more than one million current paying subscribers. At the core of Babbel is an empirically proven method that empowers second language learners to speak confidently.

All learning content is tailored to the user’s native language and is based on authentic examples that can be put to immediate use. This makes Babbel the shortest path to a real-life conversation, with 73% of users believing they can have a short, simple conversation in their new language within five hours of using the app.

Go to www.cambridgeenglish.org/news/view/babbel-and-cambridge-english-set-the-pace-in-online-language-assessment/ to learn more.

Education Trends and Issues in the World Today

To teach effectively in the 21st century classroom, teachers need to be aware of opportunities to apply, analyze, evaluate, and create in the classroom.

One opportunity of particular importance for teaching and learning is employing digital skills to access and understand the Internet, where around 50% of the material is in English. Another opportunity lies in students using their own smartphone, tablet or laptop in the classroom to make learning more personal and engaging.

Trend 1: 21st century skills

Global Awareness: Teachers should use classroom activities to promote global understanding and raise cultural awareness. An example of this is creating classroom activities around Google’s Beyond the Map project, or using the international news stories and radio broadcasts of Voice of America in the classroom.

Creativity and Innovation: The 21st century classroom has a strong focus on students creating with the information they have in the classroom. Students can create portfolios that use the target language in context, such as creating videos, writing journals or producing podcasts.

Information and Media Literacy: It is important for students to understand how to access information and evaluate it, and so we should encourage the use of transmedia literacy, i.e. the ability to understand information from a variety of sources and make connections between them. For example, students can read an English-language news story and then watch a video on the same subject matter to see the differences and similarities.

Trend 2: Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

A wide variety of digital tools exists for increasing classroom participation for students. These tools take advantage of the BYOD approach to encourage all students to ask and answer questions. By interacting through their own smartphone, tablet, or computer, students can all participate at the same time instead of one-by-one when they raise their hands to answer questions. The BYOD approach can also assist shy students by giving them a chance to ask and answer questions without having to speak to the entire class.

Go to https://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/teachers-corner-education-trends-and-issues-world-today to learn more