Language Learning Apps

 

    Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope everyone has been having a great week and is looking forward to Halloween this weekend! This week at school has looked the same for me with teachers continuing to teach virtually from inside the building. We were starting to prepare for a hybrid model starting next Thursday, but our school board had a meeting tonight and decided to not begin the hybrid model just yet. So, we will continue teaching virtually from our school until further notice! I think that at this point our students are starting to feel comfortable with virtual learning and making progress with the programs they are being taught. So, I am happy in a way that another big schedule change won’t be happening anymore. This should prevent less confusion for students and their families.

     This week while looking through my google alerts, I came across two very interesting articles about language learning applications. The first article I read was about new language learning app called Shoonya. The creator of the app, Rashi Bahri Chitnis, “noticed the lack of diversity within the children’s space, particularly when wanting to teach her children her native Hindi language.” She noticed that while there are many great apps to help children learn English, there are not many apps that are beneficial for teaching children other languages, especially Asian languages. According to the article, Shoonya is an app for children under 10 to learn new languages. The app consists of engaging animations, intriguing characters, and chapter-style learning activities. The app mainly specializes for teaching Hindi, but it can also offer the following languages: Arabic, German, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Spanish, and Teluga. I think it is super awesome that someone has created an educational app for teaching children languages other than English. I love educational apps and I think they are super beneficial for young children. When thinking about my ELLs, I think incorporating certain apps such as Duolingo or other engaging language apps are a great way to improve students’ English skills.

   The second article I read was about another language learning app called Memrise. This application used to be priced at $130, but now it is only $99.99 for a lifetime subscription. This app consists of multiple materials and provides the opportunity for people of all ages learn over 20 different languages. According to the article, Memrise includes many intuitive activities to support learning rather than boring memorization activities. Memrise also has a cool feature that will send out reminders to help learners stay on track with the learning courses. I like how this app is available to people of all ages and not only children. It is important that everyone has a great online source to help them learn a language of their choice.



 Sources:

https://parentology.com/new-language-learning-app-for-kids-delivers-big-benefits/

https://pocketnow.com/learn-over-20-new-languages-with-memrise

Comments

  1. Jaclyn GriffithOctober 31, 2020 at 5:25 PM

    Hi Natasha! Thanks for sharing the information about Shoonya! This sounds really cool. This would be a great app to help ELLs continue to develop literacy skills in their native language while simultaneously developing their English skills since both levels rise as a result of the other. I look forward to checking it out!

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