Friday 18 November 2016
SVAAPP - Listening to books in different languages, answer questions and voice record answers!
The SVAAPP is designed for teachers and students to use in the classroom! You can't even login if you don't register a school user. It doesn't matter much right now since I've seen the tutorial online on how to use this app in practicality. Below is the link and I hope it'll work for everyone to watch!
So, I searched online and have tried very many language apps on my smartphone. I think it's very difficult to find a good language app that has a good variety, different levels and interesting material for the little older language learner than the very beginner and with a focus on meaning and communication. I might be a little picky but I think quality is important!
My goal was focused on grades 4-6 and I think this app is very interesting and would target that range well. The students can hear English books being read, they get questions read out loud to them and can also voice record their answers. It seems like a good quality app, especially designed for education. Teachers have the ability here to send out different tasks to different students and if you want them to get different reading material with different levels and even in different languages, it seems easy to do that. This app could also be used in parallell subjects as well!
I don't think it costs anything, it says it's free to download, but then you never know if it's a free trial or if some of the features costs. In any case, I think it's better to pay for an app you would have great use for and I would pay to use this one. Not to say free apps aren't good, there are many good ones out there too and in the end, it's the students that are going to use them and needs to like to do it, so I think being open to their input and ideas is important too!
SVAAPP was spot on for what I as a teacher was looking to use it for. It gives a great overview of all students' tasks, what books they have completed, what books they are working on and what they have recorded! Watch the link and tell me what you think!
Thanks for reading ;)
/Patricia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LYkv8QYplo
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Hi Patricia! I think this app can be really useful for me and my future students. I work with younger pupils, just like you. I watched the link you posted, and the app seems to provide a lot of useful material to work with. I like that there are many books to choose between, and that you can record your own voice when you answer questions.
ReplyDeleteI think it can be a good idea to let students listen to a book at regular basis because it would give them many opportunities to hear the English language. It makes me think about Harmer (2015) who wrote that research shows that students who read much english also improved their ability to speak - their pronunciation got better after reading. He also suggests that it is good to hear spoken english from other sources than just the teacher which this app enables.
I wonder though how you think that this app can be integrated in your english lessons? It would be interesting to hear your examples here. Can you use the app for teaching in whole-class situations or is it only designed for individual learning situations? Also, do you think of any disadvantages with this app? Maybe it requires many tablets in the classroom, because it takes a long time to listen to a book it could be necessary that every pupil has access to one tablet each.
You also mentioned that the teacher can send out tasks to different pupils which sounds great, then you can create tasks and follow their work. Sometimes when I let my pupils work with apps or interactive learning tools - I feel that I lose control of their learning process, but this app seems to have a solution to that problem if it is possible to make questions and see what they have read. Thank you for sharing!
Hi Emilia! Thanks for asking! I was actually a little too eager to do this task, so I forgot to mention how I would use this app in my English classroom!
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way about the control issue with multimedia and students, but I think we can rest easy after we have identified the purpose of students using specific apps. It depends on the student also, what expectations we set on their level. Typically they do learn because they are curious, especially younger grades, where students should be able to learn about common things like shapes, colors, food, clothes, toys etc. in a playful way! I think it's important to remember that every part of a learning process does not need to be fully monitored and evaluated, although we would like it to be!
That said, I was in search of an app that was specifically designed for education and for teachers to be able to easily see students work progress, because I feel that there are many apps that can be used for playful learning and student choice, whenever there is extra time here and there, but to have an app especially for listening comprehension with questions and the great feature of voice portfolio, is very useful for a more serious lesson and where the students can hear their own progress too! This app allows the students to work independently and undisturbed, since it takes a lot of attention to listen to the books being read aloud to them!
Like I first mentioned I haven't actually used it, only watched the tutorial, but if it works as good as it seems, I would use it on a regular basis with the students, depending on what technology is available. Some classrooms have 'study rooms' connected to their classroom and the students would have to take turns going in there to record their answers, otherwise they might be disturbing each other. Headphones is also a must of course when they first listen to the story. I don't think this type of exercise demands all students to work on the same task at the same time. It's probably wishful thinking that each student would have an Ipad each, but it's really not necessary either. If there is a competition of resources in general at the school, I would try to have this type of lesson in half class and spread them out as much as possible, maybe then it would work for them to record their answers while still being in the classroom.
If there are no Ipads at all, we would have to do it the old fashioned way of stationary computer, taking turns sending students one by one, while the others work on something else. It all depends on the resources, but I would try to arrange the use of the technology available so the students don't have to wait forever, which would make it tedious for them. I do see this as a freestanding exercise, which makes it easier to be flexible in the arrangement of use too! I hope this answers your questions. Good luck in using this app, I think the students are going to like it!
BR
/Patricia