A
report done about an application on smart devices used for language learning
Prepared
by: Najlaa Al-Ghamdi
Supervised
by: Dr. Abdulaziz AL-Fageeh
Introduction
Nowadays,
technology have become very important in
teaching and learning. Most of educators and researchers call for using smart
devices and utilizing technology widely in most educational institutions and
millions of dollars are spent for promoting its use. (find a reference to sport
your claim, proving numbers and quotes.) Therefore, technology has been a rich
area of research investigating its effectiveness and the educational
possibilities and challenges; a huge number of studies that show the positives
and negatives effects and the pedagogical impact of technology on education in
general. (give example of research)
Technology
was gradually applied in different educational stages because there were some reluctant
among elderly to use high and modern technology in education. ( give examples
of studies) They resist this type of modernization either because of their lack
of experience in using technology or their desire to keep traditional
methodology in education. They finally realized
the importance of technology in education as they get different visual benefits
such saving time, students’ enthusiasm, and turning into teaching through
exchanging role. That means its positives outnumbered the negatives. (also you
need to end this paragraph with number of studies that support your claim)
As
a matter of fact, No one can deny that technology in education is a great tool
if used based on the right reason and vision. As a result of rapid changes in
the computer and media industries, most universities and educational
institutions are forced to re-envision ways of incorporating technology in
administrative and educational functions. But, we still have some
difficulties and troubles in generalizing using smart devices in education
process for all learners. For example, technology is costly, needs more
qualified educators, and depends always on the latest version and updates.
(You
need to add a paragraph here giving the rational of selecting hello-hello to
review in the light of the previous paragraphs)
Discussion
a)
Description
It’s one of the best
applications in Android (delete this statement. You cannot say it is the best.
There is nothing called the best) .
Hello-hello is a free
application that can be used on mobiles with Android operating system. It
offers thirteen languages for learners through two types of courses;
conversational course and vocabulary training.
1)
Conversational Course
It consists of 30
conversational animated lessons. Its practice tries to cover all skills with exercises
for speaking, writing, reading and listening. It gives a chance for the
learners to get notes to review later receive notifications reminding him to
study. The learner can get push notifications with the "Word of the
Day" to practice vocabulary. So, it always warms up the learner and
activates him to continue. The learner can follow his lesson and course
progress.
2)
Vocabulary Training
In this section, there
are more than 1,000 words and phrases. It depends on using of images and
exercises with immediate feedback. There are 3 different modules for learning
the words and 4 different modules for practicing different skills. As the
learner can practice reading, speaking, writing, and listening.
b)
How
it works?
Learner is exposed to a
situation through animation and hears the language to gain familiarity. They
can see the written language and pronounce it so they practice both writing and
speaking skills. Then learners are visually taught how the dialogue is written
as they can apply word structure and building easily. Learner can understand
what the dialogue means in their native language so he can follow the same
accent and try to be native. Also, visual clues and context are used to present
functional meaning to the dialogue so he get grammar rules indirectly.
This type of
application has many advantages rather than the other types of applications. As
it’s free. It doesn't need any additional hardware. It also provides the
learners with native language. Furthermore, it’s easy to use so any learner at
any age can use it in addition to its flexibility.
Conclusion
In my opinion, it’s one
of the convenient programs for learning different languages easily. It’s
suitable for different ages. As you can get benefit from its animations to
learn young students. Also building up words is a very useful and helpful feature
as it will help a learner to use well what he already kept in his minds so he
uses his memories well.
But, it just serves
only spoken language as it focuses only on the conversational levels. It
doesn't provide grammatical rules. So the learner will get the reading and
speaking skills well. On the other hand, he couldn't get the sentence structure
or apply grammar rules in a sentence.
I think it’s better to
add a section in this app just to provide the learner with different grammar
rules and how to use them. As well as animations can be used perfectly with
full sentences to show the pronouns. So, the learner can distinguish between
the different types pronouns such subject pronoun, object pronoun, ……………
Moreover, we can add a
recording service just to give the learner a chance to record what he
pronounces to evaluate his accent. This type of service is always effective as
it encourages the learner to transfer from level to another through the app.
Generally, any app to
be effective and successful, it should serves all the language skills;
speaking, listening, writing and reading. There should be animation, images,
and different colors to be more attractive for a range of variety ages.
References
Valdez G., Ph.D.,
director of North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium and
co-director of North Central Eisenhower Mathematics and Science Consortium
(NCEMSC). Editorial guidance was provided by Barbara Youngren, director,
NCEMSC., A catalyst for teaching and learning in the class room,2000, /www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te600.htm
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