Technology-enhanced Language Learning

Hi everyone! I am Hilaria, a year 2 student from BEd(S)-ICT and I am going to share some mobile apps that I have used to improve my English and Korean language skills. Below shows the apps and brief introduction of the apps that I have used.

Reviews

elsaSpeak.mp4

This is ELSA speak and I mainly use this app to practice and improve my pronunciation in English. I use this app because I want to improve my pronunciation in English which makes me more speak more like a native speaker. Before starting the daily training or skills practice, you may take a quick test and see which sound you are weak at. I use it every day.

The video on the right shows the rating function of the app and I may check which part of the word that I pronounce wrongly.

rosettaStone2.mp4

This is Rosetta Stone, I use it when I start a new new language learning and this time I use this app to learn Korean. Unlike other language learning applications, it focuses more on phrases and short sentences. You will learn a new language by keep repeating and speaking short sentences. It takes you around 30 minutes per day to revise and learn new phrases. I use it every day.

rosettaStone3.mp4

duolingo.mp4

This is Duolingo, I use it to practice grammar and vocabulary and I mainly practice Korean recently. There are many topics such as food and animals. This app does not teach you directly the grammar and the meaning of a word but it gives feedback when you are wrong. So you will learn from trial and error in different quizzes. A good feature of this app is that you may check the community forum to see if someone encounters the same difficulties as yours and how they resolve the problems. I use it whenever I am free.

Reflection

One of my motivations to use different mobile apps for language learning is that using mobile phone to learn is easy and convenient. I find that I have wasted so much time on my phone for doing nothing meaningful such as browsing Facebook and Instagram. So why don't I spend some time to do something that are meaningful for myself such as learning and I can improve myself when I am travelling and waiting.

I use Duolingo to train up my vocab and grammar skill. It is like a quiz or a game and you will gain scores if you answer the questions correctly. Although it does not teach you the grammar and the meaning of words directly, I still can learn because it tells whether you are correct or wrong. Besides, there are different levels in the same topic and you will have to type or speak instead of only choosing the blocks of the word. Therefore I can recognize and speak out the words by repeating different levels of quizzes and master some words and phrases in a topic.

Practicing repeatedly the phrases and sentences is important for me to get familiar with a language and its context. Rosetta stone offers me chances to practice Korean by speaking and repeating words and phrases and I can memorize the content without revision by using the app 30 minutes a day. Generally, I think the lessons in this app are well-organised but before starting with this app, users need to have some basic knowledge of the language such as the alphabet system so users can read the words. This app can also check if you speak properly so you will know your mistakes.

Another app, Elsa speak is also good at recognizing human speech. It can detect each component of a word such as the ending 's' sound or 't' sound which makes use of AI technology. It is very good for me because I have not learnt much on English pronunciation before which makes me cannot speak like a native speaker with their standard pronunciation and stress.

Rosetta Stone Lessons

Overall, I love using the apps to learn in terms of the cost, efficiency and flexibility. Although most of the apps require users to subscribe or have premium features, the cost is still relatively lower than having language courses in real life. I can also learn a lot by only using free trail of some apps. Moreover, the apps act as a private tutor which can find and focus on my weakness and I think it offers me higher learning efficiency when compared to a common language course. The most important thing is flexibility. After being a university student, I have found that I do not have a regular time table and schedule which make me difficult to find a formal language course. Also, I have more time for learning in the beginning of the semester while less time for learning at the end of the semester. Therefore, self-paced learning is more suitable for my learning style and using mobile apps for language learning is much more convenient for me. I believe learning with technology will be more popular in the future and more advantages will be gained.

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