No More Pause and Replay!

As a foreign language learner who rarely had a chance to acquire English from a real context, I enjoyed learning from movies, songs, and sometimes news. I would activate the subtitles to help me to identify what words are said. Sometimes if I found new interesting words, I paused and replayed the part of the movie or the song to catch the words. Only by doing this, I can make sense of the language I am trying to learn. This learning experience gave me space to identify how English is used naturally. I can now add this learning list to my students' experience, just it will be easier for them because I find TubeQuizard! What is it? 

TubeQuizard is an online English learning platform innovation that merges the various videos on YouTube with computerized quizzes. They provide grammar, listening, or pronunciation lessons in the quizzes. I believe learning English through real-life communication contexts will enable learners to not only learn it but also possibly acquire how to use the language appropriately. As teachers, I think it is safe to say that we are the ones in charge of how good or bad our students' learning experience will be. 

So, how do we ensure a good learning experience for our students? I will tell you some benefits we may gain from using this platform!

First, Teachers can use this platform to familiarize vocabulary, grammar patterns, and pronunciation without teaching them by using meaningless drilling. Exposure to the natural vocabulary, grammar pattern, or pronunciation will allow the students to generate the language rules and patterns in their own way. This way of learning might promote longer-term memories compared to learning by memorizing. 

Second, This part of lesson will invite the students to have their own learning time. The students do not need to worry about their own pace to catch what they hear as this platform will enable them to go back to the words they try to catch as many times as they want. By giving them this time, we might encourage their autonomous learning!

However, of course, we can not rely on a learning tool because they will always have limitations! 

I will agree that TubeQuizard facilitates the learning process, but if we only assign students to answer the quizzes there, then we will only function this platform at the augmentation level (Puentedura, 2006), where it may enhance the learning tool from the conventional video play and written worksheets to automatic play and online worksheets. Just like the quote from Youki Terada (2020) in her Edutopia article :

Good Technology integration isn't about using the fanciest tool, it's about being aware of the range of options and picking the right strategy-or strategies-for the lesson at hand

That is why we need to modify the learning activity while using this app. I personally prefer to use this app in the first stage of a lesson which involves students' ability to identify vocabulary, grammar patterns, or pronunciation. 

For example,

I want my students to learn the 'plural pattern', I want them to be able to identify when it is needed and how it may sound when people use 's' at the end of the word as a signal of plurality. But at the end of the lesson, I also want the students to discuss the topic we have in the video to raise their awareness of animal extinction. Let's use this TubeQuizard quiz:

I will let them fill in the quiz in 10 minutes, so they will have their own time to play it go and back. Then I will not only emphasize the use of plural 's' but also invite my students to share their feeling about seeing the baby pandas, asking them if they know why people celebrate the born of the pandas and even name them just like they are precious. I might use different platforms such as padlet or flipgrid to allow them to express what they thought.

The other consideration you might want to put into account is your teaching format (offline or online), the availability of the learning devices, and internet access! for me, the lesson I shared before suits the online teaching format!

Finally, TubeQuizard will enhance the discovery learning with no more pause and replay!

sources:

Images: https://www.pexels.com/

screenshot: TubeQuizard.com