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Language School Survey 2023

poodlladmin — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 12:35:57 +0000

Do you own or work in a language school? We want to hear about it. Our survey takes less then three minutes, and you go into a draw for a US$50 voucher!

The post Language School Survey 2023 first appeared on Poodll.

Empowering Students with AI: Enhancing Writing Skills through AI Grading

poodlladmin — Sat, 17 Jun 2023 07:08:30 +0000

You made your favorite tea, a reward in the form of a chocolate bar is just within your reach, and in the background not-too-distracting music softly floats through the room. It’s exam marking time and you’ve settled in for a long grading session with a dauntingly high stack of papers.

For many instructors, exams are just as stressful as they are for students. Teachers who want to maximize learning opportunities don’t just cross out wrong answers or scribble question marks in the margins. They provide meaningful feedback and suggestions, sometimes writing little paragraphs explaining why an answer is wrong. Particularly when learning languages or how to write essays, students profit from context-creating, extensive feedback. However, good grading is time-intensive. It is almost impossible to give extensive feedback on several essays and exams throughout the semester without spending hours upon hours locked away in your grading den.

Luckily, teachers are no longer alone when it comes to grading exams. AI is radically transforming almost all aspects of education. Grading – one of the most loathed teaching tasks – is not untouched by the AI revolution.

Follow us along on a journey of AI grading. Together we will take a look at how AI can be used to grade and provide feedback on writing exercises, which AI solutions are already available, why some teachers push back against the use of AI in grading, and whether their fears and concerns around AI for grading are justified.

What are the advantages of using an AI grader?

It’s fairly safe to say that no teacher jumps with joy at the thought of grading essays, tests, or assignments. Beyond being disliked by instructors, grading is problematic for several reasons: Grading increases stress levels for students and staff, it can be inconsistent or unfair, and it takes time away from instructors that could otherwise be spent on personalizing lessons. Moreover, research has shown that unconscious bias negatively affects grading students of color and other marginalized groups.

In light of these drawbacks, the advantages of using an AI grader become clear. AI graders can:

reduce instructor workload,
update themselves by absorbing new information,
minimize subjective grading practices,
provide detailed analytics and insights,
scan content in various languages,
integrate other tools such as a grade calculator to further streamline the grading process.

A range of services and products sprung up in recent years that aim to harness these advantages of AI grading to the benefit of students and staff.

What AI grading tools exist already?

AI grading has been around for years and teachers can access a wide range of AI-based grading tools. Most Learning Management Systems such as Moodle or Blackboard come with built-in automatic grading tools for grading simple right/wrong answers. AI tools are great at checking grammar and spelling which is particularly useful for language teachers.

What about more difficult tasks such as grading longer essays? Can AI make a difference here? Let’s first look at how AI essay grading works. Essay-grading tools don’t evaluate the actual writing quality. Rather, they undergo training using example essays to identify patterns corresponding to higher or lower grades given by humans. By analyzing these patterns, the AI can predict the score that a human grader would assign to an essay. So an AI does not actually “read” an essay. Rather, it compares the words that it’s given with its collection of already graded essays to determine whether the essay is good or not.

More sophisticated AI-grading systems are often based on ChatGPT, the generative language model that started making waves in late 2022. Many of the AI grading products, therefore, focus on language and writing. My Essay Grader, for example, is designed to be a thought partner for instructors assessing essays. It analyzes students’ submissions and provides teachers with a list of issues and suggestions. Some tools are specifically created for certain subject areas. Graide or Querium, for instance, provide grading assistance in STEM subjects.

Poodll has been integrating AI as a grading tool for a while now. Poodll Languages, our collection of ESL Moodle plugins, uses AI auto-grading to grade vocabulary quizzes and exercises, cutting down on time spent marking. It’s a popular feature that allows students to receive instant and personalized feedback without adding to the workload of instructors.

Curious minds who want to explore how AI and grading interplay, can also take a look at Poodll Read Aloud, an AI tool that measures reading speed and accuracy so that teachers can collect reading fluency data quickly and easily.

Is AI grading for the benefit of students or teachers?

The advantages of incorporating AI into grading for instructors are clear: reduced workload and greater efficiency. But do students equally profit from this technology? If used correctly, the answer is yes. AI grading tools empower students by providing timely feedback, personalized learning opportunities, and a fair assessment process, ultimately supporting their academic growth and success.

In the field of second language acquisition, students might also feel more comfortable making mistakes practicing with an AI instead of their peers or their teachers.

However, as with all technology, AI for grading is not a perfect solution. Let’s look at why some teachers push back against using AI in classrooms, particularly for grading.

Some teachers are pushing back against using AI in grading.

Not every instructor is excited about the prospect of co-grading with an AI. An EdWeek Research Center survey showed that nearly half of the educators who responded think AI will harm teaching and learning in the next five years.

A big concern about AI grading is bias. Technically, the algorithm of an AI should ensure that grading is less biased, not more. However, the AI is only as good as the humans training it. Teachers and AI trainers have subconscious biases that they can feed into the algorithm. Consequently, the AI might grade simpler sentence structures favored by non-native speakers or African-American vocabularies more harshly.

AI graders are also not cheat-proof. Students are usually much faster than their teachers at understanding new technology – and use it to their advantage. The Verge recently reported that a middle school student and their parent learned to game an AI grader by stuffing answers with specific keywords. Students can usually find lists of exact keywords or sample answers for AI-graded exams online. Type in the keywords and you are almost guaranteed an A – something that would be impossible to achieve with a human grader.

In addition, questions about privacy and data security remain. As AI becomes more advanced, it can make decisions based on subtle patterns in data that are difficult for humans to understand and which can compromise privacy. Educators and administrators must ensure that AI tools handle student data transparently and responsibly, which can be difficult and create additional administrative burdens.

If the drawbacks of AI grading are potentially serious, is it worth employing AI to grade? The answer will depend on the individual circumstances of instructors and students, on policies in schools and universities, and on how the technology will develop in the coming months or years.

However, it is safe to say that AI is here to stay and that its impact on grading practices will only increase. Let’s take a look at how AI can be used productively – not as a simple correcting mechanism but as a tool to guide students along their learning pathways.

Many teachers think of simple AI grading tools when considering whether to use AI in their marking practices. However, modern AI graders can do more than just indicate if an answer is right or wrong. Instead of just correcting, they can suggest.

What is the difference between correcting and suggestin?

AI tools that correct students are already commonly used in online quizzes and are usually integrated into most Learning Management Systems. Corrections have their place in assessments. After all, students need to know why instructors deduct marks. However, a more productive approach to examining student knowledge is suggesting.

The difference between correcting and suggesting lies in the nature and intent of the feedback provided.

Correcting typically involves identifying and fixing errors or mistakes in a piece of writing. It focuses on pointing out grammatical, spelling, punctuation, or structural errors and providing the correct versions or alternatives. Correcting emphasizes the fact that students make mistakes and these need straightening out, making the learning experience less enjoyable and potentially less effective.

On the other hand, suggesting means offering recommendations, ideas, or alternatives to improve the overall quality or effectiveness of the writing. Suggestions include giving different phrasing options, proposing alternative approaches, or highlighting areas where the student could expand or provide more clarity. Suggesting feedback is more open-ended and aims to stimulate critical thinking and creativity, giving the student room to explore different possibilities.

Let’s take a look at correcting versus suggesting in terms of teaching grammar.

A grammar correction is a direct modification and involves changing the text to adhere to grammar rules without providing alternative options. An example of a grammar correction is changing the sentence “He don’t like poodles” to “He doesn’t like poodles.”

On the other hand, a grammar suggestion is a non-intrusive recommendation that points out a potential grammatical mistake and offers options for improvement. The final decision to implement the change rests with the student, not the teacher. In the above case, the teacher would highlight the incorrect sentence and suggest alternatives such as “He doesn’t like poodles” or “He is not a fan of poodles.” Alternatively, the incorrect sentence can merely be highlighted without pointing out the correct form, allowing students to arrive at the right answer themselves.

Suggestions work best in more complex scenarios. In essay writing, for example, instructors can suggest using illustrative examples or alternative phrase structures. Students decide how they want to act upon these suggestions and retain a sense of agency over their learning.

While correcting focuses on error identification and correction, suggesting provides guidance, insights, and ideas to enhance the writer’s skills and overall writing experience. Both types of feedback are valuable in different contexts and can be used together to provide a comprehensive and well-rounded assessment of a student’s writing.

Previously, AI grading was mostly corrective. However, with the more sophisticated, recent tools, AI can also suggest, giving students the chance to find answers themselves. In this way, students can correct their mistakes and sharpen their critical thinking and self-editing skills. This empowers learners to take ownership of their learning journey and build confidence in their writing abilities.

Poodll has employed suggesting in its AI grading features for several years. Poodll Solo, for instance, helps students improve their speaking skills. Students prepare for a speaking assignment, record themselves, listen to the recording, and transcribe their speech. Transcribing helps learners to reflect on their speech patterns and identify mistakes or areas of improvement (or feel proud of how far they’ve come).

Using an AI tool, Poodll Solo will check the student’s submission by matching the manual and automatic transcript. It will check for spelling and grammar mistakes, and give metrics on word and sentence usage. Students receive detailed feedback and suggestions for improvement.

Teachers can also access this feature in the latest version of the Cloud Poodll Assignment Submission. It allows instructors to generate suggested corrections, which can be pasted into the feedback comments given to students.

AI tools that suggest instead of merely correct are the way forward. They can help instructors provide more personalized feedback without adding to their workload. Students can receive targeted support and profit from frequent evaluations.

Instructors have to ensure that AI tools enhance their teaching and that student data is handled responsibly. Poodll embeds AI into a larger suite of tools designed to help students and teachers reach their language-learning goals. All our features comply with the prevalent data and privacy standards.

Take a look at Poodll’s features. See how we incorporated AI to make your grading less time-consuming and more efficient and experience the impact of suggesting feedback firsthand.

Try Poodll Here!

The post Empowering Students with AI: Enhancing Writing Skills through AI Grading first appeared on Poodll.

10 ESL Icebreakers for Online Classes That Promote Collaboration and Creativity

poodlladmin — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 05:22:26 +0000

Today is the first day of your new online class.

You’ve used Poodll Net to enrol your students, cleared payments, and built a fully-functioning learning management system. Now all you have to do is teach.

As you start your new course, a familiar sense of excitement rushes through you. You can’t help but wonder who will be on the other side of the screen. Will teaching your new students be enjoyable and stimulating? Or will every class feel like pulling teeth?

You might know very little about your new students besides their names and English levels, but you do know about the importance of first impressions. You want to start your class right, create a sense of community, and a welcoming atmosphere.

Icebreakers are the perfect tool to break through the initial awkwardness that comes with every new course, where nobody knows each other. They are especially crucial in digital classrooms because these spaces lack informal opportunities for students to get to know each other.

Research has shown that even simple icebreakers create trust and likability, especially when they are played as games.

Searching for some fun and engaging icebreakers to kick off your next online class? Poodll has you covered with our favourite icebreakers that are sure to get your students excited about learning. We’ll not only provide you with a list of activities to choose from, but we’ll also guide you on how to select the right one for your class and implement it effectively.

Why Use Icebreakers In Online Classes?

Skipping icebreakers in online classes may seem tempting, especially if you remember how awkward they made you feel as a student, or if you have a lot of topics to cover and limited time. Maybe you are afraid that your students won’t cooperate.

Don’t neglect icebreakers. Taking time at the beginning of a new class so that you and your students get to know each other is crucial. Let’s take a look at why that’s the case.

Icebreakers Create a Welcoming Atmosphere

In online classes students might feel isolated or disconnected. Learning is a social activity and students might miss casual interactions or in-person study sessions. Icebreakers introduce a social component to your classes, make everybody feel welcome, and help build a community. Not only will this impact the well-being of your students positively, a greater sense of social belonging also increases motivation and participation – making the class enjoyable and effective for everyone.

Icebreakers Develop Language Skills

How do we learn a new language? By engaging with each other, speaking, and practising real-life situations.

By providing structured opportunities for students to practise speaking and listening, icebreakers help build vocabulary, improve pronunciation, and allow learners to develop their confidence in using English.

Since the focus of icebreakers lies on communication, not correctness, students can express their humour and personality, leading to a more fun and personable classroom environment.

A language class lives from interactions and conversations. Icebreakers will help you to create a collaborative atmosphere and prepare your students for group work.

Icebreakers Allow People to Join Later

If you are teaching adult learners, they might not always make it to class on time due to family and work obligations.

Icebreakers are a great tool to fill the initial five to ten minutes of class time while you wait for everybody to arrive. Connect them to the previous class as a way to reinforce already learned material. That way, latecomers will not miss essential material and students who are on time do not feel frustrated waiting for their peers.

How to Implement Icebreakers Effectively in Online ESL Classes

If you decide to implement icebreakers in your online class, make sure you keep these three best practices in mind:

Ensure Correct Timing: As a rule of thumb, dedicate around 10% of classroom time to icebreakers. Use Poodll’s timer function to guarantee that you are always within your time limit.
Set Clear Expectations: Introduce your icebreakers, let students know how long they will take, and what is expected of them.
Make Participation Easy: Encourage student participation by making icebreakers inclusive. Avoid topics that could create potentially awkward situations such as family, politics, finance, religion, etc.

10 Tried and Tested Icebreakers for Your Next ESL Online Class

When picking icebreakers, keep your class size, your students’ language levels and their age in mind. At the end of the article, we will give you a handy table that will help you determine which type of icebreaker is best for you based on these parameters.

Now that you know why and how to implement icebreakers, let’s take a look at our ten favourite icebreakers for online ESL classes.

Two Truths and One Lie

This popular icebreaker activity is ideal for your first class, providing participants with an opportunity to get to know each other.

The game involves learners sharing three statements – two true and one false – about themselves in English, and others guessing which statement is the false one.

You can easily adapt this game to younger learners by replacing truths and lies with wishes.

Additional materials needed: none

The Same and Different Game

To play this game, split your learners into small groups and send them into breakout rooms. Ask them to compile a list of things they have in common and one thing that is unique to them.

After five minutes, bring all groups together and have them guess what similarities the other groups have listed.

Use Poodll’s chart function to visualize the responses from each group. This data can then be used for more comprehensive activities later on.

Additional materials needed: none but make sure your online classroom has a breakout function

The Random Object

This icebreaker is great for sharing information and building a community.

Ask a student to pick a random object in their room without telling anyone what it is. The other learners have to ask yes/no questions to guess the object. Make sure you limit the number of questions allowed.

Additional materials needed: none

Virtual Backgrounds

This icebreaker is great for subsequent classes. At the end of the class, introduce the topic of the following lesson. Ask your participants to change their virtual background for the next class into something that is related to the topic.

At the beginning of the class, moderate a short group discussion or hold votes on the funniest or most appropriate background.

Additional materials needed: none but make sure your students know how to change their backgrounds

Storytelling Icebreakers

This icebreaker is a good team-building activity that fosters collaboration.

Split your learners into separate groups before class and use a document or board to prepare four pictures each per group.

On the day of the class, divide your learners into groups of four and assign each group a picture document. Send them to breakout rooms and have them come up with a story that relates to the images.

After ten minutes, ask each group to share their image and story. Encourage other groups to ask questions.

Additional materials needed: Google docs or other document-sharing tools

Charades

This icebreaker is a handy tool to reinforce newly learned words.

Send a new word to a student via private message. Then, have the student act out the word while the other participants try to guess it.

To make things more exciting, you can award points and recognize the best guesser.

Additional materials needed: none

Bingo

The objective of Bingo is to mark off all numbers on a card whenever they are read out. Replace the numbers with relevant vocabulary and send a Bingo card to each of your students in advance. You can also adapt this game to advanced learners by calling out the definition of a word instead of the word itself.

Bingo games reinforce already learned vocabulary. For example, you can assign your students vocabulary learning homework with Poodll word cards and use the Bingo game to check their progress in the next lesson.

Additional materials needed: You can use this tool to create Bingo cards online or download ready-made ESL Bingo cards here.

Map Icebreaker

Students in online classes often join from different parts of the world. Begin the class by showing a world map. If all your participants are in one country, display a country map.

Ask participants to describe where they live and encourage students to ask questions. Alternatively, turn this activity into a game and have learners guess where their classmates live.

You can use Poodll’s lightbox feature to quickly display a map on the screen.

Additional materials needed: none

Game of Questions

Prepare questions in advance and assign them a number on a die. In class, roll a die and determine the question. Have the students answer, roll the die themselves, and determine the next speaker.

If you have a large class, sort your students into breakout rooms and have them ask each other questions. After five minutes, bring them back and encourage them to introduce their partners.

In need of inspiration? Here are 60+ questions for your elementary classroom, speaking prompts for university students, and ESL topics for adults.

Additional materials needed: a virtual die like this or this

Show and Tell

This works particularly well for younger learners but can also be a great conversation starter among adults. Before class, ask participants to bring an object. You can make this more difficult by setting specific parameters: the object has to be connected to the lesson topic (f.e. food), they have to speak about it using passive, etc.

In class, have students report on their object and other participants ask questions. If you are teaching a large class, consider doing this activity in breakout rooms.

Additional materials needed: nothing but make sure your students don’t forget to bring an object

We hope you and your students enjoy these icebreakers.

Build community, learn more about your participants, and reinforce learning in a fun and effective way – icebreakers are fantastic tools to liven up your online lessons.

After starting your class with fun and interactive activities, don’t go back to frontal teaching. Instead, use Poodll to create creative, interactive, and effective ESL online lessons.

Poodll gives you a database of real-life videos, provides automatic feedback to your students, has integrated state-of-the-art recording and playback features as well as an automatic caption function. Auto-grading features and an easy-to-use backend reduce your workload.

No more clunky tech, no more bored learners. Combine your icebreakers with Poodll’s many features for a truly unforgettable class.

Sign up for a free Poodll trial here and see how you can transform your online ESL classes into fun and productive lessons.

Activity Name	Target Group	Activity Goal	Ideal Class Size	Amount of time needed	Additional materials needed
Two Truths and One Lie	All ages	Getting to know each other	Smaller class size or breakout rooms	10-15 minutes, depending on class size	no
Same and Different Game	Best for teenagers or adult learners	Getting to know each other	Larger classes	10-15 minutes, depending on class size	no
The Random Object	All ages, great for younger learners	Getting to know each other	Smaller class size	10-15 minutes, depending on class size	no
Virtual Backgrounds	Best for teenagers or adult learners	Getting to know each other	All class sizes	10-15 minutes, depending on class size	no
Storytelling Icebreakers	Best for advanced learners	Language acquisition and practice	Larger classes	15-20 minutes, depending on class size	Google docs or other document sharing tools
Map Icebreaker	Best for teenagers or adult learners	Getting to know each other	All class sizes	10-15 minutes, depending on class size	none
Game of Questions	All ages	Getting to know each other	Smaller class size or breakout rooms	10-15 minutes, depending on class size	virtual die
Charades	All ages	Language acquisition and practice	Smaller class size or breakout rooms	10-15 minutes, depending on class size	none
Bingo	All ages	Language acquisition and practice	All class sizes	10-15 minutes, depending on class size	Bingo card maker
Show and Tell	Younger Learners	Language acquisition and practice	Smaller classes or breakout rooms	15-20 minutes, depending on class size	none

The post 10 ESL Icebreakers for Online Classes That Promote Collaboration and Creativity first appeared on Poodll.

Boost Student Success with Accessibility: Your Guide to Adding Subtitles and Captions in Moodle

poodlladmin — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 04:53:04 +0000

Finally! It’s Friday night and the stress of the week lies behind you (as are your bar-hopping days). You settle on your sofa, ready to finally catch up on House of the Dragon. With your puppy by your side, you switch on your TV, keen to lose yourself in the twisted power games of Westeros. Matt Smith’s Daemon Targaryen starts speaking about alliances, power grabs, and ill-fated marriages.

And you don’t understand a word. Dialogue lines fly over your head, you can barely follow the plot. Who slept with whom again? Who is plotting against whom?

Frustrated you turn on subtitles. Better!

Millions of us watch our favorite shows with subtitles or closed captions, either because we have trouble with the mumbling of a certain actor, don’t understand a particular accent, or because we watch a show in a foreign language.

However, what is a convenience when streaming films and TV shows, becomes an absolute necessity in online education – particularly for students with hearing impairments or other conditions.

Subtitles and captions in online courses allow students with disabilities, non-native speakers, and those who learn through listening to study more effectively.

In a survey by Oregon State University, a whopping 98.6 percent of students say captions are helpful and 85% use captions as learning aids when watching educational videos.

Yet, many instructors shy away from providing subtitles or captions in their Moodle classes, either because they are not aware of the benefits or think that they don’t have the technical expertise.

Luckily, Moodle allows educators to create automated captions and subtitles easily and effectively. Read on to learn more about why these tools are so vital, how they enhance online classes, and how to add automated subtitles and captions to Moodle courses.

At the end of this article, we will tell you how to add captions to your Moodle course with Poodll. Can’t wait? Check out our guide here.

Captions and Subtitles – What is the Difference?

Simply put, captions are for accessibility, subtitles for internationalization.
Captions and subtitles provide text on the screen to help audiences and learners follow the content of what is being said. The main difference between the two are intent and audience.

Captions are always in the same language as the original content. An English-language TV show will have English captions. In addition to providing information on what is being said, they also include non-speech elements such as audio effects (think Stranger Things’ wetly squelching tentacles) and music descriptions.

Captions are specifically targeted at people who are hearing impaired. Closed captions can be added as needed. In contrast, open captions are embedded into the text and can’t be turned off.

Subtitles don’t have to be in the same language as the original content. They strictly transmit what is being said on the screen. People use subtitles to understand foreign-language content or difficult accents, because they are in a noisy environment or because they have an easier time following along when reading and listening simultaneously. Subtitles usually lack speaker identification and further information and are not an accessibility tool.

Captions vs Subtitles: Which is the Best Choice for Your Online Classroom?

The choice is up to you and depends on your target audience. Students who are deaf or hard of hearing benefit most from captions. If you have students who are non-native speakers, subtitles may be more appropriate. In some cases, it may be useful to provide both captions and subtitles for maximum accessibility.

Why Incorporating Captions and Subtitles is Vital for Effective Online Teaching

You are most likely teaching a diverse body of learners with a wide range of needs and prerequisites. Adding closed captions or subtitles to your class will allow you to accommodate your students and increase learning outcomes.

Accessibility

This is the big one! Students with a learning disability, impaired hearing, or other conditions depend on subtitles or captions. Certain legislation might require you to provide captions or subtitles as is the case with the Americans with Disabilities Act in the United States.

However, subtitles and captions are not just a tool for students with disabilities. A study by Educause showed that 50% of learners without disabilities also use captions.
Not every student has access to a quiet study space, high-quality audio equipment, and a fast internet connection. Providing subtitles or captions ensures learners can follow the course whatever their background or prerequisites.

Language Acquisition

Learn French by watching Call Your Agent. Improve your Korean with Parasite. Listening to content and reading subtitles simultaneously allows audiences to improve their language skills. What holds for the latest K-Drama, also applies to your classroom. In courses with subtitles or captions, non-native learners can practice reading and listening comprehension at the same time.

Reach

One of the advantages of online classes is that they can be accessed from anywhere in the world. You might originally have designed your course for learners in the US. By including subtitles in different languages, you open up your class to a global audience who can understand the content regardless of their location or language proficiency.

Comprehension and Retention

Subtitles can help learners retain information better, as they provide an additional way to process the information presented in a video. They also lower the barrier for non-native speakers who might struggle with their listening skills.

Effective Best Practices for Implementing Automatic Captions and Subtitles in Your Moodle Classes

Adding subtitles or captions to your Moodle classes is easy. Before we show you the tools to make your course more accessible and international, keep the following best practices in mind:

Ensure Easy Access

Make sure your learners know where to find the button to turn on captions or subtitles. You can either include a captioning button or toggle in your video player, make subtitles and captions the default option, or give students keyboard shortcuts, such as the ability to turn captions on and off with a single keystroke. The goal is to lower the barriers to accessing subtitles and captions as far as possible.

Check for Accuracy

Moodle allows you to create subtitles and closed captions automatically. While these tools are generally accurate, the Web Accessibility Initiative emphasizes that whenever possible, automated subtitles and captions should be checked for accuracy to avoid misunderstandings.

Know Your Audience and Your Material

Know whether subtitles or captions are the better solutions for your learners, and identify where in the course these tools are most beneficial. A listening comprehension exercise in a language class might not be the best place for subtitles.

Provide Alternatives

Subtitles and captions are an effective way to ensure that your course is accessible but they are not a catch-all solution. Consider providing audio descriptions or sign language interpretation to ensure that your content is accessible to a wide range of learners.

How to Implement Closed Captions and Subtitles in Your Moodle Course

A wide range of tools and products make adding subtitles to your course easier than ever before. 3 Play Media and RevCaptions – both accessibility services specializing in subtitles and captions – are popular paid options.

If you have some time on your hands, you can also add subtitles and captions to your Moodle course for free.

First, you have to create the subtitles by transcribing the video and adding time stamps in minutes and seconds. Make sure your file is in the WebVTT caption format. If you have never produced subtitles or don’t know how to create a WebVTT file, follow this step-by-step instruction.

You then upload the file to Moodle. In case you are unsure how to add your captions and subtitles to your Moodle course, the California College of the Arts Library has made this handy video guide.

If you embed a YouTube video in your class, you can also use YouTube’s auto-captions which saves you the work of creating the caption file. However, keep in mind that YouTube’s captions only provide a 60-70% accuracy rate which can lead to funny mistranslations but might also prevent your learners from understanding your course.

No time to add subtitles and captions manually and paying for a service that “only” adds captions to your course is not an option? Poodll might be exactly what you’re looking for!

Create Subtitles and Captions for Moodle with Poodll

If you are already teaching with Poodll, you know that it is your one-stop-shop for all your language instruction needs. Prepare your students for their TOEFL exams, access more than 10,000 video lessons, make your life easier with fully functioning auto-grading, create grade books and keep track of your students’ progress – all seamlessly integrated into your Moodle course.

Poodll also features advanced audio players specifically designed for language classes which include an option to automatically create transcriptions, captions, and subtitles in real time.

With Poodll Media, you can include a subtitle/transcript window on your screen. This allows your students to follow along with listening exercises, allowing them to jump around to different sentences and track their progress. Additionally, they can view their own speech or the speech of their peers directly on the screen, creating a more engaging and interactive learning experience.

Take a closer look at our transcription feature here.

No more downloading different plugins, no more awkward rewinding of audio passages no more switching between browser windows or worrying about caption quality. Poodll makes adding subtitles and captions to your Moodle classes easier than ever.

For a step-by-step walkthrough on how to add interactive subtitles to your Moodle classes with Poodll, take a look at this guide.

No matter which provider you choose or if you decide to create your own captions, adding subtitles and captions to your Moodle course allows you to access a wider audience, ensures that all students can follow your class, and accommodates a wide range of learners.

With Moodle’s subtitle and closed caption partners, it has never been easier to provide accessibility and increase the internationalization of your courses.

Not teaching with Poodll yet? Sign up here for your free trial and discover how Poodll can decrease your workload, increase study success, and makes adding accessibility features a breeze.

The post Boost Student Success with Accessibility: Your Guide to Adding Subtitles and Captions in Moodle first appeared on Poodll.

Four Poodll Tools to Make Your English-Teaching Life Easier in 2023

poodlladmin — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 06:44:15 +0000

Few things are worse than walking your dog at 6 am on a winter morning with light rain splattering your face and the cold creeping up your sweatpants. Sure, you love your dog dearly but right now, all you want is to lie in your warm bed and start your days slowly with the smell of coffee and pancakes wafting in from the kitchen.

Likewise, you care about your students deeply; you want them to do well and leave your class encouraged and motivated. But sometimes teaching can be as uninspiring and challenging as standing on your front lawn in the unholy early hours of the day, cold and wet, willing your dog to finally pee.

Luckily, Poodll can help you to have more teaching days that are as good as snuggling up with a puppy and watching old sitcom reruns (yes, we have an adorable office Poodle; and yes we will show you a picture of him at the end of this post).

As a teacher, you have enough on your plate already without having to worry about flunky tech and checked-out online students. Make your teaching life easier in 2023: Add Poodll to your classes and cut down your hours spent preparing and grading instantly.

Poodll is designed to make your online language teaching effective, inspiring, and hassle-free. Whether you are a seasoned Poodll user who wants a refresher on Poodll’s features, a newbie excited about all the new possibilities that Poodll gives you for teaching, or someone who has vaguely heard of Poodll and wants to know what it’s all about, we will walk you through four of our popular tools designed to make teaching languages easier.

What is Poodll Media?

Poodll Media is like having a dog leash that allows you to take ten dogs to the park at the same time – and have fun doing it. Poodll Media bundles over ten Moodle plugins in one application to make teaching on Moodle interactive, productive, and enjoyable.

Poodll Media features:

Advanced audio players specifically designed for language classes

Most players were not designed with language learners in mind. Poodll Media uses audio players that allow for different speeds, automatically play twice, and integrate seamlessly into your classroom interface. Insert playing and recording widgets almost anywhere in Moodle for easy access.

Easy-to-use recording features

Check on your students’ speaking competence with integrated recording features. Convert incoming audio and video to MP3 and MP4, use the feature for quizzes or assignments, and enable your learners to produce clear speaking samples.

Curious about our audio assignments? Deep dive into an example here.

Effortless interface

Seamlessly integrate your content and quizzes in our Poodll Media interface. Get inspired by our mini-lessons and sample quizzes and create digital, engaging, and effective online lessons in minutes.

Check out one of our example quizzes.

Auto transcriptions, captions, and subtitles

Automatically create transcriptions, captions, and subtitles in real-time. Poodll Media gives you the option to have a subtitle/transcript window on your screen. Students can follow a listening exercise with the transcript, can jump around to different sentences, and see their own speech (or that of others) directly produced on screen.Take a closer look at our transcription feature here.

How Will Poodll Media Make My Teaching Life Easier?

Teaching students how to speak in an online class is a challenge. Bad audio quality, clunky tech, and boring lessons lead to demotivated students that attend classes but don’t learn.

No more downloading different plugins, no more awkward rewinding of audio passages no more switching between browser windows or worrying about audio quality. Poodll Media provides you with crystal-clear audio, players that auto-repeat or play at different speeds, sharp speaking assessment tools – all just a few clicks away.

Poodll Media has an easy backend that gives you complete control of your class and is compatible with many browsers and devices, limiting interruptions due to tech problems.

Simply add Poodll Media to your course and instantly access transcription options, audio players, and create productive audio assessments.

If you don’t have a Poodll account, you sign up for a 30-day free trial to see how it transforms your classes.

What is Poodll Languages?

Poodll Languages is a collection of powerful Moodle plugins specifically designed to support English-language learners in the four essential skills: reading, speaking, listening, and writing (coming soon).

No more collecting exercises, creating vocabulary lists, finding audio examples, tedious grading, and trying to get audio players to work. Poodll Languages is your easily-integrated all-rounder that makes online teaching effective and enjoyable.

Poodll Languages features:

Minilesson

Create entire self-contained lessons from a sequence of different activities. Combine speaking and reading practice, include dictation, speaking exercises, and multiple-choice questions in your lesson. Expand and individualize lessons by including videos, images, or your own texts.

Minilessons are automatically graded and give your students instant feedback. Simply assign the lesson and let Poodll Languages do the rest. Results are stored in the course grade book.

Students love the interactive interface and instant feedback of our Mini-Lessons.

Check out this Minilesson to get an idea of what the feature can do for you.

WordCards

Make learning vocabulary a breeze – without designing long word lists. WordCards introduces students to new words in context and provides speech cards, type-the-word-tasks, or choose-the-answer options to support memorization.

WordCards is mobile-friendly so your students can learn anywhere. Five different activity types ensure that learners don’t get bored. Spaced repetition and review exercises reinforce already learned words and introduce new ones.

WordCards supports different languages such as Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and more, so that English learners from various backgrounds can use them.

WordCards exercises are entirely self-graded, allowing you to focus on more interactive activities. No more grading of vocabulary quizzes!

Take a look at this WordCards example to see how it works.

ReadAloud

Measure reading speed and accuracy – without having to listen to the same reading exercises over and over again. ReadAloud uses AI to assess your students’ reading. The AI returns correct-words-per-minute (WPM), checks for accuracy, creates error scores, and gives instant feedback.

You are in control: Choose your own texts from your textbook or any other source, set time limits, listen to recordings, or access the AI assessments.

Use three different modes to teach reading and pronunciation: the listen mode allows learners to listen to a text and follow along with a reading, the practice mode lets them repeat a reading sentence by sentence and gives them instant feedback, the read mode where learners read a text and are assessed on their speed and accuracy.

ReadAloud can be used beyond the English classroom. The plugin supports most modern languages.

Take a look at a ReadAloud lesson here.

Poodll Solo

Poodll Solo teaches your students how to speak in three stages: students prepare a topic, they record their speech and have it transcribed, and receive feedback on pronunciation, grammar, and word use.

Poodll Solo’s automatic grading system uses cutting-edge technology to provide instant feedback and suggestions for improvement.

Check out this Poodll Solo lesson on one of our favorite topics: dogs!

How Will Poodll Languages Make My Teaching Life Easier?

Ever heard the excuse that the dog ate their homework? Now you’ll have a Poodll to grade assignments. Poodll Languages takes tedious tasks like grading and creating vocabulary lists and assignments off your hands so you can focus on other aspects of your class.

Poodll Languages will save you time and push your students to new language levels. Let the auto-grade features check your students’ assignments and homework, create high-quality mini-lessons that are directly integrated into your course, and automatically assign and assess reading exercises.

Like all of Poodll’s products Poodll Languages works on all modern browsers and devices and features an intuitive backend. No more interrupted classes through bad tech.

Poodll Languages is loved by language instructors all over the world. Free up time in your day for what really matters to you while also improving your students’ language skills.

What is English Central?

Integrate English Central lessons directly into your Moodle course. English Central allows your students to improve their language skills through fun, authentic videos.

Choose from 10,000 video lessons, track your students’ progress, and create a grade book. Students learn vocabulary in context and realistic scenarios, preparing them for a real-life application of their language skills. English Central allows them to record themselves, practice speaking, and receive automatic feedback.

Take a deep dive into one of our intermediate lessons here.

English Central is compatible with our Poodll courses. Prepare your students for their TOEFL exams, let them take a speaking challenge, or teach them English with Steve Jobs. Expertly-designed activities, real-life examples, and a fun format make Poodll Courses the perfect choice for you and your students.

Check out our popular 14-day speaking challenge and watch your students succeed.

How Will English Central Make My Teaching Life Easier?

Never again scour the internet for authentic videos, and never again spend hours grading your students’ speaking assignments. Using English Central frees up hours in your day (to take your dog for an extra long walk) while giving your students fun and easy-to-use learning activities.

What is Poodll Net?

Poodll Net is like this perfect long walk with your dog that allows you to finally clear your head and focus on what really matters. It’s your one-stop-shop solution for all your language teaching needs and eliminates all those time-consuming distractions. Poodll Net allows you to put your students’ learning at the center of everything you do. Create your own digital language school with Poodll Net, a hosted learning management system (LMS) for teaching languages.

Poodll Net features:

Complete LMS

Everything you need to run your digital class beyond Moodle: enrollment, hosting, grading, etc. All in one place.

Report Builder

Include ready-made reports to track your students’ progress or create your own.

Enrollment Methods

Enroll students in courses manually, via self-registration, or via Stripe/Paypal payments.

Poodll Languages and Poodll Media

Includes two of our most popular products to deliver engaging, productive classes with templates for mini-lessons, material, quizzes, and auto-grading.

Even more Plugins

Includes other plugins such as H5P, Gapfill, and LevelUp to personalize your course even further and add more teaching tools.

Certificates

Issue certificates for completed courses.

How Does Poodll Net Make My Teaching Life Easier?

It doesn’t get much easier than Poodll Net. You want to teach, not set up a complex online learning system. Poodll Net gives you all you need from enrolling students to issuing their certificates in one place. Host interactive courses with authentic material, provide a wide range of different exercises, and use auto-grading to cut down on your workload.

Poodll Net is your bespoke online teaching solution – precisely tailored to your needs.

Thousands of schools and organizations worldwide already use Poodll in their online classes – they love how easily Poodll integrates into their existing courses and how it supports their students’ speaking and listening skills.

My university’s language center has been using Poodll for seven years to bring spoken production and spoken interaction to our online curriculum. Poodll’s suite of tools enable us to assess speaking and oral reading with ease. The service is robust and has never let us down (even though we process thousands of audio and video files weekly). Any teacher or school instructing languages will find this tool extremely useful.

Sojo Silc, longtime Poodll user

Make your teaching life easier in 2023: drastically cut down on time preparing lessons and grading assignments, free yourself from clunky and unreliable tech, use real-life videos without spending hours looking for them.

Not only will you have more time to focus on what matters to you, but your students will also love the interactive, fun exercises, and the instant feedback they receive.

What are you waiting for? Sign up for your free 30-day Poodll trial and start teaching smarter in 2023.

Meet Sonny …

As promised here is Poodll’s very own office doggie ..

The post Four Poodll Tools to Make Your English-Teaching Life Easier in 2023 first appeared on Poodll.

How to Teach Speaking to Students – Practices and Strategies

poodlladmin — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 04:31:22 +0000

In an episode of the comedy series Modern Family, Gloria, a Colombian immigrant mother living in the US, has finally enough of her family’s jokes about her accent. “Do you know how smart I am in Spanish?”, she shouts at her husband before doing a dramatic hair flip and walking away.

Her experience resonates with many non-native English-speaking viewers who also often feel belittled for their accents or “non-perfect” way of speaking.

The second we open our mouths, we give away a lot about ourselves: our accent or dialect reveals our place of origin and sometimes social status. People make assumptions about each other’s education level, intelligence, and personality based on how they speak. Therefore, many English learners avoid speaking for fear of making mistakes, because they struggle with their accent, or because they are simply too shy to express themselves.

Teachers hope to instill a sense of confidence and competence in their students to help them on their pathway from beginner to fluency. Many instructors spend a significant amount of classroom time teaching and practicing speaking – sometimes with varying results.If you are looking for a way to improve your students’ speaking competence, read on. We collected our favorite strategies and exercises for you to get you started.

Teaching Speaking to English Students of Different Levels

One size doesn’t fit all. Nowhere is this more true than in the classroom. Your students likely arrive with various prerequisites and initial English levels, they come from different backgrounds and had varying degrees of exposure to English. Luckily, you can use various strategies and exercises to teach speaking to students of different levels which can be easily combined in heterogeneous classrooms.

Beginners

Getting Beginners to speak is often not too difficult. Simple exercises and repeating phrases and dialogues are key. However, what if you want your learners to produce English, not merely verbally fill in the blanks or read out sentences from your textbook?

Focus on getting a message across. At this stage in their learning, the vocabulary and grammar knowledge of your students is still quite limited, but that doesn’t mean they can’t communicate. Give your students real-life scenarios (introducing themselves, going shopping) and let them role-play using verbal and non-verbal communication with a focus on communicating and delivering a message, not correctness. Let them make liberal use of visual aids. They might be surprised how much they can communicate with a few words. Take a look at Poodll’s mini lessons for easily implemented speaking activities.

As always, the British Council has a great selection of speaking exercises for the beginner’s level. For more tips on how to teach speaking to beginners, take a look at this video.

Intermediate Learners

Practising speaking with intermediate learners can be difficult. At this stage, students are often aware of their mistakes and perceived shortcomings and might feel shy or inhibited. Much like when teaching beginner students, the goal should be on getting a message across. A communication situation is successful if all parties understand each other, not if they speak with perfect grammar and pronunciation. Help your students let go of the idea of perfection.

Encourage your students to use varied vocabulary. Instead of simple words like “good”, “bad”, or “very”, ensure that they challenge themselves and use appropriate synonyms.

Poodll uses its in-built transcription feature which transcribes and evaluates your students’ speech and supports them with their pronunciation and fluency. Take a look at our interactive transcript player for an easy speech-teaching solution.

TeachIt also has collected a wide selection of intermediate-level speaking resources for teachers. For a video guide on teaching speaking to intermediate learners, click here.

Advanced Students

Teaching advanced students is both rewarding and challenging. At this level, students usually have a good command over vocabulary and grammar issues, expanding the topics you can discuss in your classroom as well as the complexity of the material.

Debate clubs, roleplays, and even creating short films or podcasts are great ways to teach speaking at this level. If you are in need of inspiration with regard to topics, check out this website.

The challenge of teaching advanced students lies in teaching the finer points of pronunciation and focusing on the correct use of language.

Poodll uses AI to assess and guide your students’ pronunciation, ensure accuracy, and give timely feedback. If your students enjoy learning pronunciation with poetry, this lesson plan provides you with more ideas and exercises. You can also take a look at this free webinar on teaching English to advanced learners.

Strategies and Methods for Teaching Pronunciation

Most of these strategies can be applied to learners of all language levels.

Embrace Accents

Many students feel shy about their accents which prevents them from speaking. The fact is, that many English learners will retain some sort of accent, no matter how much they practice or how much exposure they have to English. Their accent might even change over their lifetime. Even native speakers have regional accents.

If the accent does not prevent your students from being understood, make a point of embracing it in your classroom. An accent is what makes your students unique.

If you want to support your students in embracing their accents and need some statistics to back you up, check out this British Council video series.

We can’t all speak like the King of England or a BBC presenter. The most important thing for your students is that they are understood.

The 4-3-1 Method

Linguistic Professor Paul Nation first developed this method that has students speak for four minutes, then three minutes, and finally two minutes about one specific topic. This exercise focuses on fluency, the ability to talk naturally and without too many pauses. It’s great for intermediate and advanced learners.

The implementation is simple:

Introduce a topic and prepare relevant vocabulary
Give students time to prepare
Divide students into groups or pairs
Have one student speak for four minutes without interruption, the others listen
Give them time to rest
Students change partners or groups and give the same speech in three minutes
Rest again
Students change again and have two minutes to give the speech
Students reflect together

Why does this method work? When given four minutes, students generally speak slower and with more pauses as they develop their thoughts. In the following intervals, they will have to get the same information across in a shorter period. They will most likely limit their pauses and increase their speaking speed, especially because they have already practiced talking about the topic. The 4-3-2 method is proven to work and a fun and effective speaking exercise.

Use Tech to Your Advantage

Some students might feel shy speaking to their peers or teachers, regardless of their English level. Self-paced exercises are a great way to build up their skills and confidence.

Poodll Solo allows students to record their speaking exercises and uses AI to auto-grade them. Learners receive immediate feedback on their speaking and pronunciation. Practicing with an AI allows them to speak freely without the fear of embarrassment and mistakes. You can use self-graded exercises as complementary to pair work and in-class speaking or on their own.

Five Exercises Outside the Classroom

Combine these strategies and exercises in your classroom to support your students’ speaking skills. However, classroom time is often limited to a few hours a week – not enough to become a proficient speaker. Assign your students these five easy exercises to improve their speaking. Even just five to ten minutes a day will make a notable difference.

Sing Along

Ask students to listen to their favorite English song over and over again. Most likely, they will already know many passages by heart. Have them look up the lyrics online and read them while listening. Eventually, your students will be able to belt out their favorite song in the shower, in the car, or just sitting in front of their laptops. Without making it feel like tedious work, they will have expanded their vocabulary and improved their pronunciation.

Talk to Yourself

Many students feel shy about talking to others in English – especially when they are at the beginning or middle stage of their learning journey. Ask your students to talk to themselves when they are alone.

Let them narrate what they are doing or make up conversations in their head. The key is to really talk out loud. Ideally, your learners would practice in front of a mirror to see how their mouth moves, but even just narrating their clearing or cooking process is a great start.

Twist Tongues

Tongue Twisters are popular for a reason. They draw attention to difficult-to-pronounce sounds or words and make sure that speakers concentrate when saying them. Your students can either practice alone or with friends and family members, or you can start a friendly tongue twister competition in your classroom.

Check out this extensive collection of evergreen and unusual tongue twisters or point your students to videos like this where they can listen to the twisters first before practicing.

Celebrate Wins (No Matter How Small)

Communicating in a new language can feel overwhelming. After all, there is an almost infinite amount of mistakes to make. Make sure that your students celebrate wins – however small they might be.

Maybe they were able to order in a restaurant when on vacation, perhaps they switched their voice assistant to English and it finally understood them, or they were able to chat with another player in an online game. Every successful communication situation is a cause for celebration and a sign that your students are on the right track.

Playback Time

Ask your students to record themselves and listen to their own voices. Chances are that they will detect their mistakes and can correct them on their own.

Poodll allows you to give your students recording assignments in Moodle. Learners can record themselves directly into Moodle HTML areas, assignments, and quizzes, submit recorded assignments, and listen to their recordings. An AI will provide them with instant feedback and suggestions for improvement

Conclusion

Learning to communicate effectively in a foreign language is one of the most challenging and important skills to acquire. Without speaking, learners will never make rewarding connections with natives, they won’t be able to navigate a foreign country, or study and work abroad.

We hope our speaking tips and tricks will help you plan your next speaking class. Make sure to create a supportive classroom atmosphere, use a variety of mediums and resources, and implement auto-grade features, where possible.

Easy recording options, real-life exercises, interactive captions, subtitles, auto-grading, and fun mini-lessons: Poodll makes teaching speaking a breeze. If you haven’t already, sign up for your free test account to find out all that Poodll has to offer.

And if you are teaching with Poodll already, why not check out our Poodll courses or our blog section to stay updated on our latest developments?

The post How to Teach Speaking to Students – Practices and Strategies first appeared on Poodll.

A Step-By-Step Guide to Teaching English Vocabulary Effectively with the New General Service List

poodlladmin — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 02:59:04 +0000

How many words exist in the English language? The short answer is that we don’t know. Linguists estimate that there are around one million English words. Dictionaries like Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary count around 470,000 entries. Many of these words are obsolete, meaning that we don’t use them anymore and that even native speakers wouldn’t understand them easily.

You don’t need to be a new learner to feel overwhelmed by this number. Luckily, we don’t need nearly as many words to be functional speakers of English.

How Many Words Do Your Students Need to Communicate in English?

It depends on what you define as a word. If you count related words such as dance and dancing as separate, then the average native speaker knows between 20,000 and 35,000 words. That doesn’t mean that your students now have to sit down and learn a list of 20,000 terms.

250 to 500 words will get students to a functional beginner level where they can have very basic interactions such as ordering in a restaurant.

1,000 to 3,000 words are enough to be on a conversational level that allows students to navigate most day-to-day situations.

4,000 to 10,000 words give students the tools to speak about specialized subjects and more complex topics.

10,000+ words are enough to be considered fluent. With such an extensive knowledge of vocabulary, speakers can expect to understand even unfamiliar words from context.

Just knowing how many words to learn is not enough. Your students will have to know what kind of words will bring them further on their path to fluency. Enter the New General Service List.

What is the New General Service List?

The New General Service List (NGSL) compiles a core of high-frequency vocabulary words for students wishing to learn English. It was created in 2013 by Dr. Charles Browne, Dr. Brent Culligan and Joseph Phillips, university instructors and professors of English.

It took Browne, Culligan and Phillips four years to select 2801 words from the 2 billion word Cambridge English Corpus.

If your students knew every word in the NGSL, they would understand around 92% of the most general English texts.

The NGSL will provide your learners with the most common words they need to reach a conversational level. If you want to teach beyond that, consider using the additional word lists compiled by Browne, Culligan and Phillips:

the New Academic Word List (NAWL)
the TOEIC Service List (TSL)
the Business Service List (BSL)
the Fitness English List (FEL)
the New Dolch List (NDL) for young learners
the New General Service List Spoken (NGSL-S)

A STEM-List is in the works.

The NGSL is not the first vocabulary list that compiled the most commonly used words in English. In 1953 the English teacher and researcher Michael West published the General Service List (GSL) that featured 2,000 words. However, English changes constantly and today the GSL is considered dated and too small for modern use.

Why Should You Use the NGSL in Your Classroom?

Learning vocabulary is the most basic and most important activity when acquiring a new language. However, how do you ensure that your students learn the “right” words, meaning those terms that will help them understand and speak English quickly?

If you are looking for the most commonly used words that will get your students to a reasonable level of English, the NGSL is your best choice. The NGSL is compiled by experts in the field of English-language acquisition and the inclusion of words in the list is based on solid research.

If your learners can understand most basic texts, they will feel motivated to keep going. The NGSL is the perfect basis to build core knowledge from which your students can branch out.

All of Browne, Culligan and Phillips’ word lists are in the public domain. You can use them in your classes as you see fit as long as you cite them like this:

Browne, C., Culligan, B. & Phillips, J. (2013). The New General Service List. Retrieved from http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org.

The Most Effective Ways to Teach Vocabulary in an English Classroom

Just give the NGSL list to your students, tell them to learn it by heart and they will be good to go. Of course, it’s not that easy. The NGSL tells you which words to teach, but figuring out how to help your students learn them is the tricky part.

We have compiled some of our favourite strategies to teach vocabulary effectively.

Use Digital Word Cards

This strategy either works as a digital supplement to in-person lessons or in a fully digital learning environment.

Flashcards are oldies but goodies. After all, they have helped people learn languages since at least the 18th century.

On their website, Browne, Culligan and Phillips provide teachers with links to a range of resources to teach the list such as a Word-Learner App, Memrise Flashcards, or a glossary.

Flashcards work best if the words on them are set in context. Poodll Word Cards is a vocabulary training activity for Moodle. Students learn and review words by completing exercises such as listen-and-type, choose-the-answer, speech cards, or type-the-words tasks. Different activities allow learners to encounter words in various contexts.

Poodll Word Cards work great as a self-study component in your class. Students encounter words based on their learning activities (with words that they struggle with displayed more frequently), and instructors can have assignments auto-graded.

Poodll WordCards is part of Poodll, a set of tools for language teachers used by hundreds of schools and universities worldwide. If you don’t have Poodll yet, start your 30-day trial here.

Use the Power of Books

Students remember words better if they encounter them in their “natural environment,” meaning in articles, on websites, or in books.

Consistent reading assignments help your students build their vocabulary naturally. Complement reading exercises with classroom discussions and reading aloud to train pronunciation and speaking.

Rather than working with your students through individual book passages, have them do Extensive Reading (ER), where they pick a book and read it fully. The focus in ER lies on enjoying reading and building vocabulary naturally, not on accompanying tasks. Oxford University Press has a graded reading list that helps you to pick books suitable to your students’ levels. More advanced learners might enjoy reading a children’s book.

If your students are daunted by the thought of reading a book in English, provide them with shorter, more accessible texts. News in Levels provides world news in English, divided into three difficulty levels.

Play Games

We all love to play. Students learn best when they are engaged and entertained. Almost 70% of students report higher levels of engagement in gamified classes. Nobody wants to study an endless list of words, but turn vocabulary learning into a fun game and your students will surprise you with their progress.

For beginner learners, try Vocabulary Hangman. Have a student come to the (digital) whiteboard. He or she thinks of a word. The other students have to guess each letter of the word. For each wrong guess, your student draws a part of a hangman stick figure. The harder the word, the more fun the game.

Intermediate students can play Pictionary. Divide your class into teams. Have one member per team draw a vocabulary card. The student must convey the word to their team by drawing (either on your whiteboard or on a shared screen). If the team guesses the word, they receive a point. The team with the most points wins. This game is also great for specialized and more difficult lists.

Students of all levels can play Vocabulary Hunters. Have them find a keyword in a book or text. Whoever finds it first, wins. Once they find the word, they can make up a sentence with it. Have more advanced learners write short stories based on their found words.

If you want to work with digital games that are a little more complex, consider using a service like Wordwall that allows you to create custom teaching games such as gameshows, whack-a-mole, or card games.

If you are teaching with Moodle, check out our video on how to integrate Wordwall into Moodle here.

Conclusion

Vocabulary lists help you and your students understand what they have to learn to reach a certain language level. The NGSL is a fantastic list to guide your learners through their early English stages and build a solid foundation. More specialised lists such as the NGSL Academic or Business Word Lists allow your students to increase their vocabulary in fields that matter to them.

Learning new words is both rewarding and tedious. Your students will feel motivated when they can suddenly access new material or express their views on new topics. Nevertheless, sitting down and learning seemingly endless lists of words is daunting even for the most engaged learner. Try some of the tools and tips we’ve mentioned to help students get to the “rewarding” part.

The post A Step-By-Step Guide to Teaching English Vocabulary Effectively with the New General Service List first appeared on Poodll.

Four English Teaching Trends (and One Evergreen) to Watch Out for in 2023

poodlladmin — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 05:15:10 +0000

In recent years, predictions have been notoriously difficult to make. After all, the many new words we have added to our dictionaries since 2020 – from ecoanxiety to hodophobia (the fear of travelling, particularly in a pandemic), to social distance, and doomscrolling – show us just how much has changed in unprecedented ways.

Nevertheless, Poodll has taken out its crystal ball to find out what we will be talking about in the teachers’ lounge in 2023. Read on for our four trend predictions for English teaching and the one evergreen that is here to stay. Stay with us until the end of the article and we will share our favorite new word of 2022 with you.

Trend 1: Online and Distance Learning is Here to Stay

As lockdowns lifted and learners filled classrooms and university lecture halls again, many were happy to return to in-person learning and teaching. Particularly the early months of 2020, with ill-equipped schools, overwhelmed teachers, and struggling students and parents, demonstrated the pitfalls of online education.

However, the often underfunded and quickly assembled early-pandemic classes never reflected the full potential of online learning. As new technologies emerge and instructors become more knowledgeable and tech-savvy, the benefits of online learning become increasingly clearer:

access to a wide range of courses (especially for smaller communities)
individual learning paths for high-achieving students or those in need of more support
increase in digital literacy
location- and time-independent learning for greater accessibility
mitigation of school interruptions (f.e. due to bad weather)

2023 will be the year that fully cements that online and distance learning is here to stay for good. The projected growth of the online education market to US$319.167 billion in 2025 (from US$187.877 billion in 2019) illustrates the trend towards digital learning.

While some programs, particularly for adult learners, will remain fully digital, online learning will be used more as a supplement to in-person teaching than on its own.

Keep in mind that not every student is tech-savvy. If students lack the digital skills needed to access or understand the material, they will be at risk of being left behind.

If you are interested in bringing digital literacy to your English classroom, why not check out the British Council’s free webinar? LINCS, a collection of free materials from US Federal Initiatives to improve teaching, has a self-paced course on digital literacy for English teaching that will provide you with a good basis.

Trend 2: Equity and Diversity Become Even More Important

Questions of equity and diversity in education have become increasingly polarised – from banning books on inclusion and diversity in the US to more and more students supporting social justice causes.

For better or worse the English classroom, with its focus on debate and expression and its endless opportunities to include timely topics and resources, has often been one of the focal points for equity movements and their detractors.

Moreover, and unfortunately, the pandemic increased inequality in almost all areas, leaving students from low-income or non-white backgrounds behind.

In 2023 equity and diversity will not only stay relevant, but they will also take up a bigger role in English classrooms as instructors try to mitigate some effects of the pandemic.

We have collected some of our favorite equity and diversity resources to help you bring even more inclusion and diversity to your teaching:

Gender and LGTBQ+ Inclusion

Safe at School provides a useful collection of strategies that you can use to ensure gender and sexuality inclusion in your classroom.

Reading literature is one of the most challenging and rewarding ways to learn a new language. Why not provide your students with a list of novels by women of color or add these LGBTQ+ novels to your lesson plans?

Racial Equality

The New York Times has compiled this useful list of 26 short films to explore questions of race with your students. At between two and seven minutes long, they are the perfect introduction to discussions or group work.

English is a language with a long history of colonisation. EFL magazine has a list to get you started on decolonising the classroom, from embracing accents to using new materials. For a more thorough examination of racism in the classroom, check out this article.

Students with Special Needs

Teacher Vision has resources for teaching students with special needs as does Edutopia. For a quick intro to teaching English to special needs students, we recommend this video by Dr. Diane Haager.

Trend 3: The Role of AI in the Classroom Will Increase

Few things polarize more than Artificial Intelligence (AI). For some AI means smarter, more productive classes and support for instructors and students. Others have visions of being replaced by an AI teacher or fear implementing a technology that is poorly understood.

As with any technology, AI is what you make of it. AI can be used to automate tedious tasks or evaluate student data so that instructors can make more informed decisions and support students where they need it most.

So how can you use AI in your English class in a way that makes sense for you and your students? Here are three simple, very easy-to-implement suggestions:

Use Speech Recognition

Have your students speak with an AI assistant like Siri or have them practice pronunciation with Google Doc Speech recognition.

Talk to the Bot

Have your students talk to a Chatbot to practice English. This is great for shy students as they won’t feel judged by a bot.

Use Auto-Grade

Use AI to decrease your grading workload so you can focus on supporting your students in other areas. Poodll Solo employs speech-to-text software and NLP artificial intelligence to evaluate students speaking and increase their oral competencies.

Bots or AI assistants won’t replace teachers. They are not supposed to. AI, at least for now, is still a somewhat limited tool that helps you teach – nothing more, nothing less.

If you are an AI newbie and curious about using AI in the classroom, we recommend reading Artificial intelligence in EFL classrooms: Friend or foe? The article gives a good introduction to what AI is and how it can be used for teaching.

Trend 4: Task-Based Language Teaching

Task-based language learning (TBLT) has been around for a few decades but this method will increasingly dominate classrooms in 2023.

TBLT involves tasks that are typically rooted in authentic real-life situations. The focus lies on improving students’ communication skills, rather than on learning grammatical forms, prescribed vocabulary, or structures set out in textbooks.

Instead of learning about new language concepts in a defined, teacher-focused way, TBLT encourages students to use their new target language naturally and to their best abilities.

A TBLT lesson typically consists of different stages:

Preparation: A teacher introduces the topic (f.e. food, drinks), and the task (f.e. hosting a birthday party), and sets clear expectations. Students have the chance to review relevant content.
Task: Students complete the task in pairs or groups, using their language skills.
Review: Students share their tasks with their peers. Teachers and other learners give feedback.
Follow-up: Based on the students’ performances, instructors may assign additional exercises.

Tasks can be any real-life situation that involves communication: Have your students plan a trip to their favorite country, visit a doctor’s office, or record a podcast. More advanced students can simulate business meetings or start-up pitches.

TBLT has many advantages over more traditional methods. It is student-centered, focuses on real-life communication skills, and prepares learners for authentic scenarios.

TBLT is already a popular teaching method but it will become even more widespread in 2023 as instructors are looking for ways to bring authenticity into their classrooms.

If you have never used TBLT in your classroom, the British Council provides a brief mini-lesson on the method here as well as task ideas to get you started.

The Evergreen: Preparing Students for the Job Market

In a globalised workforce, English will remain one of the most important job skills. Whether it is writing a resume for an international employer, communicating with clients from different countries, or reading vital reports and papers – your lessons, directly and indirectly, prepare your students for their future careers.

English classrooms have long been spaces where learners acquire more than new vocabulary and grammatical concepts. By teaching English, you also teach intercultural knowledge, communication, and soft skills – thereby preparing your students for the job market.

More than 90% of employers see soft skills as critical when hiring a candidate. Teamwork, interpersonal skills, problem-solving or critical thinking are soft skills that can easily be included in your English lessons.

Check out this video to get started on how to teach soft skills that will prepare your students for their future careers.

Looking to support your students with potential medical careers? Try our Medical English: Communication for Doctors class that focuses on medical communication skills. The course seamlessly integrates into your existing Poodll products.

Poodll is a set of tools for language teachers used by hundreds of schools and universities worldwide. If you don’t have Poodll yet, start your 30-day trial here.

Conclusion

Don’t shy away from addressing real-life topics in your classroom or from using technology to your advantage. Authentic exercises and methods such as TBLT, timely issues, and smart use of tech will help you to connect with your students and engage your learners.

We hope you enjoyed this glance into the crystal ball with us. While 2023 will certainly present us with a few challenges, we also have the opportunity to create a meaningful and lasting impact on our students.

P.S.: Our favorite new word of 2022 is Fluffernutter – a sandwich made with peanut butter and marshmallow crème between two slices of white bread. An adorable word for a tasty snack.

The post Four English Teaching Trends (and One Evergreen) to Watch Out for in 2023 first appeared on Poodll.

Your Ultimate 2022 Guide to the Duolingo English Test – What Is It? Who Accepts It? How Do You Prepare Your Students for It?

poodlladmin — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 04:37:02 +0000

Living and studying abroad is one of the best ways to learn a new language and immerse yourself in a new culture. If your students consider studying abroad, they might ask you what test they should take to prove their English level to a prospective university.

The Duolingo English Test is a solid alternative to many of the more traditional tests such as TOEFL or IELTS. In this article, we will walk you through what the Duolingo English Test is (and isn’t) and how to prepare your students for it effectively.

What is the Duolingo English Test?

Compared to more established English tests, the Duolingo English Test (DET) has been around for a relatively short time. In 2016 the people behind the popular language learning app Duolingo created the test for students who need to prove their English level for academic purposes.

The DET is an online test, meaning participants can take it anywhere and anytime as long as they have a good internet connection.

With a price of $49 USD, the DET is much cheaper compared to more traditional testing options. You can also send your scores to up to 40 institutions at no extra cost whereas tests like TOEFL charge for each additional score report.

What Kind of Questions Can Your Students Expect?

The DET assesses your students’ ability to read, speak, write, and listen. The test takes about an hour to complete. It is divided into three stages:

introduction
adaptive exam
video interview

The adaptive exam features tasks such as:

fill in the missing word or letter
listen to different words and select which belongs to the English language
type out what you hear
record yourself speaking about a preselected topic
reading comprehension
describe an image

As you can see, DET uses standard tasks and prompts to assess English levels. It’s an adaptive test, meaning the questions get progressively more difficult or easier depending on your students’ performance and skills.

Limitations of the Duolingo English Test

Currently, only around 2,000 academic institutions accept the DET, fewer compared to more established tests such as TOEFL or IELTS. You can find a list of the institutions that work with Duolingo here.

Moreover, immigration offices don’t accept the test as proof of English skills for visa applications. Since the DET has not been established as long as IELTS or TOEFL, some prospective employers might not have heard about it and might also be hesitant to accept it.

DET, IELTS, TOEFL – Which Test is Right for Your Students?

TOEFL, IELTS, DET, Cambridge English, iTEP – if your students are planning to take an English test to apply to an academic institution abroad, they have many options.

We compared the two most popular tests – IELTS and TOEFL – to the newcomer DET so that you can confidently answer if your students ask you about testing options.

What is the IELTS?

If you have ever studied abroad in an English-speaking country or immigrated to Canada, the US, or Australia, chances are you had to take an IELTS exam.

The International English Language Test (IELTS) has been around since the 1980s and is accepted by more than 11,000 employers, universities, schools and immigration bodies globally. The British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia, and Cambridge English jointly own IELTS.

IELTS tests are either done on location in one of their testing centers or online. Prices vary according to test type and location but are typically in the range of $150 to $300 USD.

What is TOEFL?

Similarly to the IELTS, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) is designed to assess the English levels of non-native speakers who wish to study in or migrate to an Anglophone country. Educational Testing Service (ETS), a private non-profit organization, designs and administers the test.

Learners can take the test either in a test center or, if they fulfil certain requirements, at home.

Fees depend on your testing location and range from $180 to $325 USD.

Take a look at our table for a quick overview of the three tests.

	Location	Price	Results	Accepted by academic institutions	Accepted by immigration authorities
IELTS	online or in test centers around the world	varies, typically between 150 to 300 USD	within 3 to 13 days, valid for two years	yes	yes
TOEFL	online or in test centers around the world	varies, typically between 180 to 320 USD	within 4 to 13 days, valid for two years	yes	yes
DET	online	49 USD	within 48 hours, valid for two years	yes, but not all	no

As you can see, the DET provides a cheaper, quicker, and more convenient testing experience. If your students plan to apply to a university that accepts the DET, the Duolingo test is a great alternative to the more established tests.

If your students decide on taking the TOEFL test and you want to support them, check out our TOEFL speaking preparation course that will help your students to pass the speaking and vocabulary portion of the exam with ease.

How Can You Prepare Your Students for the Duolingo English Test?

Duolingo provides free practice tests and test guides on its website. By taking one of these exams, your students will find out what type of questions they will face on test day, where their strengths lie, and which skills they will need to polish to pass.

Remind your students that it is not possible to cram for a language exam. Proficiency in a language takes time and practice. If they want to make sure that their score is high enough to be accepted to a university or obtain a visa, they generally need to invest around three months to prepare.

We have created a list of resources for you to help students improve their English levels in the four key areas:

Improve Speaking Skills

Speaking can be one of the hardest skills to learn. Students often feel embarrassed about their accents or are scared to make mistakes.

If your students are still too shy to speak to others, encourage them to have little conversations with themselves. Have them narrate out loud what they are doing at home or encourage them to create mini-conversations between two fictional characters to practice.

YouTube is another place where your students can practice their speaking by following along on a video on British Accents or joining an English lesson for children.

If you already use Moodle to teach your class, consider letting your students take our Poodll Speaking Challenge. The challenge consists of a range of activities around common conversation topics. The 14-day time frame gives your students an achievable goal.

Improve Listening Skills

So many dialects – so little time. Because English is a global language, the different dialects might be confusing for your students.

Podcasts are a great way to listen to native speakers from different parts of the world, learn about culture, and incorporate English into their day-to-day life.

For bite-sized chunks of British English, we recommend 6 Minute English by the BBC, short insights into specific words or cultural topics. More advanced learners with an interest in the United States might enjoy listening to This American Life, a longer podcast that features a different topic each week. If your students’ goal is to hang out with kangaroos, point them to Australians Teach English, a podcast focused on Australian English.

If you want to add fun, real-life videos to your Moodle course to improve your students’ listening skills, check out Poodll’s English-central plugin. Your students will watch authentic videos, learn vocabulary in context, and get feedback on their spoken English – all within your Moodle course.

Improve Writing Skills

It doesn’t always have to be a business email or a full-fledged essay. Your students can start writing in English by taking small steps. Encourage them to switch their social media profile to English for a day a week or chat with native speakers on social media.

Follow these principles when teaching writing:

Start small and build from there
Use different topics and genres in exercises
Have students analyze real-life writing and let them imitate it
Practice makes perfect: assign journals so that your students write every day

Your students have to write texts that are up to 200 words long to pass the IELTS, TOEFL or DET test. If you want to coach them towards achieving this goal, give them writing prompts. Need inspiration? Use a writing prompt generator.

Improve Reading Skills

In many ways, reading is a skill that is more easily acquired. Learners have time to look up words, read passages multiple times, and can choose to read about any topic they like.

The British Council has plenty of reading exercises from deciphering a menu for beginners to Business English for more advanced learners.

Advanced learners will enjoy reading novels to deep-dive into English culture and language. You can provide them with a list of novels to explore and even encourage them to form book clubs and join online discussions on sites such as Goodreads.

Make sure you don’t overwhelm your students with too many new words. Before they can read novels and short texts, your students should have a good vocabulary foundation. Poodll Word Cards introduce students to new words and reinforces them through fun and engaging activities.

With these exercises, you can prepare your students for their English tests, and they can get excited for their next adventure abroad!

Conclusion

Until a few years ago, almost all students who wanted to go abroad would have to take the IELTS or TOEFL test. Duolingo’s DET provides a solid, more accessible, and cheaper alternative to these more established tests. However, not all academic institutions accept it.

Regardless of which test your students choose, you can support them with different exercises and resources that bring real-life English into your courses.

If you teach in Moodle, Poodll provides you with English-teaching plugins and resources that seamlessly integrate into your courses. Whether it is providing real-life speaking and listening examples, auto-grading with AI, or building your students’ confidence through speaking exercises, Poodll helps you to coach your students towards acing their tests and becoming fluent speakers.

The post Your Ultimate 2022 Guide to the Duolingo English Test – What Is It? Who Accepts It? How Do You Prepare Your Students for It? first appeared on Poodll.

グローバル・ムードル・ムート2022にPoodllが参加

poodlladmin — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 08:11:08 +0000

Poodllは、2022年にバルセロナで開催されるMoodleMoot Globalのスポンサーの一社として参加する予定です。参加される方は、ぜひ弊社ブースにお立ち寄りください。

既存のユーザーに追いつくこと、そして新しいユーザーとつながることが待ち遠しいです。当日は、Poodll Guyも参加し、最新のアップデートや機能追加、今後予定されているエキサイティングな機能のデモを行う予定です。

講演のご予約はこちらお問い合わせページをご覧の上、ご連絡ください。

The post グローバル・ムードル・ムート2022にPoodllが参加 first appeared on Poodll.