English Learners Get iPods at School
11:34 am, September 14th, 2009, Nicole Martinelli
Used with a CC-license. Thanks to Donna & Andrew on Flickr.
Forget those old tape recorders in the language lab: one school district is handing out iPods for students learning English as a second language.
Five schools in Beaufort County, South Carolina are equipping kids with limited English skills with iPod Touches to get them up to speed.
The iPods take the place of the language lab of yesteryear — students listen to stories on them as part of a fluency program designed to develop vocabulary, improve pronunciation and emphasize important words and concepts. They also watch videos on the iPod for grammar and reading exercises.
“If you don’t understand the story, you can listen to it,” seventh-grader Alex Sanchez told the Beaufort Gazette. “When I read, if I then hear the story, it sometimes makes more sense.”
The schools paid about $200 for each device. Apple provided teacher training and docking stations that can charge and sync 20 iPods at once. The ESL iPod program launched in one middle school last year and expanded to another four schools in the district this year.
Right now, the MP3 players go to kids who need to learn English but the school district is considering using them for students of foreign languages like French and Spanish.
I love this idea. An Italian friend of mine started using her commute time to listen to ESL podcasts — of which there are a ton — and found that in a couple of months she had learned more than at a class she paid for.
Via The State
Posted by Nicole Martinelli in News, iPod, iPod Touch | Comment on this article
Good stuff. We’ve been doing the same in Modern Languages at Loretto for over a year now. They make individual listening exercises a lot easier to deal with, and the administration and cost of the set up is a lot less than with the old fashioned language lab.
Julian Karolyi, on September 14th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Hello!.
Could you say which app for iPod Touch I could use for learn more English?. Thanks.
Cety, on September 14th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
The story about the school didn’t mention what they were using. If you search on iTunes under podcasts with the keyword ESL, you’ll find many to choose from…
Nicole Martinelli, on September 15th, 2009 at 1:23 am
I really like this! Thank you for bringing this to our attention. If anyone is interested, EnglishCafe has a video podcast called “Learn English at EnglishCafe” and it is quite popular. This link will redirect you to iTunes where you can download an episode and subscribe to the video podcast.
Learn English at EnglishCafe (iTunes)
http://bit.ly/learn-english-on-itunes
Jim Stroud, on September 16th, 2009 at 8:31 am