APPS

English:Just on 

The Fingertips !

Hello everyone!

This time, we study apps ! As a tool of English language learning and teaching. As we know, by the development of technology,we can attain whatever asked for, just by the means of mobile phones anymore. As well as the specialities that our phones have, they also enable a great affordance for applications that can be puchased and also for the ones free of charge actually. We can find educational ones among them too.By the bucketload! Sure language teaching based ones..So now why not turning them into our routine English laerning tools ??

As i mentioned before; there are a great many of language learning apps,too and now i want to introduce just one of them, tell about how does it work and what can be the possible benefits of this kind of application in English language education and so on. While i was just searching for language learning based apps i came up with one of Cambridge English Learning apps called Cambridge Starters 4. Actually It is formed of three different versions called Cambridge Starters, Cambridge Movers, and Cambridge Flyers according to their proficiency levels. And each version also has several stages as like 1-2-3.. in accordance of their difficulty level again.Now, let’s begin to introduce content of the app in detail.

When you log in the application you see 3 different tests which contain a series of questions and activities. And an ‘’About’’ section which informs you how to use the application. Each test of Starters is made up of three papers developed as Listening, Reading&Writing and Speaking papers mainly.And each of papers has several parts that contains a range of activities again.So let’s click on one of the tests and try it out !

When i start the test I see a Listening test which consist of 4 different parts.Each part contains Listen&match (where the user draws a line from each object given at the out of the one big picture,to the place where it is on the big picture in accordance with the recorded conversations between a man and woman.) Listen&answer ( where the user listens to the recording carefully and write the correct answer -name or number- after each question, Listen&choose (where the user listens to five short conversations between different pairs of people and choose the right answers -A,B or C- for the questions, and Listen&Colour Stage (where the user colours the objects given in accordingly with the colour they say in the conversation)

When it comes to Reading&Writing test, it contains five different parts and again variable activities such as filling in the gaps,spelling single words,reading and comprehending activities as you see at pictures below.And finally the Speaking test has five parts again. But this time the user takes the test alone with the examiner, but someone they know who speaks their language (like their teacher) The examiner explains what to do in English and the user does kind of speaking activities like introducing the objects,telling about the pictures and so on.

‘’Cambridge Startes’’ is available on GooglePlayStore and AppleStore. It is actually a young learner English learning application and seems like most kind of a self-learning activity.But in my opinion it also can be used in a classroom environment maybe by the means of a projector and make fun of practicing English learning. And i can say that it can be a good choice as an activity in order to develop students’ listening,comprehending and speking skills in the classroom.Especially for listening developing fulfillment. We can touch upon self-learners that this apllication can be an assistant tool to practice their skills and even just by the fingertips of their own. ..