Triptico - Great upgrading, kindle the interactivity anywhere you go

Introduction

    Triptico is one of the best multi-functional interactive tools I have ever seen that can be easily used (better with interactive whiteboards) for classroom activities. Important to note that it was a downloadable application before but recently, the developers have re-designed the Triptico website, not only making it good-looking, but adding a Cloud service which allows you to access everything you have created from everywhere (a big trend of technology huh!) Just think about it! If you are teachers who have to teach in different classrooms using different computers, you will never have to worry about whether you remember to save which activities in whichever classrooms, just go to the cloud and find it!

Implementations in ELT

    Since there are numerous gadgets you can find even if you only have a free Triptico account, I shall briefly only introduce two, Word Magnets and Order Sorter, and some others not mentioned can also be brilliant and we shall discover in the future posts.

Word Magnets

    The first way of using it can be creating word magnets and having students order them into correct sentences. It makes once boring grammar lesson rather interesting and efficient as well. See my example (picture above), I ask students to match the magnets into correct orders which should be "Mary gives Tom a gift. & Peter lends his book to Jack." Because students often get confused when they firstly learn such language forms as "give somebody something / give something to somebody", by using this, you can create more examples to have them practice (adding verbs like show, present, etc. or increasing the difficulty by adding other forms like "borrow... from ...")

Another way of using it can be adding a background like a map or a picture of a room, a garden, anything you need, and putting names of places, vocabulary on magnets, making students moving magnets that match the objects on the background. This can be used for vocabulary learning, or any other tasks (e.g. two students moving two magnets representing themselves respectively, describing to each other where they are on a map background).

Order Sorter

    Order Sorter apparently is used to sort order, like the picture above (a triptico demo), sorting the procedure of making a cup of tea. I believe it brings a great affordance for language teaching when students are learning different genres of writing or doing intensive reading comprehension. 

The first use I am really excited about is in reading comprehension activities, in which you can put either the main ideas or detailed information appearing in each paragraph of the article in mixed order and have students sort them, a good way to train skimming and scanning skills respectively.

The second use is in learning writing genres, showing learners which part of writing comes after another (e.g. abstract, introduction, background, literature review, case study, implications, problems, conclusions, references, etc. in academic writing) or having them sorting them on the IWBs after you have taught to strengthen such memory. It is quite helpful, as I have mentioned before, such multimodal way of learning including kinaesthetic, visual and verbal aspects, as Paivio (2006, cited in Walker & White, 2013) explains, “facilitates memory and helps learning by building redundancy into a multimodal message”.

There are also some other useful gadgets you can use in classroom activities like Flip Timer, Group Students, etc. that can easily liven the classroom.

Problems

    Although there are numerous colourful gadgets you can choose to be used with or without IWBs in the classroom, it is important to bear in mind that the use of new things or high techs do not necessarily guarantee an enhanced learning environment, nor better learning outcomes. The focus is never on what kind of tools they are like, but how they are being used in a best suitable way, how the tasks or activities can be truly improved using the tools. It is also true that although students' motivation may be activated the first time they encounter these new things, they will feel it dull if their focus is always on the tools instead of the activities carried out livened by the tools. As learners'  motivation is supposed to be made an enduring drive instead of a sudden surprise, finding new tools is just a pre-step before a long march.

Link to Triptico: https://tripticoplus.com

Tips

    After registering a free account, in the "Activity" section, you will be able to see people discussing how some problems they encounter can be solved and you can also post your questions waiting for someone brilliant to answer. Demoi will also be shown when you try any new gadgets on the site.

Don't forget to save your great works in the cloud! Good luck!

Tricider - making discussion HEATER

Introduction

 (Join the discussion, adding new ideas, arguments and vote)

    You may still remember we have introduced one tool called TodaysMeet on 17th of January, which can be easily used for back channeling discussion, brainstorming activities mainly carried out in class, and I also mentioned the two affordances that such collaboration tools have, being accessibility and reflection. Talking about reflection, being that online discussions can last much longer and people can always review and add new ideas on it, Tricider here is better because it provides a better-looking discussion environment with functions more than just adding your ideas, more useful functions such as agreeing or disagreeing with someone's ideas, adding arguments behind others points and voting. 

These functions are vital for discussions, because they not only make all points of view and pros and cons easier and clearer to look at, they provide language learners with a feeling of debate, which cannot be felt on TodaysMeet where learners just brainstorm ideas. With such feeling of heated discussion, learners will surely feel engaged in order to find ways of expression to support their own argument.

Ideas and Implementations

1. The teacher can write a question which relates to the topic that is going to talk about in class, generate a link and share it with students in advance (similar procedure to TodaysMeet), have them carry out a discussion. Then the teacher can prepare the class making reference to students' discussion, make comments on it in class. This can also motivate students in class if they know you are going to make comments because they care about your opinion on their arguments.

2. The discussion can also be carried out after the lesson, which is functioned as a review of what has been learned and strengthen their memory.

Both ideas making students practice 'spoken-like written' text can also help them prepare for their spoken English in real context.

Tricider: http://www.tricider.com

Tricider tutorial video: http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/sharing-discussing/tricider.html

MoPad - launch a real-time collaborative writing in 10 seconds

Introduction

    Some of our teachers may have been familiar with some word processing tools that support collaborative work like Google Docs or Google Drive, and now I am going to introduce another similar tool that is much easier to use and even more powerful in some ways. That is MoPad, which belongs to Etherpad you may have heard of before. It does not matter if you have no idea about any of that, I will explain and show you and I believe you will feel good with it later.

Word processor, we know the most well-known Microsoft Word is the tool generally used to compose, edit, format written materials. Whereas collaboration tools like MoPad has similar use but the difference is that it supports many people editing the same work collaboratively in real time. Click and see our video demo to feel how it works.

As you can see on the top right, there are five members in different colours in this pad and you can also see they are editing different parts of the text at the same time (of course you can also edit on others work) and the colours are clear to indicate who has edited which part, quite a good feature. The bottom right side also provides a place for chatting.

The best feature I would like to note is that it allows anyone to just go to the site, share the link and start collaborating without signing up any account, which would be super convenient and easy for students to use.

Ideas and implementations in language teaching

    If MoPad is used for the teacher to give feedback to students when they are writing, it overcomes a drawback that traditional feedback has, the text being "static". Because on collaborative word processor, the editing processes of the teacher and the student are in real time - the teacher can comment on the writing process either in the good points that the learner can follow immediately or some errors. As cited in Walker & White (2013), this is a process allowing learners to benefit from Vygotsky's notion of 'more able peer' (Vygotsky, 1978).

Besides, there are quite a few ways MoPad can be used. It makes peer review of each others' writing easier outside the classroom and the teacher can also go to the "pad" built by the students, comment on their works or make further corrections.

Using MoPad in the classroom can also be a good idea if possible. Carrying out brainstorming activities on MoPad like the ones I mentioned on TodaysMeet. 

Considering its editable feature, teacher can put a short article with grammatical or lexical errors and have students find out and correct these errors so that all the processes of correction will be seen by everyone. Therefore, such process of correcting errors can also motivate students since they are doing it at the same 'pad' simultaneously, collaboratively, also making a sense of competition.

Similar activities are many, such as cloze activities, jigsaw tasks etc.

Problems and advice

    Collaborative work sounds engaging, but it is also very likely to fall short. Collaboration environment, like working on MoPad is very likely to become messy especially when there are many participants. More than three is actually quite a big number which needs a team leader to organise the activity. Therefore, no matter working in class or out, make the instruction and the goal of an activity as clear as possible, and choose a leader in each group (>=3), and normally the smaller the group, the better it works especially if you are newbie for this, although sometimes it also depends e types of activities.

To conclude, I want to point out as some scholars have also noted, that although technologies as such can provide a collaborative environment, it does not necessarily mean that collaboration will indeed happen in such environment, neither does collaboration itself guarantee learning. Therefore, it is probably our engagement in these activities, careful design of activities, guidance, intervention, etc that make language learning happen.

MoPad: https://etherpad.mozilla.org

Reference

Walker, A. & White, G. (2013). Technology enhanced language learning: Connecting theory and 
    practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 5.

FluentU - learning expressions in authentic videos

Introduction

    It is commonly believed that L2 should better be learned in real context so that many language teachers have tried to encourage learners to improve English out of class by watching authentic materials like films, TV series and other video clips. Its benefits are obvious such as the multimodal way of learning strengthens learners memory helps them acquire correct pronunciation. However, such practice often falls short due to various reasons such as the difficulty of finding materials of suitable language level, good subtitles, or that students often shift their attention from language learning to how the story is going in the film or drama and get addicted, which is quite often the case that both parents and the teacher worry about. 

Here comes FluentU, a website specifically designed for language learners, which solves quite a lot of these problems. You can have your students find more than one thousand videos categorised by the level of difficulty, topic of interests and video formats (such as trailers, speeches, news, etc.). What is brilliant is that when the video is playing, move just move your cursor down to the area of subtitles, the video will stop automatically. Then you can check the meaning of any words or expressions in the subtitle by just moving your cursor there. That easy! (see picture)

Each video is not long, so the workload is not heavy and absolutely possible for students to pay full attention. They can watch one video again and again, checking every word and expression in subtitles if they like. After watching, they can choose to learn by clicking 'Learn'. An interface will appear (see picture)

in which there is a key word or expression, its definition, two example sentences and a picture (no picture in this example). You can also get any definition of words in the example sentences by moving your cursor there. After learning this word, you can click either 'Already know' or 'Next' to move on to the next word/expression. Some quiz questions like multiple choice or filling in the blank will appear to strengthen your memory of words/expressions learned before. If some errors are made, the words/expressions will be automatically stored in one place (see picture), users of upgraded account can learn those words again.

The progress record of each video watched will be shown as well as word count in each one.

One more thing

    Now, you may probably want to go to the website, try it out, and tell your students. Please just allow me to present one more thing before you click the link below. 

It is quite a good idea to use this to flip you classroom by asking students to watch some videos at home and solve their problems when they come to class and the videos you choose can also relate to the topics or language points you have taught or are going to teach. However, it can also be good if you give students freedom to choose what they enjoy to watch and occasionally check their progress (checking their notes for example) in order to help to build their autonomy.

FluentU: http://www.fluentu.com/english/

Quizlet - more than powerful flashcards

Introduction

    Quizlet is a free website (as well as the app for Android and iOS), which enables anyone (teachers and students) to create flashcards that can be shared, embedded in your blogs or classroom website, or even print them out. More than that, the flashcards created can automatically become scatter and space race games that feels engaging. With the Android or Apple smartphone app, students can elearn, review or play matching games anytime and anywhere they go.

Functions and implementations of Quizlet

    Note that Quizlet can be used for the purpose far beyond vocabulary learning, such as some information matching activities like matching main ideas of particular articles, questions with answers, etc. The following only take vocabulary activities as an example.

1. Starting from the basic function - flashcards, the teacher can make flashcards containing key words, their definitions in target language/L1 and even pictures and audio recordings (default voice is free and not bad to use), pretty much like the flashcards I have made above, please try it:

          a. click the word in the centre of the flashcard to hear the pronunciation

          b. click other part to flip and see the picture and definitions

          c. click bullet to see the next word

Making Quizlet read the words and definitions out loud and having students read after it can enhance students grasp of their pronunciations. As noted by Paivio (2006, cited in Walker & White 2013), visual and verbal elements are processed and stored in different ways by the brain, pictures together with verbal elements provide redundancy thus facilitating learning and memorisation. 

2. Changing the mode at the bottom right side to 'Speller', this studying mode requires students to listen and type the words down, pictures and definitions on the right remind them of the meaning of the words and strengthen their memory. Error spellings will be visually corrected and it will also read the correct spelling letter by letter. Have a try.

3. Choose the 'Learn' mode, and you can have students type the correct words. The more frequently incorrect words will be automatically brought back to help them remember again. This can either be used before the end of the class to make vocabulary review or be used by students outside the classroom to strengthen their memory.

4. Make vocabulary lists and print them out like this (you can choose different formats, big flashcards, vocabulary lists, etc.):

5. Try the different game modes! Vocabulary activities can be such fun!

    Embed the flashcards to your blog the websites for the class after each lesson. You can have students review what they have learned in playing games. The mechanics in games like scores, level upgrading and time constraints can easily engage learners into learning process.

6. Using QR code to have students access your digital teaching materials outside the classroom by using their smartphones or computers at home. They can learn and play the match games of your flashcards. A good way to remember new information well is to repeat the learning process at times at different situations. Learn English on the go~

7. If you upgrade your Quizlet account to 'Teacher'(not free), you will be able to add your own voice recordings, track the progress of students learning.

Problem

1. Note that the pronunciations of one word can be different depending on the forms and uses of it, like the word 'record' has different syllable stresses in verb and noun forms.

2. One single word may have different uses and meanings in different contexts, teacher should be aware of this when making flashcards or having students making their owns. 

Reference:

Walker, A. & White, G. (2013). Technology enhanced language learning: Connecting theory 

    and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 6.

Wordle - a cloud of meaning

    The above cloud-like picture is created by using Wordle, one of the most popular word-cloud tools. It provides an instant overview of the content of this blog, by making bigger more frequent words appeared on previous blog posts. Such visual representation of texts can bring us some useful ideas and great fun in language teaching activities.

People fancy visual elements and are more easily to be motivated. Word cloud is not the kind of images that bring direct emotional impacts and get people moved though, it conveys and reveals meaning of texts in an economical and direct way that is impossible to be realised by sole text information. Taking the word cloud above as an example, a glance at the words can get the idea that this blog is themed as language teaching and learning and students are for whatever reason highly emphasised. The appearance of the words such as podcast, TodaysMeet, Voki, cartoon, video indicate that there may be a focus on using ICT in language teaching (due to the fact that it is created based on only five previous posts, the ICT feature reflected by it may not be salient enough). Some may notice the Label that appears on the right of this blog page is also in a cloud style, which makes salient the topics that are more talked about. When there are huge amount of posts produced here, its powerfulness will show.

Implementation in language teaching activities 

1. Make the key words or the whole text that students are going to learn a Wordle cloud, so that students can guess discuss what they will be learning. It is a smooth way to lead in and get students motivated. 

2. Using word cloud at the beginning of a lesson or pre-task activities can also be a good way to test their language proficiency, by finding out which key words that are going to be used in the tasks are still unknown to them, and scaffold their language learning.

3. It can also be used before a reading task to encourage students to predict the main topic of the article. Moreover, for example, you can even choose the main characters, their personalities, locations, specific events from a story make a Wordle cloud and have students match relative words together during the reading tasks.

4. It can also be used to review new vocabularies just learned before the end of the lesson.

Click the Wordle link and have a go: http://www.wordle.net

One problem

Although Wordle has the function to automatically eliminate words like “and” and “the” (and equivalent common words in the other languages it supports), as well as numbers, but you may have other unwanted words that need to be eliminated.

Important Note: 

1. Go to the website and click 'Create', you can either paste/type in the text, or just enter the URL link of any blog, blog feed or the link of webpage that has Atom or RSS feed.

2. You can change the style (font, colour, horizontal/vertical layout of words, etc.)

3. To save and use your cloud images, make a screencast of it and save into your computer.

Mac OS can press Command+Shift+3/4 to make a screencast, Windows PC click screencast button.
For free screencast software: Jing is recommended: http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

Voki - create your avatar and feel confident to speak

Introduction

(click play button and watch my avatar speaking)

    Using Voki to create your personalised avatar is a great fun. You can edit face, change clothes and background and even use cartoon and animal characters. And do not forget to let it express yourself - by recording or uploading your own voice or just typing the text, choosing an accent you like then making it speak. Click the link and have a go: http://www.voki.com

Voki in L2 teaching and learning

    For L2 learners who feel too shy to speak, one way to let them speak could be to have them create their own avatar and record their voice. In doing so, students may feel less pressure and have more freedom to express whatever they like. What is more engaging is that by creating different characters like animals, monsters, politicians, etc., students can try out different personalities by using exaggerated intonation, stress and pitch, which they will probably not do in real life.

Implementation

    Voki can be used to carry out interactive speaking and listening activities. Create a website and have students post their self introductions (or other topics you assigned to them), so that they will be able to listen and comment on each others or even guess who they really are (if they were asked to hide their names beforehand). The good here is not only that they will get motivated to check out works by their peers and feel more relaxed to do speaking practice, but that in order to comment on each others works, they must listen carefully and by doing so they will also realise the importance to have articulate utterances.

Voki is free to use. For more information about more upgraded functions by Voki classroom and Voki presenter (which are not free), go to the website: http://www.voki.com/pricing.php

Russell Stannard's training video about how to use Voki: http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/audio-podcasting/voki.html

Podcast on iOS devices for adult learners - listening on the go

Introduction

    The circumstance of teaching and practicing listening has been rather bad in the past, featuring the limited access to authentic listening materials, teachers controlling where, when, how much and for what purpose listening is carried out. Podcasts together with mobile devices (e.g. iPhones) can greatly  change all the story (especially for university students and adult learners). Most people around me in China who show the intention to improve their English for whatever purposes have their own rather advanced smartphones, but few of them are aware of the function of podcast (e.g. iTunes U, podcast). In this post, I am going to introduce the function of podcast (it was an app) on Apple mobile devices (iPod, iPhone and iPad). 

Rationale

Note that in many cases podcasts accessed through mobile devices are basically non-retrospectical listening process, in which there is no context or requirement for interactions to take place , quite similar to the way of listening practice carried out in the classroom that has for a long time been criticised. However, the affordances provided by podcast and popularisation of mobile devices make it greatly different from listening practice in the classroom. (development of Web 2.0 tools can also be used to create contexts for interactions)

The obvious affordance is accessibility. We have access to enormous amount of listening materials, either authentic ones from native speakers like BBC world service or teaching materials for language learners, well categorised by topics and some high quality teaching materials clearly graded (etc. beginner, intermediate, advanced). Furthermore, we have access to them whenever and wherever we are as long as we subscribe to the material and have mobile devices with us, either listening online or listening offline pre-downloaded materials. It is a kind of realisation of informal and life-long learning, embedding learning into everyday life, making learning intentional and accidental, as noted by Naismith, et al (2005:3, cited in Rosell-Aguilar, Fernando, 2007).


Easy access to authentic material have 'the potential to draw the learner into the communicative world of the target language community' (Little 1997, in Rosell-Aguilar, Fernando, 2007), thus helping learners find practical value of the target language and the link between 'self' and the community.

Moreover, making learners choose listening materials of their own interests being able to  control the pace for listening (skip, pause, forward) can greatly increase their sense of autonomy, thus making them highly motivated.

How to use

  

Podcast in iTuens on Apple mobile devices have the similar functions as many other independent podcast apps. Simply click 'App store' on your device and search 'podcast', it will lead you to the podcast interface, then you can choose from top charts in which there are categories (see picture below). If you know the name of the podcast you are looking for, use the search function. After finding the podcast, click subscribe (all content are free) and next time when you want to listen, they will appear on the bottom left 'My Podcasts' and 'My stations'. Note that you can also do this by using iTunes installed on any of your computers. Using same Apple ID will keep all subscribed materials synced at all devices. 

Two of my recommendations are: The English We Speak and 6 Minute English, both produced by BBC World Service. And transcripts can be found on BBC website.

Problems

    In the previous blog post, I mentioned the affordance of accessibility also brings the challenge of selecting appropriate materials from overloaded and various quality information. This is also a big problem in selecting podcasts not only because the enormous amount of audio and video materials with various qualities online, but because we have to listen from beginning to the end to check the content quality instead of quickly skimming. So teacher's recommendations are valuable for learners to make better choices.

I believe podcasting together with Web 2.0 tools like blogs and wiki, has great potential in language education in the near future. Right now, it can serve as a great tool to provide comprehensible input or extensive listening for autonomous learners.

How podcasts  can be used by teachers in class will be talked about in later posts.

References

Rosell-Aguilar, Fernando (2007). Top of the Pods - In search of a podcasting “podagogy” for 
    language learning. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 20(5), pp. 471–492.

TodaysMeet - Simple tool, BIG NEW challenges

Introduction

    

    TodaysMeet is one of the easiest online (especially back-channel) discussion & collaboration tools that can be applied to lectures and English lessons. Teachers can easily create an online chat room and invite all students come in by sharing with them a link normally "http://todaysmeet.com/'room name'". Simply speaking, it affords a new way of classroom discussion. Although many blogs and websites have focused on and praised its versatility, I would like to start from my critical concerns about such tools and further talk about my ideas about its implementation in English language teaching drawing on them. (a video demo of my work will be shown later on) 

Rationale - Some concern and problems about using TodaysMeet

    When it comes to the discussion or collaboration tools, the first word coming to my mind is 'de-centralisation'(quite a popular word in recent years), like the digital communication from web 1.0 to web 2.0 weakening the voice of authority by multiple voices. This trend is as well appearing in the field of education featuring the changing roles of teachers, as King (1993) put it, 'from sage on the stage, to the guide on the side'. It is quite meaningful to make it a starting point in this essay that introduces TodaysMeet, as the implementations of such discussion and collaboration tools are providing both affordances and challenges to teachers. 

Drawing on the eleven affordances of technology summarised by Conole and Dyke (2004: 113-124), I shall briefly focus on two affordances that TodaysMeet and similar tools provide - accessibility and reflection, and talk about my practical concern in its implementations.

Accessibility

TodaysMeet undoubtedly provides students opportunities to carry out backchannel discussions in real time and make their voice heard, in other words, it means it offers the teacher super-easy access to huge amount of real-time information from students within a very short period of time (within minutes). The good here is apparently the high efficiency of interaction and information collection, provided by the affordance of accessibility. However, the big challenge it brings  is that information overload and even the quality (unrelated posts by some students) need teachers to be able to skilfully select information swiftly and make explanation and elaboration.

Reflection

Asynchronous technologies like TodaysMeet (there are better examples than TodaysMeet, such as Tricider) provide the affordance of reflection, allowing students to be able to engage in a discussion for a longer time than only face-to-face discussion in class (many tools allow chat rooms opened for months, teachers can also print out the real time discussions for students to review or for themselves to talk further in next sessions). This affordance is remarkable and I will talk about this deeper when introducing other tools.

My work and ideas of implementation 

1. In English language teaching classroom, TodaysMeet can be efficiently and easily handled to carry out form-focused practice. For example, in the exercise of making sentences based on specific grammar points or similar topics, have students make their sentences in the chat room, the teacher will be able to correct the sentences together with all students and all students will be able to see and learn from each others from either good expressions or error corrections. Following link is one of my example in which I pretend to be different students (Jack, Jane, John, Bowen, Mary) making up sentences by using past participles as adjectives in a sentence to describe problems.

Check it out: http://screencast.com/t/niud2RxY0u

2. Another safe but very useful application is when having students watching an English video, a film for example, letting them post their instant ideas of questions on TodaysMeet, the teacher can stop at various intervals if necessary to solve these questions.

3. Many brainstorming activities can be carried out on TodaysMeet, such as having students come up with their favourite fruit. As mentioned before, the amount of the information capable of dealing with is a problem such as in a big class with 50 students. Having students post short sentences and words like fruit names may be easier to handle and also useful for them since here the affordance is actually reflection since students can  still review these answers outside the class.

Using discussion tools like TodaysMeet to carry out activities the teacher can handle is a practical problem, not only depending on the types of activities chosen but also the teacher's capacity to select, evaluate and categorise information from student interaction and handle the contingency in class which may need a long time to practice.

TodaysMeet website: https://todaysmeet.com/

Russell Stannard's training video:  

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/sharing-discussing/todaysmeet.html

References

Conole, G. & Dyke, M. (2004). What are the affordances of information and communication 

    technologies? ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology, 12, 113-124.

King, A. (1993). From Sage on the Stage to Guide on the Side. College Teaching, v. 41. p30-35

CambridgeEnglishOnline Cartoon Maker - easy for teachers, engaging for young learners

Introduction

    I have been looking for an animation tool that can be used in the classroom, which not only get learners (under 16) motivated but will not distract their attention from language learning or waste time on the tool itself (normally the biggest concern). Now I have found one, it is Cambridge English Online Cartoon Maker that can be used to make cartoon-like teaching materials. Its top advantage is that you can use it easily in many different ways for different language teaching purposes, especially for meaning focused speaking activities ('speech-like' written communication). I will show you how it can be effectively applied to classroom teaching by showing materials I have made later on. 

Link to the tool website: http://cambridgeenglishonline.com/Cartoon_Maker/

Rationale - motivation and task-based learning

    As Deci and Ryan (2000: 55) pointed out, most tasks students perform in class are less inherently interesting, thus making them lose the intrinsic motivation. Cartoon related tasks, if well implemented, can be interesting for young learners. More importantly, according to Self-determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000: 59), engaging learners into more autonomy supporting activities, such as making their own good-looking cartoon dialogues and stories from their personal experiences and interests, being responsible for their own learning can greatly satisfy their need for autonomy, thus improving their motivation. 

Focusing on negotiating meaning, task-based approach has drawn growing attention in recent years and research studies have shown its advantages (e.g. Beretta and Davies, 1985). The cartoon maker affords opportunities for learners to make their own cartoon stories to keep or share with others, a real engaging task which will make learners focus on the expressions they produce in the dialogues, the logic of their stories, etc., thus highly motivated to get language improved. As stories are often made by a pair or group of students, collaboration skills can be practiced during the process.

My demo and ideas for implementations

1. As mentioned previously, there are quite a few ways to use it. Let us start from the most exciting one - making cartoon stories. Importantly NOTING that it's absolutely not necessary to have students themselves go to the website creating cartoons in class. Instead, you can make quite various types with different characters and scenes, leaving the bubbles blank (see my example below), and print them out bring to class (or show on big screen), you can give them promise to make the complete cartoons for everyone of them who can write beautiful dialogs or stories on it. By doing this, you motivate them and save most of the time in class doing language related tasks.

2. You can also fill in only one or two bubbles to have your students make rest of the stories relating to similar topic by using some focused grammar forms or expressions required. Like in my example there is only a caption and a sentence in the first one (below), it can be used for practicing greeting.

3. Using already completed cartoon works is also a good idea. It can be a work created by you (see my example) or by students from previous tasks, depending on your teaching purposes.

4. Posting some good works on the walls in the classroom seems not a bad idea.

Limitations

    The biggest drawback of using technologies being time-consuming can be maximally weakened and its effect on learner motivation can be well explored if teachers can handle it properly in class (appears not difficult by using this one). It is easy to use, good-looking, but one problem is that the size of the bubble is not editable, meaning it may not be able to include a bit longer texts. I will keep looking for other similar tools that have more flexible choices. As noted in No. 4, currently you can print them out (blank bubbles) and have students write on them (no matter how long the sentences) and post them on the wall.

References:

Beretta, A. and Davies, A. (1985). Evaluation of Bangalore Project. ELT Journal 39: 121-

    127.

Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R.M. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: classic definitions and  

    new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology 25, 54-67.

This animation tool is from Cambridge English Online Cartoon Maker. Link: 
http://cambridgeenglishonline.com/Cartoon_Maker/