Learning English with Pictures and Stories -- Bubblr

Bubblr is an interesting and free website you can create and share your original comic strips, and possibly realize your childhood dream of being a comic strips writer!

•   How does it work?

There is a search engine for the users to search for the potential images they like. It can be done either by searching the key words or the owner of the images.

                                                                                    The search engine

 Right away, the search results will pop up in the upper part of the web page. The image storage is rather large, thus very possibly you can get thousands of optional images.

                                                      An example of research results

Then, you can choose any pictures you like, drag and drop it into the 'comic strips' template. And you can add a couple of pictures more as you like. 

                                                    An example of choosing images

Now it's time for you to write the story you want to share! You can choose a shape of bubble and put it wherever you like on the pictures, followed by typing a few words describing it. Once you finish editing, you can publish the work, and share it with anyone you like by sending their the published link via email, or clicking the SHARE button to shere it on the Facebook, Blogger, and so forth.

An example of adding words to the pictures

• The reasons for using Bubblr

1) Task design
The teachers can use Bubblr to design a speaking task easily within one minute, such as story-telling.

2) It can involve the peer collaboration and competition
The students can be arranged into pairs or small groups to create their own story. They should discuss and decide the story topic, negotiate, compromise, insist, agree or disagree with each other, which can improve their cooperative spirit and interpersonal skills as well as the speaking ability.

From the whole class perspective, the activity could be developed into a little competition. The students can vote for their favorite stories created by their peer students.

3) Motivation
It is undoutedly much more appealing  to students to have colorful images in their class.

Also, as long as the students are producing something interesting and creative by themselves, they will feel the stuff they are engaged with is meaningful rather than dull and meaningless.

Besides, it also adds to the students' learning motivation that they can share, appreciate and evaluate their piece of work online with their friends, teachers and peer students.

                    Just click the SHARE button, you will find several ways to share your fantastic piece of work with others

• Limitations?

 The way of using the Bubblr is quite limited: either the teachers produce the comic strips and arrange the students to tell the stories, or the students create their own ones.

Additionally, if the students want to talk about their own pictures, it is not so convenient, since the images in this website is sponsored by the photo sharing website – Flickr. (http://www.flickr.com/)

There is also a danger of the content of the images. The teachers should be careful about the drug, pornographic, violence elements when they are dealing with teenagers or young learners.

• Suggestions for teachers 

The teachers are advised to use the Bubblr in speaking class. 

They can produce the comic strips in advance and arrange the students to do the story-telling activities, or it is also interesting to arrange a story-prediction activity.  

OR the teachers can devide the students into pairs or small groups (if the class size is bigger) and let them to create their own stories.

Love Chocolate Love Learning Vocabulary !

Learning Chocolate is a free vocabulary learning platform which makes learning vocabulary as enjoyable as eating a bar of chocolate! 

• How does it work?

Firstly, when you open the web page of Learning Chocolate, the vocabulary learning journey can be started by choosing the language you prefer to use when learning the target language.

 Learning Chocolate categorises the vocabulay into different groups according to the word meaning. You can choose any of them by a simple click, and then there will appear the list of new words with picture demonstration and the pronunciation aids. They are just working as online word cards.

 

    

In addition, the website provides the learners with various learning activites for practice and review, such as match up (matching up the pronunciation and the spelling; matching up the spelling and the picture; matching up the pronunciation and the picture), fill in (spelling activities with picture cues), and dictation.

• The reasons for choosing Learning Chocolate

1)  Choosing language:
     The learners are provided the opportunities to choose their instrumental language (either their mother tongue or the target language itself) when learning the vocabulary. It is obviously rather practical and effective for the beginners to use the language they have acquired to learn a new language. On the other hand, for the learners who have already get some knowledge of the target language, it is very beneficial to expose them to the target language and get the input as much as possible.

2)  Learning the vocabulary in groups
     From the cognitive perspective, categorising the vocabulary in certain groups can improve the efficiency of the memorisation and acquisition. To be specific, the words within a group are associated with each other in terms of the lexical  meaning as well as the using context, thus the words put together are sensible enough to the learners and easier to memorise.

     Also, by grouping the vocabuary, Learning Chocolate is showing a possible example of 'word cards' for the learners themselves to make their own word cards or word notebooks  .

3)  Easy access to the word pronunciation
     The learners can constanctly check the pronunciation of the word, if they like, by simply clicking the speaker button. It is efficient and good for the accuracy of learning.

4)  Visual aids
     Generally, the whole website of Learning Chocolate is colorful and attractive. It boosts the learners' motivation of using this website and learning the vocabulary with it, especially for those young learners.

      More importantly, the vocabulary is demonstrated with nice pictures, which is undoubtedly one of the most effective ways to explain the meaning of a word.

5) Various follow-up activities for practice and revision
    It is far from enough of just showing and illustrating the vocabulary to learners to achieve the final acquisition. Learning Chocolate's learning activities involve the learners to practise the new words frequently with aspects of spelling, pronunciation and word meaning. By this means, the learners' understanding and memorisation of the words are reinforced.

    In terms of learning autonomy, the follow-up activities can serve as the self-test materials for the learners, which is also a good way to monitor their own learning of new words.

• Limitations ?

    Despite that the website is free for use, it has some advertisement on the pages, which could be confusing and distractive sometimes.

      The rang of the listed vocabulary is limited. To be clear, the vocabuary that suitable for visual demanstration tend to me concrete things in the world rather than those conveying abstract meanings, since they hardly have physical referents in real world.

• Suggestions for Teachers

      The teachers are advised to use Learning Chocolate  as a suplement when teaching vocabulary.

      In the class, the teacher can use it as a warming-up activity to review the vocabulary that has been covered in the previous class. Also, it is brilliant to use it to introduce the new vocabulary.

      In addition, the teacher can recommend the students to use this website as voluntary homework in case some students want to learn and practise more after the class.