Review an app

related to

study skills

This application aims to improve vocabulary. Relevant and useful words are added daily, and the most important words are made available to the users every day. It provides a daily alarm to the user’s phone every morning, so it is really easy to make a habit of studying vocabulary. Also, I don’t have to worry about the reliability of the words because all the words are extracted from the top and trusted sources like the Oxford English Dictionary, Longman, WordBook, and more!

The best thing with this app is that it provides so simple, but efficient word quizzes after the learning process. For example, after I learn about how to pronounce words correctly, I can solve an interesting word quiz to make my pronunciation better. Answering word quizzes helps me study with more high motivation and have fun at the same time.

However, it also has some drawbacks. If users keep using this app in the free version, they generally find aggressive online advertisements disruptive and annoying. And sometimes, an advertisement break interrupts the period of concentration! So, if the designer of this application prefers a distraction-free interface, many users will be able to use it more happily. Secondly, it doesn’t include a separate search engine, so users have to use other applications to find extra information.

Likewise, this application has both advantages and disadvantages, but all things considered, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Using this app, I can study anytime, anywhere through my mobile phones! Don’t you think it is a proper app to study vocabulary? There are more, but these are why it is a must-have application to improve vocabulary😊

Hi! I want to recommend this application “Word of the Day” that helps me to study English. 😊

ABOUT

Word of the Day

Let's see

what are the features of this APP, and

how it is useful tool for studying!

< Reflection >

In the process of reviewing an application that I always use, I was able to think about the application from an educational point of view. Thinking about what kind of positive or negative effects it had on my life, it has influenced positively on my English skills in various parts(reading, writing, listening, speaking) by offering meaningful words regularly. At the same time, I was able to realize the importance of knowing many words in studying English. In addition to the applications that I reviewed and

recommended today, I think there are many applications or websites that can help me with studying English. So, I’ll refer to many blogs from my friends in order to study English in a more useful way.

<Lesson plan >

1. Profile of students
- Age / School year : 14 / middle school(1st year)
- Gender: Girls
- Number: 20
- English Proficiency Level: Intermediate low

2. Lesson objectives
By the end of the lesson, students will be able to memorize difficult vocabularies using the most effective methods of memorization.

3. Materials needed
- ‘Word of the Day’ application, papers, pens

4. Brief descriptions of ‘Vocabulary Activity’
1. Form groups of five members. (There are four groups in class.)
2. Let students use the application ‘Word of the Day’ for a week before the class and write down the three most difficult words(they learned from the app) each on the paper.
3. Every group takes time to memorize the 15 words written on the group paper.
★Teachers encourage them to memorize words using effective ways such as mindmap, making songs, narrative chaining, imagery techniques, and so on. (All students already learned about the rules of memorization, but to clarify how to use effective memorization ways, teachers can give them some example images.)

4. After 15 minutes, the four groups come out in front of the classroom and solve the English Quizzes that have to write the meaning of the word and English spelling by only looking at the relevant images of the words.
(Every group member has to write the answer on the blackboard at the same time. If all five members get the right answer, the group can get the score.)
5. Decide the winning group and all groups share their ways to memorize vocabulary with other groups.

image examples

During one week, students have to memorize some vocabulary using ' Word of the Day' application. As I mentioned before, using this application, relevant and useful words are added daily, so the most important words are made available to the users every day. Likewise, it gives students opportunities for output and repetition but doesn't give some efficient memorization skills to memorize words more easily. Therefore, it is possible that students become heavily rely on simple memorization and repetitive learning techniques. Based on Bower’s criteria, it would relate with factual knowledge and a transmissive pedagogy. In the context of vocabulary education, to lower the level of conceptual knowledge means to restrict students to factual knowledge and as such to give them a limited view of a broader range of knowledge.

Likewise, the 'Word of the Day' application only enhances students' thinking skills(simply "remembering" and "evaluating") by giving spelling and meaning of important vocabulary and simple quizzes. However, in order to transfer information from short-term memory to long-term memory, more thinking skills need to be activated; for example, 'understanding', 'applying' 'analysing', and 'creating'.

If teachers' pedagogical practice takes into consideration other than using the application, students can acquire difficult vocabularies in a more useful way. As a result, I made a lesson plan to make up for the limited function of the vocabulary application. In the third stage of 'Vocabulary activity', I especially added the role of the teacher, which can develop more thinking skills of students.

3. Every group takes time to memorize the 15 words written on the group paper.

★Teachers encourage students to memorize words using effective ways such as mindmap, making songs, narrative chaining, imagery techniques, and so on. (All students already learned about the rules of memorization.)

While talking about the best ways to memorize some difficult vocabularies with group members, they may break words down and identify any root words. Or, trying to figure out the best way to memorize, they can find a logical pattern of similar words. If they understand the logical pattern of similar words, they can apply these vocabulary rules to lots of vocabulary apart from 15 words they learned from this activity. This activity can lead them to enhance their "Analysing", "Understanding", "Applying" thinking skills as well as "remembering" skills. Also, in terms of this activity is based on the team project, co-constructionism can be used. Even though the only use of application 'Word of the Day' cannot cover the overall thinking skills of students, teacher's pedagogical approach can complement the weakness of this application.

Under the Bower’s criteria, I could explore and evaluate the application in far greater detail. Bower’s suggestions give me more frameworks on evaluating if the application has helped students learn the language; therefore, I could find more 'negative' sides of application that I hadn't realized. The newly discovered weakness of the application made me think about more ways to make up the weakness.

Through this task, I could realize the importance of proper standards of evaluation when choosing useful teaching materials for lesson. I know it would be difficult to find a medium that meets all the components of thinking skills taxonomy as Bower mentioned, but if I have a chance to choose teaching materials for the lesson, I should try harder to find tools that can satisfy most of the factors of thinking skills taxonomy.