English language learning apps for iPad

[Neil Ballantyne]

Hi all,

The organisation I work for (British Council) has just released our first iPad app - a pronunciation chart for English learners and teachers with all the sounds of English. Available from http://bit.ly/SoundsRight

What other English learning apps are out there? I know of a lot of iPhone apps (http://www.emoderationskills.com/?p=134). Would be good to share good (and bad) examples.

All the best,

Neil
(@farang_utang)

[Anne K de Villiers]

Is there any app that is as good as Rosetta Stone for ELT? Does Apple have any software that competes with this for quality at a more afforadable price?

Thanks

[Anne K de Villiers]

Is Computer based learning the solution?

Challenges to Education in Tanzania
The education crisis in Tanzania is multidimensional but basically there is a huge shortage of teachers so none of the government school have a full complement of teaching staff, sciences and math are particularly short staffed and labs almost non-existent in the rural areas.

The other main crisis is that secondary school is taught in English, all the texts are in English and primary is taught in KiSwahili. Very few of the kids leave primary with proficiency in English to be able to cope with secondary. Those that do pass seem to get there by rote learning. The Teaching staff also have only rudimentary English so they teach English texts in Kiswahili. The result is nobody learns much and pass rates are very low all round. Parents and children waste much time and money sitting in schools with very limited learning outcomes.

We have set up a Learning Centre/Resource Centre to try and help the children our village get through and we are in the position that perhaps we can afford technology to help do this. This technology of course is dependent on solar power (so power is limited) and 3G access to the internet, so cannot operate with masses of data that needs to be down loaded.

We understand that no one size fits all and it is important to tailor to target groups
The various target groups could be defined as follows:
A. The primary school kids that switch from KiSwahili to English for Secondary, and do not have the basic English skills to be able to understand any of the text they are using in secondary. English, English, English
B. Secondary school kids and their teacher’s that do not have the English to either understand or teach the curriculum. English , English , English
C. or smart kids that could try and fill the gaps that are not met by poor teaching and under resourced schools, perhaps resource centres (like the Chole Learning Centre) could be places that provide access to information that supplements the school systems and helps those kids that want more access great resources.
D. Or even Learning Centres that provide English Language Teaching and Computer literacy so that kids get a second chance (have dropped out of school but with those skills/English and Computing/Admin become employable in the private sector, especially tourism).
E. Curriculum supplementation for under-resourced classrooms, teaching aids for teachers that they can use to provide a better education to their kids.

We would be grateful for advice on how to tackle these issues and to know what it is happening in terms of technology development so that we can try to address some of the above. Perhaps IPAD and appropriate software may be part of the solution?

A.