Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm Using educational apps to increase interest and efficiency in learning English at Quynh Luu 4 upper secondary school

 NGHE AN DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING 
 QUYNH LUU 4 UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 ===***=== 
 TEACHING EXPERIENCE 
USING EDUCATIONAL APPS TO INCREASE INTEREST 
 AND EFECIENCY IN LEARNING ENGLISH AT 
 QUYNH LUU 4 UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL 
 Scope: Theory and Methods of Teaching English 
 Subject : English 
 Teacher: Dinh Thi Lan 
 Phone number: 0369676908 
 Group: English 
 NGHE AN, 2023 
 3.1. Applying games designed on wordwall.net into real lessons 12 
3.2. Using teamwork games on bamboozle.com into real lessons. 35 
3.3. Improving the quality of studying for the national high school 42 
examination through azota.vn. 
4. Survey on the urgency and feasibility of the proposed solutions. 47 
PART III: CONCLUSION 49 
1. A summary of the development of the study 49 
2. Limitations 50 
3. Recommendations 50 
REFERENCES 
APPENDICES 
 + Allowing students to play learning games directly in class via phone is a 
new form of teaching in the period of digital transformation. 
 + Assigning homework and checking it through apps is very different from 
the traditional way. 
 + Designing games on available educational software is a new and 
convenient way of designing lessons in the 4.0 era. 
 + Preparing and sharing practice tests and mock exams with 12th graders in 
in our schools and the schools in Nghe An province in order to increase the quality 
of English subjects at Quynh Lưu 4 Upper Secondary school in particular and 
Nghe An province in general is something no teacher has done before. 
3. Aims of the study 
 For the reasons mentioned above, the study has been done with the aims to: 
 + Apply and promote the advantages of new teaching methods to motivate 
 students’ spirit of learning English and improve the quality of teaching and 
 learning of this subject. 
 + Take advantages of educational apps in teaching persuasively in the era 4.0. 
 PART II. CONTENT 
I. Theoretical background 
1. New trend in teaching today 
 In the face of the strong change and development of society, especially the 
explosion of information and communication technology (Revolution 4.0), the 
challenges of world economic integration have been posed to the education new 
challenges. In addition to changing and supplementing some teaching contents, we 
also need to find appropriate and creative methods and forms of teaching 
organization to form and develop students' capacity. Teaching now is not simply 
the transmission of knowledge in one direction, but it is the teacher who organizes 
and directs the students' activities. Teaching activities must create enthusiasm and 
excitement for students, especially in exercises and even after school . Therefore, I 
choose to use games designed apps and assign homework through apps to avoid 
boredom in teaching and learning English. 
2. The importance of learning apps. 
 Education is the establishment of everything on the planet, and it has no 
endpoint. Without education, human progress would quit advancing and standstill. 
The 21st century has a place for technology. And we all know that the advent of 
technology has greatly affected the education industry as well. These ever-evolving 
technologies have been reshaping the education field for so long. 
 2 4.1. Wordwall.net 
 - Principal functions: Game app 
 Wordwall is a free online tool for creating learning activities. With it, 
teachers can enter the topic that they would like to cover in class into the Wordwall 
and receive a variety of ready-made, fully customisable activities such as quizzes, 
word games, maze chases and much more. Users also can create their own 
activities from scratch. Moreover, most activities on Wordwall can be used in both 
interactive and printable formats. 
 - Evaluation: 
 Wordwall is a quick and easy-to-use tool to create interactive activities for 
your class. This tool offers a wide variety of activities to choose from and makes 
learning much more fun. Furthermore, it is available in many different languages. 
One of the tool´s drawbacks is that users can create only up to 5 activity types with 
a free account. Afterwards, activities have to be deleted to make space for new 
ones. 
 - Cost: Free with registration + premium plans available (For free use, 
teachers should have many accounts, because each free account can only be used 
up to 5 times. However, the purchase price for long-term use is not expensive, only 
70 to 105 thousand VND per month) 
 - Website: https://wordwall.net 
 Interface of wordwall.net 
 4 + Players click on the link to play games ( don’t need any account). 
4.2. Baamboozle 
 - Principal function(s): 
 Bamboozle is a well-designed and engaging word game that promotes 
teamwork, communication, and critical thinking skills while providing an 
enjoyable way to test language, vocabulary, and cultural knowledge. 
 - Evaluation: 
 Baamboozle is an application that creates a game in the form of questions 
with pictures for students to play right in the classroom with the aim of helping 
them practise more knowledge that the students have learned. By using games in 
the classroom, teachers can create a lively atmosphere in the classroom while also 
being able to test the knowledge that the children have learned more effectively. 
Specifically, to create games. On Baamboozle, we will have to prepare questions in 
advance with pictures attached to the answers as a hint so that the children can play 
the game more easily in case they can't think of it. answers to questions. For each 
correct answer, the teams will be added points, the team that gets the most points 
will be the winner. 
 - Cost: The Basic option, which is free, gets you the ability to create your 
own games, upload 1MB of images, play with four teams, add up to 24 questions 
per game, and create your own games -- all you need to give is your email address. 
 - Website: https://www.baamboozle.com 
 Interface of baamboozle.com 
 6 With many PDF files and questions already available, Azota is very helpful 
for teachers. It's a lot easier to create exam questions or online assignments. 
Whether it is with any subject such as English, Math, Physics, Chemistry, 
Literature,... there are many exercises. An unmissable repository of teachers' data. 
 + It doesn't take much time to grade. 
 One more "golden" advantage to support teachers of this software is to 
support grading. Azota is equipped with an auto grading system for instant results. 
The test only needs to be submitted and learners can know the results immediately. 
 + There are learning statistics. 
 Marking and statistics of study results are a series of outstanding advantages. 
When teachers have learning results statistics, they can easily evaluate students. At 
the same time, parents can also view their children's score statistics. 
 + Easy to use, intuitive interface 
 Azota is developed for teachers and students, so visualization is a must. In 
addition, it should be an easy-to-use application with a logical, simple and smart 
design. Because it only takes a few steps to be able to use it to bring high 
efficiency. Even people who are not good at technology can use this software. 
 - Cost: Completely free 
 - Website: https://www.azota.vn 
 Interface of azota.vn 
 - How to create tests on azota.vn 
 + Access to website: azota.vn, log in with your teacher account -> Select 
Multiple-choice Exam -> Click Create Topic.-> Select Upload Exam. 
 + On the Exam side, click on the arrow to upload or drag and drop the exam 
question. 
 8 interest and passion for learning English. Attractive forms of reward and 
punishment: awarding points, giving gifts, fines for singing, dancing, drawing, 
imitating the sounds or movements of animals will appreciate students 
participating in the game play. In addition to absorbing knowledge in an enjoyable 
way, They also help learners reduce the stress of studying and remembering 
knowledge for a longer time. Using the games on educational apps also trains 
many skills such as observation, quick response, self-study skills.etc. The students 
can study at home by doing the exercises that the teacher has prepared on the 
software, 12th graders also have the opportunity to test their knowledge through 
taking these tests. This is also the goal of innovation teaching today. 
3. Advantages and disadvantages of designing games on educational apps at 
Quynh Luu 4 high school. 
 * Advantages: 
 - About the school's facility: Most of the classes are equipped with quite 
large-screen televisions, there are 2 projector rooms for teaching, and the school 
has equipped wifi network to every classroom. 
 - For students: Most students have smart phones and they can access to IT 
easily. 
 - For teachers: There are quite a few teachers with basic knowledge of IT, so 
the use of games is not too difficult. 
 - For School Managers: They always encourage teachers to actively innovate 
teaching methods and organize teaching sessions on October 20th ; November 20th ; 
March 8th according to innovation themes. 
 - The strong development of educational apps creates conditions for teachers 
to design lesson plans quickly and lively. 
 * Disadvantages: 
 - Some classrooms are not equipped with televisions or TV screens are too 
small. The projector room sometimes works unstably because it has been used for 
a long time. 
 - A part of students are still lazy to exercise, not really interested in the 
subject, still familiar with the old way of learning. Moreover, some students don’t 
have smart phones. 
 - A number of the teachers are afraid to innovate, especially older teachers. 
The old teaching methods are still deeply rooted in the subconscious and are hard 
to change for a long time. 
 - The IT skills of many teachers are not really good, so designing games on 
apps faces many difficulties. The ability to organize games is still awkward and 
takes time, thereby reducing the effectiveness of the lesson. 
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