BrainPOP ESL
I got introduced to BrainPOP ESL by a new colleague, she has used it with different groups and has succeeded in capturing the interest of even the students that sometimes can be hard to capture. I´ve started introducing it with my students that need extra assignments. We started at level on and then clicked our way onwards to find the level suited for the student. The layout of the site is welcoming and attention grabbing, the reason for that could be that it is very colorful and have lots of different choices to click on. It’s filled with different animated activities. BrainPOP ESL is the creation of Naomi Prawer Kadar, Ph.D. (1949-2010), she was a language teacher teaching both ESL students and students studying to become teachers.
BrainPOP ESL is divided into level 1-3 and each level is divided into 6 unites. Each unit consists of 5 lessons and every lesson starts off with watching a short animated movie. With every lesson there are exercises for listening, reading, speaking and writing. There are different ways to work with words on the website like flashcards and visual words where words are shown animated to clarify their meaning. For extra activities or games the students ‘can find exercises by clicking on Play it. Under Warm Up! you´ll find exercises to prepare for the quiz that you find by clicking on You Can Do It! When using the quizzes that you access by clicking on You Can Do It! the students gets their result right a way and find out what they need to work more on. There is also a section called Teaching Tools, here teachers can find things like lesson plans and extra activities.
To find out more by watching a short animated introduction, please follow the link below.
One side to BrainPOP that could be could be a negative is that it is not free. There is some free stuff on the site that you can use and there is also the opportunity off trying the website out for free before signing up. The free stuff you can find by clicking on Free lesson and Free game.
The cost of subscribing to BrainPOP ESL depends on how many computers you want to be able to use it on at the same time. The subscription usually runs for a year at a time, for classroom use the fee is $115 and then you will be able to use BrainPOP ESL on your Smartboard or be able to be logged in on three different computers at the same time. One of the other options to subscribe is to do it so that your entire school including parents can use it, which would cost $495.
You´ll find BrainPOP ESL by following the link below.
There are other types of BrainPOP that you can find online that are created for native speaking students. They can also be an interesting way of teaching English and working cross curricular.
I also think that BrainPop has a lot of possibilities, both as a tool to get to the not so motivated students but also to use together with a whole class in e.g thematic studies like English, Maths and Science. You're correct about the negative aspect, that it costs quite a lot if you want the whole school licence, but I look upon it as a possibility for more teachers to be bold and get rid off the study books.If we all dare to do that the money we would save would easily be enough to pay for BrainPop.
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