Mobile Apps for K-12 ESL Learners

K12 Phoneme Videos is a mobile app designed for both iPhone and iPad. It lets the user hear and see American English phonemes (the basic speech sounds that make up words) pronounced correctly by an expert speaker. Through these videos, the user can hear and visually see how the expert pronounce these phonemes, which includes: vowels, consonants, digraphs, vowel digraphs, and r-controlled vowels.

K12 Phoneme Videos can be very useful for teaching grade 1-2 ESL learners American English sounds. In the classroom environment, the teacher can download this app into the school/classroom iPad for the kids to hear and see how American English sounds are pronounced. Outside the classroom, the parents can download this app into their devices so that the kids can use it at home. The most important thing about this app is that, the kids will hear and see how the expert pronounce these sounds correctly.

Word Search is a free app that allows users to play more than 20 quests and categories puzzles like animals, cities, foods, sports and much more! Users can play from easy 5 x 5 up to extreme challenges of 20 x 20.

Word search is a great tool for learning new vocabulary and spelling. It can be used for elementary (grade 4-6), junior high (grade 7-9) and senior high (grade 10-12) ESL learners. The app can be used both in and outside of the classroom. In the classroom , the teacher can select the game activity (i.e. easy/challenging) depending on the level of the students. To make the activity more interactive, students can sit down in groups and search words together.

The app has 7 items to choose from. These items includes: Animals, countries of the world, cities of the world American Presidents, historical figures, kids and trademarks.

The app is available for smart phone, 7 inch tablet or 10 inch HD devices and small or low resolution devices!

Vocabulary Spelling City is an app that provides users with access to a variety of vocabulary, spelling, writing and phonics learning games. Some of these games includes: audio word match, missing letters, read a word, spelling test, and word unscramble.

This app can be used to teach K-12 ESL learners vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation and word writing. It can be used for kindergatten, elementary, junior high and senior high ESL learners and can be used in and outside the classroom. In K-1 for example, after teaching kids Colours, a teacher can give the kids"Audio word match for Colours" activity whereby the kids match the word mentioned with colours. In grade 1-2, kids can alphabetize words (Arrange words alphabetically). There are so many word spelling activities available for K-12 ESL learners in this app. The two examples given above are just some of the few.

The app is available on iPads, iPhones and android devices.

Spelling Bee Game, allows users to see, listen and write English words. It also let users see how the target words are used in context. The level of complexity of the spelling activities starts from warm up, very easy to hard. This app is a great tool for grade 3-12 ESL learners. Using this app, the students can learn pronunciation, word spelling and usage. Spelling Bee Game is also a great tool for helping ESL learners develop listening and writing skills.

The app has great music and sound effects and so, it interesting listen to. It is designed for both iPhone and iPad

Duolingo is an app that allows users to learn languages of their choices for free. English is one of these languages. According to the founder, Duolingo brings equal access to language education to everybody . This is because, everyone can have access to the language they want/wish to learn, for free.

This app has been named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the best language learning apps. It is a great tool that ESL teachers from grade 1-12 can use to enhance their teaching. Depending on the students level, an ESL teacher can select an activity to target certain skill (reading, writing, listening and speaking). ESL students on their free time can use this app to improve their speaking, listening, writing and reading skills.

The app can be used with iOs, Android and windows mobile devices.

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YouTube,. (2015). Word Search FX. Retrieved 27 October 2015, from https://youtu.be/1EJkir8evmQ

YouTube,. (2015). Obama Talks With Duolingo Creators. Retrieved 28 October 2015, from https://youtu.be/qEUlzDpWAYU