BrainPop ESL Website Evaluation

Website Evaluation #2

Website Title: Brain Pop ESL

Website URL:  https://esl.brainpop.com/

Grade/Age/ Proficiency Level: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced Learners

Purpose and Content 

 

The purpose of this website is to teach English to students. The website seeks to develop students listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. Students can take a placement test to discover their level. Once their level is determined they can start a lesson at that level. There are three levels: 1 for beginners, 2 for intermediate, and 3 for advanced language learners.

   

Each level has six units with each unit containing five lessons. Each lesson has an animated movie that teaches vocabulary and grammar centered around a theme. The movies engage students in learning English. They contain closed captions to help language learners connect the spoken words with the written. In addition to the animated movie, there are short grammar and vocabulary videos that help reinforce the concepts presented. Students can also choose from a variety of activities to help them learn the grammar and vocabulary. These interactive activities are:  Know More, Flash Words, Play It, Write It, Read It, Hear It and Say It, Practice, and Quiz. 

Know More provides additional grammar information and is a good resource for students who need more explanation about the concepts. Flash Words are vocabulary flash cards that have a picture on one side and the word on the other. When you click on either the picture or the word, the word is audible.

Play It is a game to reinforce the lesson concepts. The games vary in each level and lesson. Some games are memory matching, a board game with questions, and an obstacle course with questions along the way. Write It is an opportunity for students to practice writing. The type of writing depends on the learners level. Read It is a reading comprehension assessments. In the lower level, students practice reading words and sounding out letters. In an advanced level, students read a selection and answer comprehension and vocabulary questions. Hear It and Say It requires students to listen to a sentence from the movie and then record themselves saying it. This activity is a fun way for students to practice pronunciation. Practice allows students to review the material learned in this lesson in a game form. This practice is in preparation for the lesson quiz. The practices all differ depending on the level and lesson. The Quiz feature has ten questions to test student's understanding of the movie content, grammar, and vocabulary presented in the lesson. Additional resources are word lists, lesson ideas, and a help feature.

Effectiveness of External Documents

BrainPop offers a lot of different external documents for teachers and students. Some of these resources are lesson plans, graphic organizers, printable resources, reading and writing activities. These resources add to the language learning process and give educators tools and ideas to enhance their instruction. There are vocabulary lists for each unit broken down by lesson. These lists can be printed off and distributed to the learners. Most of the teachers' resources are found on the BrainPop Educators website. This site has a lot of useful information and external documents. BrainPop Educators is a site for all their programs, not just ESL. Therefore, the teacher will have to search through the information to find what is applicable for him or her. In addition, there is a helpful cross product content chart, that is a PDF download, showing how the content on BrainPop ESL corresponds to the information on the other sites (BrainPop, BrainPop Jr., etc.) BrainPop also offers an informative monthly newsletter that teachers can subscribe to and receive ideas on how to use the material with their curriculum. The newsletter also promotes their latest news, new movies, and features.

Appeal

BrainPop ESL is a hands-on site that draws students in and keeps them engaged while instructing them in English. It is colorful, attractive, and very interactive. The animated movies capture students attention. There are two main characters Ben and Moby the robot who appear in all the movies and throughout the site. These characters inspire children to learn English through their dialogue.The fun games and activities will have language learners enjoying the concepts, grammar, and vocabulary. Students can choose what activities they want to do and the order they will complete them. Thus, it gives students learning autonomy.

Language Goals

BrainPop ESL equips language learners to read, write, speak and understand English. The lessons are aligned to the Common Core Standards. The standards can be found in the lesson plan for a lesson. To find lesson plans click the “see all content” link at the bottom of the website.
This will take you to a complete listing of all the lessons with the grammar topics named by each lesson. Under each lesson title is a summary of the movie content, the grammar topics, and a link to a detailed lesson plan.

Teachers can use BrainPop ESL to provide students with independent practice or they can use it in conjunction with their curriculum. The website can accommodate a variety of student learners. It can be used with the class, a small group, or an individual to work on their own. 

However, there is a fee to access the whole website. Only a select number of lessons are free.  If it is possible to pay for a subscription, it would be a great investment for your language learners. 

Assessability

The website provides a lot of opportunity for assessment. The beginning assessment is the placement test and the ending assessment for each lesson is a quiz. Students can take a placement test to determine their level. The placement test allows students to save their work and complete it at another time. When students have had enough practice with the lesson material, they can take a short quiz. The quiz has ten questions about the grammar, vocabulary and movie content. In addition, each lesson has the interactive tool Read It. This tool provides an opportunity for short reading comprehension assessments at the higher level. Students read a selection and then answer questions about it and the vocabulary used. The Write IT tool can be used to assess student's writing. Students in the lower level practice writing letters and words. Then they progress to writing short answers to questions. In level three, students respond to writing prompts. There are a variety of writing projects from letter writing and journal entries to persuasive and informational essays. Teachers can evaluate these writing pieces.

As of  March 7, 2016, BrainPop ESL added the My BrainPop feature for tracking student learning. Students and teachers have log-ins where they can access the progress information. Students can use this feature to send their quiz scores, reading comprehension scores and writing work to their teacher. Teachers can also view students' placement tests. They can also see what movies, grammar and vocabulary videos, and other activities have been completed. The My BrainPop feature allows educators to give students feedback on their progress. It also helps the teacher with their work by keeping the records and allowing both the student and the teacher to view them.

Usability

Brain Pop ESL uses images as well as words for each different link. This feature makes it easy to use for beginning language learners who are still developing their reading skills. It also makes it more visually appealing. 

 BrainPop ESL is well designed. There are a lot of icon buttons to select from on both the home page and in a level. However, the different links are laid out in an organized way. Thus making it easy for students to navigate through the site. Students start on the home page where they can easily find their level. Once they click on their level they are taken to another page with a list of the units and lessons for each unit. Only the unit clicked displays all its lessons. Once students find their lesson, they can select an activity from the eight icon choices or they can choose to watch the lesson movie, a grammar video, or a vocabulary video. All the links work and the site is well maintained with new features appearing on the home page.  

Strengths and Improvements

Strengths

• Placement test
• Multimedia lesson movies
• Eight interactive activities 
• Lots of independent practice
• Visual 
• Attractive
• Usable for a variety of proficiency levels
• Adapts the speech pace and complexity of activities to the appropriate level
• Opportunities to hear, see. speak, and write English
• Lesson plans for each lesson
• An assessment incorporated into each lesson
• My BrainPop tool to track student learning
• Help feature 
• Search feature 
• BrainPop ESL Apps for iOS, Android, and Windows

Improvements

• Expand the number of topics in each unit, add more units, or add an extras section with additional lessons on other topics not covered but requested by teachers
• Offer a free version with add-on features for purchase or offer scholarships for individuals or schools who can't afford to purchase BrainPop ESL
• Provide a written script for Hear It, Say It so students can focus on pronunciation and not memorization 
• Add oral definitions to Flash Words vocabulary to clarify the meaning of the pictures and eliminate misunderstanding 
• Add a Read It, Say It feature that allows students to practice pronunciation by reading passages out loud and recording themselves.  They could even read their writing prompt work out loud.

Conclusion

BrainPop ESL will entertain, and educate English Language Learners (ELLs).  From the animated movies to the interactive activities, students will be engaged in learning new vocabulary, grammar, and content. Students can progress at their own rate or participate in the activities with their class. Although, I think they would get the most from the website by using it individually.  Students can track their own learning with My BrainPop.  Teachers can also view this tool to see how students are progressing. The biggest challenge with this site is that it is limited to specific grammar, vocabulary, and content selected. If there is a specific topic you want to teach and it is not in one of the lessons then this website wouldn't be able to help.  Overall, this website is a great selection for helping learners practice English skills.  I highly recommended BrainPop ESL as a tool to purchase and use with ELLs.