Hello English: Dragon Boat Festival Edition
Hello English: is an immersive eLearning module for ESL kids and teachers. Experience interactive sentence building and overcome language barriers. Built with Articulate.
- Audience: This lesson is designed for ESL teachers who work in international contexts and want to implement different types of hands on education tech in the classroom.
- Duties: Instructional Design, eLearning Development, Visual Design
- Tools: Adobe XD, Adobe Illustrator, Articulate Storyline
Approach
As an individual working in the field of Learning and Development within the education sector, I constantly seek innovative ways to assist teachers in integrating enjoyable and interactive tools into their classrooms. One common challenge, particularly in ESL classrooms, is that students often become disengaged with the conventional grammar exercises that involve pen and paper. Additionally, many English learning applications lack the flexibility to align with the specific content being taught to children.
For this project, my aim was to tackle both of these issues. I wanted a user-friendly tool that allows teachers to effortlessly personalize the learning experience based on the lesson topic, while also providing a platform accessible on classroom iPads. Drawing inspiration from successful language learning apps like HelloChinese and Duolingo, which offer engaging sentence building activities, I set out to develop a similar resource.
My Process
I designed and developed this project in the following order:
- Target a learning objective
- Research similar tools
- Develop the structure and interactivty
- Source artwork + Polish
- Review and Publish
Although I do enjoy some parts over others, each part of my process was vital to the finalized product.
Target a Learning Objective
When I was deciding on the difficulty level for my learning tool, I took into account the English proficiency of children in elementary school, specifically in Grade Two and Three. At this stage, students have typically been introduced to subject-verb-object sentences, as well as question structure, and are progressing towards constructing more diverse and complex sentences. With this in mind, I designed my tool to focus on the simple SVO structure and questions, which aligns with their current language development and helps them practice forming sentences in a fun and engaging way.
Research Similar Tools
Once I had a clear idea of what I wanted to create, I hopped onto the internet to do some research. I knew that tools like the one I had in mind had been built using Articulate before, so I wanted to find some helpful tips and avoid too many mistakes early on. I was eager to gather as much knowledge as possible, so I dived into various online resources. I scoured articles, forums, and even checked out case studies to get a well-rounded understanding of what works best and learn from the experiences of others who had tackled similar projects. It was all about equipping myself with the right know-how to make my project a success.
Develop the Structure and Interactivity
Afterwards, I proceeded to tackle the development of the tool's structure and interactivity, which turned out to be an incredibly enjoyable phase. Despite not being a skilled coder proficient in JavaScript, I eagerly rolled up my sleeves and immersed myself in the world of coding. I began by scouring the web for existing code snippets that aligned with my project's requirements. Armed with these code snippets as a foundation, I embarked on the task of customizing and tailoring them to suit my specific needs. To ensure accuracy and minimize potential errors, I took advantage of AI-powered tools that provided valuable assistance throughout the process.
In the case of Hello English, three distinct triggers were necessary to execute JavaScript functions seamlessly. The first segment of code allowed users of the tool to effortlessly modify the sentences according to the content they wished their students to engage with. As for the remaining code segments, they remained untouched, serving their designated purposes flawlessly.
I would like to give credit to Marie-Jo Leroux for sourcing the code that was instrumental in developing the structure and interactivity of the tool. Her contribution in discovering the necessary code snippets greatly facilitated the progress of my project. Thank you, Marie-Jo Leroux, for your valuable assistance in making this endeavor possible.
This project incorporated a range of triggers to enhance interactivity and functionality. One of the key triggers involved enabling users to modify sentences based on their desired content for student engagement. Additionally, carefully curated code snippets were integrated to execute the JavaScript above seamlessly. Leveraging these triggers, the tool provided a dynamic and customizable learning experience while ensuring smooth operation throughout.
Source Artwork + Polish
Once I had finished setting up all the interactive elements like variables, triggers, and JavaScript, I was thrilled to dive into the next phase of making everything visually appealing. To give it a unique touch, I decided to embrace a Chinese Dragon Boat Festival theme. This choice not only catered to teachers in China (and other countries) but also felt fitting as the Dragon Boat Festival was happening during the development of this project. Thankfully, I stumbled upon some fantastic artwork on FreePik, which I promptly downloaded and tweaked using Adobe Illustrator and Adobe XD to suit my needs.
With my chosen theme and colors in place, my focus shifted to refining the shapes and objects scattered throughout the project. It was time to roll up my sleeves and polish every aspect, ensuring a cohesive and visually captivating experience for the users.
Review and Publish
Once I was done sprucing everything up to make it look all spiffy, I finally had a chance to go over it again. The whole process ended up taking more time than I expected because I kept catching little details I just had to tweak. But eventually, I reached that point of contentment with my project and decided to hit that publish button.
Takeaways
In a span of just three days, I poured my efforts into crafting an engaging educational resource titled "Hello English: Dragon Boat Festival Edition." The feedback from a group of teachers who previewed it was overwhelmingly positive, particularly highlighting its visually appealing design and user-friendly customization options.
As the current school year draws to a close, I am filled with excitement about the ample time I will have to embark on similar projects and explore the possibility of creating a larger language-learning platform that incorporates this tool. One intriguing idea that has caught my attention is the utilization of Synthesia, an advanced technology that could generate AI videos featuring native speakers. These videos would serve as valuable listening activities for students, fostering an authentic language-learning experience.
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