Teaching, Language & Reference
Balloon English
a SCORM-compliant language course
by James Bean, Gillian Flaherty
Balloon English is a set of interactive lessons enriched with attractive digital assets and exercises: animations, games and personalised feedback. These digital supplementary ELT materials are for grades 1-6 mainstream education and are in line with the Communicative Approach to Language Teaching. There are 312 lessons containing 2,300+ interactive screens with 5,000+ activities, animations, games and songs. Balloon English is supplied with AI-aided Grammar and Vocabulary tools that follow the students' progress and provide language content on the basis of their results. Our AI technology supports teachers and students giving essential feedback concerning areas which need revision or focus. Balloon English is filled with a wide range of fiction and non-fiction graded texts that cover a range of interesting but familiar topics. This approach allows students to gradually develop their reading and listening skills and not be overwhelmed by the text. Following the presentation, practice, production approach, comprehension of the texts is developed through a range of simple and clear exercises supported by a feedback and reward system that motivates and attracts students to language learning. Balloon English provides a truly interactive and digital experience that engages students. Method 1. ProductBalloon English 2. MaterialsBased on a series of ELT course books published by ILTS ltd, a UK publisher, and written by Gillian Flaherty and James Bean. 3. LanguageAmerican English 4. Age group and levelPrimary Education, Grades 1-6, CEFR A15. Methodologya) Communicative Language Teaching where the focus is on meaning and texts appropriate to the context. Balloon English is a perfect tool for building students’ communication skills. It is filled with a wide range of fiction and non-fiction graded texts that cover many interesting and familiar topics. This approach allows students to gradually develop their reading and listening skills and to not be overwhelmed by the text. The series follows the acclaimed presentation-practice-production method of teaching, and comprehension of the texts is developed through a range of simple and clear exercises supported by a feedback and reward system that motivates and attracts students to language learning. b) The Presentation, Practice and Production approach is used so that the language is presented in the form of videos, slideshows, meaningful illustrations with texts, and followed by controlled practice activities, and finally used in pairs or groups more freely, in the production stage. The practice activities relate to the main topic of the lesson and enable students to build their confidence and carry out the learning tasks successfully. At the end of each lesson students have an opportunity to use the English that they have learnt and to develop fluency. Students are encouraged to work in pairs or groups, and even walk around the classroom as part of the learning process. Each Talk and play activity is accompanied by a game which on the one hand grabs students’ attention, and on the other hand encourages pair-work or group-work, and leads to the spontaneous use of learnt language. Each game is closely related to the context of the lesson. Gamification is more likely to be successful these days because students are more willing to be active participants in its implementation. They enjoy playing computer games and immediately understand and appreciate their mechanics and rules. Educational games help teachers to manage, motivate, and engage their students. c) Personalized learning is essential in communicative language teaching. Balloon English provides a rich source of material which can be personalized by the students in the more creative parts of the lesson (Talk and play), where learners are encouraged to practice what they have learnt in pairs or small groups, and in a uniquely personal way. Personalization is strongly supported by artificial intelligence (AI) which has been built into the Balloon English tools. The Grammar tool provides suggestions for individual learning paths based on the students’ results. The Vocabulary tool is a perfect drill for playing with new words and where the learning path is built on the fly. The results of each screen determine if the students receive a more easy or more difficult set of activities within a given topic. Student performance data can be easily tracked and assessed. This data provides the teacher with a range of flexible course options best suited to the learners’ needs, either for remedial teaching or for a particular focus on the relevant areas of language knowledge and skills. d) Balloon English can easily be used in a blended learning environment. It is the perfect tool to combine technology and classroom-based learning. With blended learning, Balloon English supports students’ autonomy and helps them to work independently on areas that interest them, as well as on areas that they find difficult. It also provides the possibility of undertaking additional practice. The automatic marking function gives instant feedback and encourages students to repeat exercises as needed. Students are also given hints when they face problems with activity solving and they are rewarded for correct answers which can be very motivating.
