BOOKR Class was designed for colleagues, who enjoy novelty and have high hopes and expectations when it comes to language teaching. The app offers high-quality graded texts with stunning visuals and authentic narration in a digital format and within the storytelling method – a unique combination on the market. 

To help with the implementation of this app and guarantee success in the classroom, we have gathered some ideas on how to use our digital multimedia books to their fullest potential. But diving teachers might alter these guidelines according to their students’ needs  

You can use the BOOKR Class books as huge books without narration. Simply project the app and read the story with your students at their ideal pace. This way, you can adjust the reading process for your students, add comments, provide explanations or turn the book into a dialogic reading activity.

Check the global comprehension skills of the class using a BOOKR story as a listening activity. Instead of projecting the book, students simply listen to the story and then play the follow-up games.

Combine the features of the interactive multimedia books and first, have your students listen to the beginning of the story. What characters do they imagine as protagonists?

Turn on the projector, and allow them to see the visuals. Were they right? Now have them enjoy the multimedia experience.

Next, turn off the narration. Can they imitate the characters’ voices well? Alter the input as much as possible and challenge your students’ skills!

Share your screen with your students and ask them to think about the story they are reading. Start the book, then stop every once in a while and ask questions to generate discussion, recall vocabulary, encourage prediction or personalize your questioning. Adapt your questions for each student and address them individually. 

With good planning time, you can build a three-tiered lesson plan. Think about your students who are below their expected level (A), the ones at their expected level (B), and the advanced level group (C). Open the Activity Tips and the Teacher’s Handbook to combine the tasks. 

• For group A, use small steps and simple activities. Include pre-teaching and construct the lesson in such a way that you can actively support them throughout.  
• For group B, give more autonomy, making sure they work together and rely on each other. They can play the follow-up games after the story and add various extra activities. 
• For group C, omit the smaller steps and include a wide variety of activities, project work, or research. 

Allow your students to pick one of the three options based on their skills, motivation, emotional state, and on-the-spot personal preference.  

One of the best ways to differentiate instruction is to let the students decide how the classroom is organized during the lesson. Do they prefer to work on their own, in pairs, in smaller groups, or frontally? Have them vote or simply let them pick for themselves.

In many cases, enthusiastic students are able to work on their own, prove their potential and challenge themselves so the teacher can spend more time with students who need additional support.

There are always students who finish activities faster than others and tend to start activities often not appreciated by diving teachers. In these trying times, let these students use BOOKR Class, pick a book or flashcard set they are interested in, and read and play while you work with other students.

You can use stories as picture books and encourage students to come up with alternative scenarios and endings. Have them change the place, time, personality traits of the characters, and optionally the solution. Provide an opportunity for their imagination and sense of humor to fly. 

Start your lesson with a listening activity without projecting the visual aids. Ask your students to imagine what the characters are like after listening to the first few pages. Can they describe them? How do they imagine the plot will unfold (based solely on the characters)? How biased are they? Start up a conversation on prejudices, biases, and openness.

Set up a competition between the students. Pair them up and ask them to work together on the games. Student A asks Student B about the first item. If the answer is correct, a point is awarded. If the student passes or their answer is incorrect, it becomes Student B’s turn. Student B asks Student A about the next word, question, or item. Who wins more points?

BOOKR Class books can be the basis for an exhibition of still pictures. Assign different pages/books to various groups of students and ask them to create a still picture. Can the other students guess which scene/story the group is trying to recreate?

How well do they use body language? How good are their interpretative skills? Who has the greatest aptitude for this artistic project?

Time management and self-principle are important skills that teachers can nurture at school. Help your students form the great habit of daily reading.

• Who has the longest strike?
• What is their secret?
• Who is the first on the leader board?
• What motivates them?

Use BOOKR Class books for role play to improve emotional intelligence. First, students choose their character and then assign them a character that might be more of a challenge for them to identify with. In books where there are several characters, you might want your students to focus on a minor character and ask them to retell the story from their perspective.

Does the exercise spark any empathy?

 How critical are your students? How logically or creatively do they think?  Ask them to speculate and guess what comes next while reading the book. Stop the story once in a while and ask questions about upcoming events.

What are their predictions?

How well can your students summarize content? Do they find the most important information easily?

Ask your students to tell the story by themselves as briefly as they can. Summarizing the plot might be challenging at first, but if they rely on the pictures, they will be able to organize their thoughts and sentences more easily.

When it comes to the games and flashcards, allocate enough time to allow your students to think and guess instead of attempting to solve the tasks as fast as they can.

Before tapping on the words and listening to them in the vocabulary-building games, ask students to guess the words.

After listening to the words, encourage your students to repeat them. Who can imitate the narrator best? In the case of flashcard sets the built-in voice recognition AI system will tell!

Pick an illustration from one of the books for the warm-up activity and project the paused page.

• Where is it set?
• Who are the characters?
• What is the relationship between them?
• Why are they there?
• What are they thinking about?
• What happened before?
• What will happen next?

Guide your students from concrete visible information to personal ideas and hypotheses. Encourage discussion, arguments, and fictitious scenarios!

Our dream as teachers is to listen to our students talk with each other genuinely, yet the road to achieving this is long and full of challenges. The best way to guide your students is with role plays. 

• Step 0 is a read-aloud session simultaneously with the narration of the BOOKR Class book. 
• Step 1 is a simple read-aloud session of a conversation frontally or in smaller groups. 
• Step 2 is adding some emotion to their reading. For fun, you can hand out pictures of different emojis (angry, scared, sad, happy, tired…) and have your students use that voice while reading. The less it matches their role, the funnier it can get.
• Step 3 is encouraging free talk, rephrasing, shortening, and adding their own words or expressions to the conversation. 
• Step 4 is doing the role play on their own with the help of the pictures or a sketched flipchart. 
• Step 5 is going for alternative (sometimes even unexpected) choices and answers. At this point, your students might not even rely on visuals anymore. 

You can use memory games and flashcard sets to make up stories using given words or expressions. If they make a lot of mistakes in the memory game, the funnier the repetition can get in their own story. How much can they twist the original idea? How many linking words can they use? 

Let your students practice vocabulary by turning over a set of flashcards. Students can work in pairs and test each other, card by card.

• Student A has the chance to say the first word depicted by the first flashcard. If the correct word is said, a point is awarded to Student A. If not, no points are awarded.
• Student B turns over the second flashcard.

Who has a larger vocabulary range?

Encourage your students to have fun while improving their pronunciation with flashcards. Students can work in pairs and test each other.

• Student A has the chance to say the word depicted by the picture on the first flashcard. If the correct word is said and the score of Student A is over 90%, a point is awarded to him or her.
• Student A has 3 more chances to reach 90% before it is Student B’s turn.

Whose pronunciation is better?

Divide your students into two groups (or an even number of groups) and assign a different part of the book to each group. Let them read their part and then mix and match them with new partners:

• What are their ideas for the missing parts?
• What are their hypotheses?
• After the first round of guessing, allow them to ask questions.
• Can they reconstruct the story with the newly-acquired information or do their partners need to tell them what was missing from their part?

You can assign books to your students as homework in the Teacher’s Dashboard. It can serve as an introduction to a topic or a practice after a lesson. They can read at home, play the games, you can monitor their progress and results, or even turn it into a competition with rewards.

You can assign flashcard sets as homework and encourage your students to practice words. Listening to the flashcards and pronouncing the words or expressions help the acquisition and make students more knowledgeable and confident in the long run.

You can ask your students to work in pairs or in small groups (maximum of 4) in class and read the stories together on their smartphones. This can be a pleasant shared experience, especially if they turn off the narration and read to each other or turn it into a roleplay.

You can open the app on your computer and project a book for the whole class. Then you can read for the students or have them read to each other and to you. As a reward, you can play the games or compete with the help of a flashcard set.

You can start your lesson with a BOOKR Class story and then build the activities and exercises from the story. Make use of the follow-up games and the Activity Tips document with extra ideas and materials. Vocabulary building, grammar practice or project work…the opportunities are endless.

Check out the Teacher’s Handbook for examples.

You can start your lesson with a story that introduces the topic of the lesson to generate discussion, recall knowledge, motivate and engage students.

Then you can advance to the planned textbook material, work on those exercises and assign the book with games as homework for additional revision and practice.

You can choose to finish your lesson with a nice book as a reward. It’s short pleasure reading that you can enjoy together and proves that books are not only for teaching content in the classroom. 

Congrats! You have read all of our 39 tips on how to use BOOKR Class!

BOOKR Class books are invaluable tools for differentiated instruction, to improve 21st century skills, higher-order thinking skills as well as communication skills liketraditional books, but with more opportunities thanks to their digitized format. However, most of these activities only need the app, some motivation and a lot of encouragement on your part as the teacher. 

As a diving teacher, I’m sure you already have at least one activity in mind from the 39 that you would like to bring into the classroom over the next few days. I also hope you found these tips inspiring and that you came up with your own ideas too! Can you add the 40th to the list?
Share your ideas in our Teacher Community! 

Can you pick your favorite activity? If so, try it with your students and share your experience with us on Facebook. 

Let us introduce you to some of the newly uploaded titles.

Gramedia is Indonesia’s largest and most complete online bookstore. Furthermore, the Gramedia Digital application is the biggest digital newsstand in Indonesia where any book lover can buy, download, and read more than 60,000 e-books from national and international publishers.

Exciting stories from exotic lands: Gramedia’s titles on culture and moral lessons truly enrich our collection, and we could not be more enthusiastic about having them in the BOOKR Class Library app.  

Do you remember Bob, the little dog who wants to be a detective when he grows up? In these ten new episodes he is busy solving mysteries with his sister and brothers: they find the thief in the village, they save the poor little foal and his parents. They even save some abandoned kittens in the forest. Of course, in these episodes they also have time for fun: they meet new friends at kindergarten, they organize a secret birthday party for their teacher Mr Paw, and they even make friends with a sweet little spider.

Mr Paw and Miss Daisy are kind kindergarten teachers, the puppies can always turn to them with questions. While Mr Paw teaches the puppies how to be brave and create, Miss Daisy’s empathy helps them through hard times.

Bob’s sister and brothers are curious little puppies too. They are ready to take part in adventures but safety first! They are there when a thief is in the village and they save the foal and the kittens. Rosy even helps Bob when he is ill! 

Diamond is Rosy’s best friend at kindergarten. On Rosy’s first day Diamond is the one who walks her around. When it’s about love: she is not afraid to ask Miss Daisy questions.

Jasper is a naughtly little puppy at kindergarten. His relationship with the others doesn’t start well: on Rosy’s first day he pulls her ear and runs away. Later it turns out that he had a reason. Otherwise, he is a sweet puppy with a good heart. 

We promise that Bob’s adventures will not end here, another ten episodes are coming soon. Who knows, they might grow up and go to school by then.

In the BOOKR Class English Library you will find form-focused as well as meaning-focused texts. What is the difference? 

Contrary to our meaning-focused stories, form-focused ones are usually written with a specific topic or vocabulary that best presents the grammatical structure in use. A great example is the present simple with daily routine or days of the week. 

In other cases, we rely more on the topic of the book, however as they are also created to teach a chosen vocabulary set, they also fall into the category of form-focused materials.

A variety of stories help the young learners become familiar with different grammar topics or lexis. Discover some of our newest form-focused titles:

Although stories are magic carpets that can fly us anywhere anytime, we also believe that sometimes it’s good to talk about our current situation and even call a spade a spade.

2020 was a little bit different for everyone because of lockdowns. What did the people watch? What did they read? Sam Bubbles conducts mini interviews to find out. 

The whole group and their teacher have come down with a bad illness. They cough, sneeze and some of them have fever too. Of course they stay at home so they cannot meet in person. What can they do instead? Well, the teacher has a great idea: she organises an online party for her students.

Nowadays it is more and more popular to socialise online, and some people hope to find the love of their lives there. What is it like to meet someone in person for the first time? Would the students feel excited, nervous or embarrassed? 

Catching a learner’s attention is an important objective when using storytelling in language teaching. Series tend to engage little ones more than a one episode story they allow more depth to the he characters, give space for growth and change. It’s exciting for students to see some of the same ‘faces’ again when learning with BOOKR Class, so don’t be afraid to exploit these English books by creating projects or group work around them. Learn more about some of the new additions to our series category and let your imagination run wild. 

Sherlyn and Johnny are teenagers in London and they get into adventures, mostly on The Tube. Hence their name, The Tube Detectives. They solve several problems with the help of their smartphones, GPS and other IT services, programs and devices. Do you know your gadgets well? If you’re interested in more, join Johnny. 

The series was created for Level 4 with a very strong focus on modals and vocabulary for modern technology.

Iryna, Mark and Mei go to the same school in Sacramento, California. They are good friends and with the new school year, these three musketeers grow into a funny group of five teenagers. The series follows two new students from the beginning of the school year until they all become good friends.

It was created for Level 3 with a strong focus on meaningful, functional language and the book prepares students for their first conversations in English. Exciting, isn’t it?

So many amazing stories to discover! Would you like to get full access to the BOOKR Class Library app for free? Request a 14 days trial now! 

Beginning on the 1st of July, BOOKR Class implemented a new Lexile tool to help teachers identify students’ reading levels, so that they can assign the best books for them – narrowing options without limiting choices.

Lexile was developed by MetaMetrics®, an educational assessment and research company in Durham, North Carolina. The initial research for Lexiles was funded by the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The company identified a significant difference in how traditional readability formulas assess text difficulty compared to how words are actually read and comprehended by children at different ages and stages of development.

Lexiles represent what readers can comprehend based on their actual reading abilities rather than on arbitrary judgments about their grade-level or age. Lexile measures are not predicted probabilities of future reading performance, nor should they be viewed as limitations on what readers can learn.

Lexiles are always shown as a number followed by the letter “L.”The Lexile Frameworkis a developmental scale ranging from beginning learner measures below 0L (at most BR 400L) to above 1600L for advanced abilities. The higher the learner’s Lexile measure, the greater their ability to read  and comprehend text in English.

If the student’s measure or level (we recommend not to use the word ‘score’, so students get motivated to level up) is 150L, it means that the student is possibly capable of reading and understanding a text with a 150L measure. It doesn’t mean that the student will only be able to understand texts marked with 150L though. The Lexile measures shown for titles are approximations that reflect typical Lexile levels of students who will enjoy them most.

The BOOKR Class Library app is aligned with the Lexile Framework for Reading. In order to determine a student’s Lexile Measure, BOOKR Class app now features a free Lexile test for students as a placement test.

Upon first opening the library app, students have the option to fill out this Lexile assessment consisting of 30 short tasks that depict their level of English proficiency. Based on their score, the app will allocate them a corresponding BOOKR level. You can also find a note of the level in the Teacher’s Dashboard so you can use it as a guide for further assignments.

Placement test results are one of the factors that determine the book recommendations in the Library ( alongside interests and assigned books by the teachers) . Educators can also use Lexile® as a way to measure student progress because Lexile leveling gives an objective measure that can be repeated any time in the app.

Lexile Assessment is also a great tool for differentiation, as you can assign books with similar topics and vocabulary at different levels – a huge support for educators. 

We all know it is not always easy to find reading materials for students (especially language learners) that provide sufficient challenge to advance their reading skill development, but are also not so difficult that they discourage reading.

Starting with a student’s Lexile measure is a great tool for finding the Lexile of the book and forecasting the comprehension rate – see the example below –

 Lexile measures provide a scientific approach for matching students with ability-appropriate texts.

When a student measure and a book measure are the same, the match is estimated to be ideal for the learner. The target range that is suggested for a learner is 100L below the student measure and 50L above, so learners with 500L would probably be able to comprehend and enjoy a book measured between 400L and 550L.

If the Lexile measure of the student is much higher than that of the book, this might suggest that it will be too difficult for the learner. If the Lexile measure is much lower than that of the book, it might not help them further develop their reading ability or get bored while reading it. 

If you’re wondering how to find the Lexile level of a book, it’s a straightforward process in the BOOKR Class Library app. You can easily discover a book’s measure by navigating to the Books tab, where you have the option to filter and order the books by Lexile Measure.

This feature allows you to efficiently select books that align with your students’ individual Lexile Measures and assign them directly to the appropriate students.

By tailoring the reading materials to their specific levels, you can effectively support their reading skill development and ensure they are presented with engaging and suitable content.

The benefits of this system are numerous and include the ability to provide an accurate assessment based on what readers comprehend rather than relying on arbitrary judgments about grade-level or age. If you want your learners to have better access to quality materials at appropriate reading levels but don’t know where to start, contact us! We’ll be happy to walk you through how our app works and show you why using Lexiles makes it easier for educators like yourself.

The word ‘traditional’ can refer to both methodology and the materials used in the classroom; and in order to put all these changes in context, this article will focus on the importance of reading skills in English and how this – supposedly – traditional skill can be turned into something ‘cool’ for our digital-native students.

Today, teaching is becoming an ever more complex activity that goes way beyond teaching a subject to students. Consequently, a teacher often assumes a host of roles, depending on the needs of their learners. Most typically, we refer to teachers as educators, agents of change, facilitators (of learning experiences), or even trendy ‘influencers’ at school. In terms of classroom management, the shift from the teacher to a more student-centred view was inevitable as English evolved from a school subject into a life-skill that is best learnt ‘by doing’ (through experimenting and gaining experience).

CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) has been on the agenda of the European Union for about three decades (Marsh, 2002 in Bailey, 2015) and is being recommended as a methodological base among its member states to design language courses.

As a result, a more complex and dynamic language system is likely to develop in the minds of our learners, aided by a richer and better-established vocabulary in both their first language and the chosen target language. The linguistic and intercultural competence they gain, complemented by a host of social, cognitive, and additional ‘soft skills’, are inevitable for achieving success in learning a foreign language as well as in life itself (Thompson & Mckinley, 2018).

When it comes to these so-called soft skills, we must acknowledge the fact that having gone back to school after a prolonged lockdown period, our classrooms have become an even more crucial part of our students’ social life, providing an environment for personal interaction while learning with each other and about one another. Thus, we, teachers, have to take the responsibility to build an interpersonal, flexible, and dynamic community inside our classrooms (Holden & Nobre, 2019).

Choosing our materials wisely is key as it must happen in a way that reflects our students’ interests and everyday (life) experiences (Németh, 2019). It goes without saying that every student is different, so it is highly recommended to conduct needs analysis right at the beginning of your ‘shared career’. Besides language skills, learners can differ in terms of motivation, self-confidence and other factors that impact how they acquire the language. Research has shown that languages are inherently dynamic and so is their representation in our minds. Altering one component of this system will trigger change in all other sections that interact and influence each other (Németh, 2020).

As an added benefit, analysing your students’ needs will help you better capitalise on their strengths, and make differentiation more seamless. In turn, establishing group dynamics for your class will also become less excruciating.

To make sure the above listed educational and social needs are satisfied, all we need is a simple yet effective tool that is entertaining and, most importantly, meaningful to the whole classroom community. Believe it or not, storytelling as a methodology seems to be just right.

Jumping on this train of thought, it would be almost impossible to ignore stories in the language classroom.

Our mind needs narratives like our body needs food – this is especially true for young children who use stories to discover and understand the world around them. It is a less commonly known fact that children can easily be helped to understand rather complex stories in a foreign language well above their own active command, and as language learners, this is what should first and foremost be expected of them.

Stories can provide a rich source of language input and exposure, all the while being motivating and – comparably – inexpensive. Going beyond motivation, the challenge to subtract the essence of a text will offer countless opportunities for children to awaken a genuine interest and a hunger for learning more (Wright, 1995).

Nonetheless, we should not assume that all the above are enough. Developing language skills can be a time-consuming and challenging process, and may as well require occasional reinforcements to help students find their own voice, gain skills and adopt attitudes in the target language.

Aristotle once said that “the soul never thinks without an image.” Our imagination can soar when we find ourselves in a safe and welcoming environment that allows students to boldly fabricate and share their stories while freely reflecting on them. As everyone differs in terms of life experiences, you can never tell the exact same story twice – it all depends on how one tells and perceives it (Heathfield, 2014).

There has been a recent resurgence and legitimate interest for story-based approaches to English Language Teaching (ELT), which has created a wider appreciation and a reemerging demand for storytelling in the classroom as a teaching strategy.

In order to comply with the changes brought along by the 21st century, education is getting more and more technology-oriented, with EdTech companies trying to find the right niche to reach both learners and teachers with solutions to improve the quality of learning. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that in a classroom setting, technology means nothing without a teacher with a well-structured plan underpinned by pedagogical considerations in order to make learning as meaningful as possible (Lewis, 2017).

Here is a brief list of why digital educational technologies could become the new standard in education: well-tailored digital technologies (1) are interactive, creative, and authentic; (2) can deepen learning in a collaborative and motivational way; (3) provide quick access to the target language and support (digital) literacy; and (4) are more environmentally-friendly than paper-based resources (Lewis, 2017).

Educators, when planning to implement digital technologies, should consider the following questions (Strasser, 2018):

In summary, when implementing technologies, we need to be mindful of their purpose. Slowly transitioning back to this article’s primary focus, there has been a recent surge in digital storytelling tools ranging from an online version of the classic board-game Story Cubes to gamified library applications such as BOOKR Class, – both of which enable educators to enjoy the advantages of storytelling in the classroom.

Among the arsenal of digital storytelling tools available, BOOKR Class is one that truly stands out. The application’s methodology mainly draws on CLIL and storytelling with a communicative approach of language learning. Available on smartphones, tablets and desktops, the 3-in-1 platform provides a safe, ad-free, and easy-to-use gamified platform with 600+ e-books and 1200+ games and flashcards available for students by the end of the year. This platform is coupled with a teacher’s dashboard for real-time statistics and a desktop app for online or classroom teaching.

The content is organised into 6 different levels that correspond to the European Union’s CEFR scale (pre-A1-B2+). With the aim to help you find the appropriate reading level for students, BOOKR Class also uses Lexile placement tests.

The Teacher’s Dashboard allows teachers to recommend books to pupils, assign homework and examine data regarding student performance. Teachers can also browse the Library based on level, age group, grammar or vocabulary, and find complementary materials, such as activity tips, book previews, book statistics, etc.

Having conducted a preliminary study with teacher-trainees to gain an insight into their assumptions and attitudes towards EdTech, we collected valuable research data regarding edutainment and BOOKR Class as a digital tool for language learning.

In the table below, trainees’ responses to questions about the app presented according to four key aspects.

Almost every participant mentioned that learning via an app like BOOKR Class would be less tedious. The consensus was unanimous regarding the question whether the app would have a future in EdTech. As for methodology, they also emphasised the significance of having a Teacher’s Dashboard, which further facilitates individualised learning. As for the design, the friendly-looking illustrations and animations were chosen as the number one feature that also help children visualise and understand the stories.

When it came to user experience, it was made clear that our technologically-oriented children will find this application definitely useful, but it can also serve as an awareness-raising platform for them not to neglect reading as a skill. As for special educational needs, the application tries to find ways for dyslexic readers to make their experience with the application even smoother. For example, apart from being narrated, texts are broken down into shorter chunks for easier processing. On another note, even though the target group is made up of (very) young learners and primary-school pupils, older students may find joy and a relaxing time reading the stories in BOOKR Class.

Summarising the key takeaways of this article, it is clear that the importance of learning a second language is without a doubt. What is more, English has become a basic life-skill that is no longer an advantage but rather a must.

With reference to Lewis’ (2017) claims about digital tools (being interactive, creative and authentic, having the ability to induce deep learning while being highly collaborative and motivational, supporting (digital) literacy, and being environmentally-friendly), should you be considering to begin your EdTech journey today, look no further –  BOOKR Class has got you covered on all bases.

First of all, a good admin platform helps to track students, understand their learning path and enables teachers to optimise and personalise the content for improved achievement. On the other hand, these tools also facilitate lesson preparation, not only because they give you valuable insight into the  needs of students, but also thanks to the easy-to-use browsing tools. 

As an example, we are going to use the Teacher’s Dashboard of the BOOKR Class app as a reference. BOOKR Class is a digital interactive library app for language learners accompanied by an extra platform for educators – the  Teacher’s Dashboard. The examples for the features and options are focused on the interactive books, yet the description of the most important aspects can be applicable to other educational technology solutions as well. 

Seeing how active students are is key for a teacher, as our aim is to enhance the learning process and motivation. This is unlikely to happen without the proper use of the technology. 

Student activity  can be tracked in many different ways, using their log in and log out dates, completed tasks  or results. The amount of information gained varies on the platform. Based on this, 

• You can identify students who have technical problems with the tool, such as the inability to log in or the lack of a device. Therefore, you can identify the problem even if the student is too embarrassed to tell you. In the case of the BOOKR Class app, you can check their names, codes and licenses in the Teacher Dashboard 
• You can identify the students who lack motivation and who need encouragement and support in their learning process. In most if not all cases, these students try to avoid revealing their inactivity by hiding their problems – educational or personal alike.

If students work, but their processes are not satisfactory, the teacher is able to immediately deduce what the problem might be.

• Their home environment is not conducive to learning.  They need to optimise their surroundings to create the most effective learning environment possible. Some very simple tips, such as a  discussion on multitasking or the option of learning at school with friends might be effective. 
• They might need a motivational environment, such as some company to start working. Working in pairs or in small groups can be just as efficient as working individually and it has many positive side effects, such as improving cooperation, problem-solving skills and even humour. With group work, their academic and soft skills improve at the same time. 
• It is also possible that some students are not motivated enough because they For example they  need something else than what you, as a teacher, thought would be the best material. 
  • A task, activity, or in the case of BOOKR Class, a book is too difficult and the student needs a pre-teaching activity before embarking on  the task. Based on the students’ needs, you can use an easier warm-up, such as a book from a lower level or a flashcard set before reading. 
  • Other students might find the activity too easy, and not challenging enough. For them, you could suggest another activity, difficulty level, or an additional twist or activity to make the assignment more sophisticated. With BOOKR Class, you might  prefer to recommend another book beyond the assumed and assigned level of the student. 

First of all, take a deep breath and praise yourself for creating such a productive and motivational  learning environment where your students want to work. Then, observe and analyse their choice of activities, games or exercises they complete. With BOOKR Class, you can seecansee the students’ choice of books and topics, which helps differentiation and the personalisation of activities and assignments. You can get to know your class better. Let’s look at some examples: 

• You can build further activities on some of the content or topics students are interested in. If you see that many students completed a given task in time and successfully, it is an indicator that the assignment engaged them and they enjoyed that type of activity. 
• You can make an introverted or underachieving student feel good about themselves in front of the class by casually eliciting information about a topic they are particularly interested in. For example, if your student chooses BOOKR Class books about nature and animals, you could concentrate a little on that and involve the student in classroom discussion. Creating opportunities for students to shine is always rewarding. 

Then, take a closer look at their achievements, such as their streak, scores or time spent reading with the BOOKR Class app. Teacher appreciation is extremely powerful for students, so praising them, giving awards, a good grade or any motivating feedback, even a smile (or a ‘not bad’ Obama face meme) is a must in the language classroom. A competition can also be generated that keeps them excited and exposed to quality language input. 

• Catch up with your students if you can see their results and achievements in more detail. 
  • In the BOOKR Class app for example, you can see how much time they spent on reading a particular book. This information reflects the reading skills and literacy of the students, or the distractions that might interrupt their reading. 
  • You can see how many points your students earned for each activity, so you can compare results. It is a great tool for diagnostic evaluation:  using that information, you may conclude that they need your attention and extra help. 

A teacher dashboard is a well-organised  platform that gives teachers valuable insight into the students’ learning process and activity as well as the structure of the system itself. In the BOOKR Class Teacher Dashboard you can see the content of the whole library with every book and flashcard. The search bar helps you can easily find what your students need. 

In the case of educational technology solutions for English language learners, you can search for items, e.g. worksheets, games, flashcard sets, books, activity tips, according to their difficulty level. In most cases, just like with BOOKR Class, they rely on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2) or use classic terminology that can be aligned with the CEFR (elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper-intermediate and advanced). 

Another very useful feature is the dropdown list where you can pick a topic or grammar structure that you would like to work with. These topics are usually the umbrella terms that are easy to  interpret, and not abstract expressions fueled by the fantasy of the authors. Simplicity is the key when it comes to admin websites. 

With BOOKR Class, you can pick from several dropdown lists (BOOKR Class level, genre, topic, grammar, accent) and you can type in what you need in the search field, e.g.: ‘will’ or ‘countries’. 

When clicking on the search results, valuable information pops up regarding the content of the item, and whether it is a worksheet, book or flashcard set.

Despite the fact that we associate the benefits of storytelling in education with reading in the first language, it can provide equally exciting opportunities in second language learning.

In the realm of language education, storytelling acts as a bridge between the mechanics of grammar and vocabulary and the practical application of language skills.

As students immerse themselves in narratives, they not only encounter new words, expressions, and sentence structures but also witness their contextual usage.

This contextual learning aids in a deeper understanding of the language, allowing learners to grasp nuances and subtleties that might otherwise elude them.

Judges will now commence the final round of evaluation so keep your fingers crossed for us until the ELTons Innovation Awards ceremony, on Monday 4 October. 

Read about all of the finalists in the five different categories for this year’s awards.