Teach Middle East Magazine September 2014 Issue 1 Vol. 2 | Page 16

Sharing Good Practice

USING TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION…
ARABIC AVATARS
By Steven Bambury

A

s the founder of iPad
Educators, I’m often asked
about apps that suit different
curriculum areas. Here in The
United Arab Emirates, where Arabic is
a core subject, I’m always looking for
apps that can support the teaching
of Arabic as a second language to
students. Naturally, the early focus is
on speaking and listening, so that’s
what we’re going to explore here.

There are several options that I
think work really well but I’m going
to concentrate on four apps that can
be harnessed particularly well in the
Arabic class. I’m also going to share
a little heads-up on what I think could
soon become the one app to rule them
all in this region.

Before we do that, though, I find that it’s
always good to start with the question
why?

given backdrop and share them with
the students via Dropbox. Thus, they
could role-play as the shopkeeper and
the students could film the responses.
This could even form an engaging
method of formative assessment!
Alternatively, students could write
the Arabic words for the background
and then speak the words in Arabic
and English. These clips could then
be sewn together in iMovie to form a
multimedia Arabic dictionary.

So why bother with any of this? Why
use ipads in Arabic lessons? Why try
and get teachers who are accustomed
to set ways of teaching to adapt and
change? My colleague Sabba Quidwai,
an Islamic Education specialist, shared
a quote with me recently that I feel
is particularly relevant to teachers
accustomed to and perhaps still mired
in traditional teaching methods.
“If we teach today’s students as we
taught yesterday’s, we rob them of
tomorrow.” - John Dewey.
There is huge potential for Arabic to
become a lesson that students enjoy,
engage with readily and attain well in. To
realise this potential, however, Arabic
teachers need support in adapting their
pedagogy to suit the diverse learning
styles they are confronted with here in
the UAE.
The App Store contains a variety of
excellent absorption apps for learning
Arabic; from Something Fishy About
Arabic to the wonderful range produced
by Appy Kids. When it comes to
creating content, I’ve found that some of
the best choices are avatar apps. Just
to be clear, I’m talking about the use
of a digital representation of a person.
Kids love using them as they are fun
and engaging and they have the added
bonus that the children do not have to
show themselves on screen. This is
great not only for those shy kids who
don’t like to be on camera, but also for
children who are not permitted to.

14

September 2014

TELLAGAMI
Anyone who visits our site regularly will
know that Tellagami is one of our go
to apps at IPad Educators these days.
You can accomplish some amazing
things with Tellagami, especially if you
combine it with other apps. Tellagami
is one of those apps that kids love to
use as it is so simple and produces a
professional looking final product. I’d
recommend visiting our website and
reading the article I wrote on the use
of careful perspective with Tellagami in
order to get the most out of it.
Though Tellagami has somewhat
limited character customisation, the
fact that you can select any backdrop
means that you can set a scene
effectively. So if the current vocabulary
topic is shopping, a supermarket could
be used. The teacher could even
record some prompt Games using a

Class Time

PUPPET PALS
Why Puppet Pals 1 and not the sequel?
Again it comes down to the ability to
add your own backdrops. Whilst the
animation options are slicker in Puppet
Palls 2, the simplicity and speed with
which you can create animated puppet
shows in the first one, makes it the
better choice of the two.
The