Two Good Apps for Learning Phrasal Verbs

Parts of this post originally appeared on my other blog, iPadApps4School.com.

One of the true challenges for English language learners is understanding the meanings of phrasal verbs. The following apps are designed to help students build an understanding of phrasal verbs.

The Phrasal Verbs Machine, developed by Cambridge University, is a free iPad app that aims to help ELL students learn the meanings of phrasal verbs. The Phrasal Verbs Machine provides students with short animations that illustrate the meanings of many common phrasal verbs. There is a written definition below each animation. Students can view the animations and definitions as many times as they like before trying their hands at the practice identification exercises. The Phrasal Verbs Machine provides definition translations in Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, and Portuguese.

Phrasalstein, developed at Cambridge University, is a great iPad app and Android app designed to help students learn the meanings of phrasal verbs. The app has a practice mode and a quiz mode. In the practice mode students select a verb and a preposition combination then see a short animation demonstration of the meaning of the chosen phrase. In the quiz mode students see an animation then have to select the matching phrase. Translations of the meanings are available in Spanish, German, Italian, Russian and French.

Eight Alternatives to Google Image Search

Last fall I published a chart comparing alternatives to using Google Image search. This evening I updated that chart to reflect a couple of changes to those tools and to add a new one to it. This chart is designed to provide a quick overview and comparison of good sources of images for students' slideshows and other multimedia projects. You can download the chart through the Box.com widget below or grab a Google Docs copy here.