As an English teacher, you have a very important responsibility. It is up to you to pass on your knowledge, inspire the students, and transform their young minds. This crucial task comes with many challenges and one of them is motivating the students to be more engaged.

For all of those kids who think they are just too cool for school, there is a solution. Luckily, technology has your back and has come up with different tools that can assist you with your teaching.

Take a look at the following nine tools that will make even the most stubborn student an actively engaged participant.

 

1. Kahoot! for fun and games

Who says that learning can’t be fun? Check out the typical listening, reading, and speaking exercises and create fun games that will help your students learn.

Kahoot! allows you to create, share and play exciting learning games or trivia quizzes. To make it even more interesting, your students and you can make a game or quiz together. They will get that feeling of accomplishment and you will have an awesome technique to help them learn.

 

2. Plickers for pre-testing

This amazing app lets you poll your students and assess their current knowledge and understanding of the learning material. All you need to do is give each of your students a card or a “paper clicker”, ask a question, and scan their answers with your iPhone/iPad.

Plickers is a great app for pre-assessing students’ vocabulary. Another useful feature this app has is that all the data is saved which means that you’ll keep track of how they are absorbing the information. Pay attention to their progress and do some additional exercise when needed.

 

3. Prezi for creative presentations

Making presentations is a core part of education. While some students love to express their creativity, others find these tasks tedious. PowerPoint isn’t the most fun and creative program so break their presentation making routine by letting them use Prezi.

Prezi is the perfect choice for creating exciting presentations and motivating students to be more engaged in tasks. All the Prezi presentations are saved on students’ accounts so they can easily get back to them and refresh their memory.

 

4. Twiddla for collaboration

Do you want to make research more interesting and collaborative? Well, with Twiddla you can. On this “web-based meeting playground” you can collaboratively do important research and share your findings. Have online discussions, share links, pages, or images, and use its screen capture option to save important information.

Twiddla is also useful for practicing writing. There are a lot of writing assignments that can mix up your typical lessons. Challenging students with different writing tasks will improve their engagement and help you with your classroom management.

 

5. Padlet for sharing ideas

Teamwork can largely benefit students’ engagement and Padlet is a great tool for team collaboration. Use this app to create motivation boards, share ideas, have brainstorming sessions, etc.

Another useful way to make use out of Padlet is to have book review sessions. You can all work together in this app to share ideas on a book they’ve read and leave comments on other students’ thoughts.

Each student can have their portfolio within the app and share their previous work. It is a great way of showcasing their best projects.

 

6. AnswerGarden for brainstorming vocabulary

Evoke your students’ creativity and motivate them to be actively included in the class by using AnswerGarden. After you have finished with a lesson, this app can serve as a vocabulary enhancer.

It works in such a way that you assign a specific topic and students need to brainstorm as many words as they can which are related to that topic. Once they are finished, export the results in the form of a colorful word cloud so that they can have their own vocabulary reminder.

 

7. Tricider for discussions and debates

See how passionate your students can get when you invite them to discuss a certain problem. Tricider is the tool you can use for such exercises. Just set up a questionnaire and ask students to participate with their ideas.

They can add pro’s and con’s to each other’s suggestions and lastly, vote for the best solution. Exercises such as this will prepare them for discursive essays or debates.

 

8. White Noise for raising student’s attentiveness

During writing or reading tasks your students need all the concentration they can get. According to a study, listening to white noise improves memory and focus. Use the White Noise app to provide your students with soothing background music.

The app owners also state that its cleverly designed noises relaxes, reduces stress, and increases focus. Once you have your students feeling calm and attentive, it will be easier to engage them in different activities.

 

9. Venngage for visualization

Visual learners can have a hard time absorbing all the textual information. Infographics are perfect for presenting tiring facts in an attention-grabbing way. Use Venngage to present important information visually.

Through this platform, you can make infographics to get the attention of all visual learners. To make this process even more interesting, involve the students by asking them to help you pick out the template. You can even create some infographics together.

In case you are having trouble with adjusting the content to the infographic’s template, find the best editing service that can easily modify all the sentences.