The Juice is an ELL Support Tool That Improves Literacy with Engaging Informational Texts
By Noah Gold for The Juice
Communication is a vital skill in today’s interconnected world. Speaking multiple languages can open doors to countless opportunities for learning, growth, and connection. To English Language Learners (ELLs) in schools, mastering English while maintaining their native languages is not only a pathway to academic success, but also social and career empowerment. In fact, bilingual employees can earn between 5-20% more per hour than their monolingual peers.
However, traditional curriculums can prove difficult to balance. While English Learner students work to learn a new language, they also have to keep up with other content classes – which are taught in English.
Recent data highlights the increasing diversity within American schools, with ELL students now comprising over 10% of school populations according to the National Center for Education Statistics. This diversity of background, language, and ideas can be enriching to all students. However, in order to give teachers and ELL students the tools they need to succeed, there must be unique educational challenges and opportunities that can help language learners in all aspects of education.
The Juice as a Tool
The Juice offers multiple features intended to help ELL students achieve their full potential in the classroom. As educators, it can be difficult to create distinct assignments, exams, or even entire curriculums to accommodate students still working to master English. The Juice can help in a few key ways:
The Translation Feature
Understanding new concepts in another language can be a daunting task. Each lesson for ELL students presents not just a course like History, Science, or any other subject, but also a lesson in the language itself. To help ELL students and their teachers stay on track, The Juice offers a translation feature at the top of each article.
By clicking the translation button, ELL students will see the article broken up into sentences with the translation directly to the right, so they can not only understand the content, but reference from language to language, growing as an English reader along the way. This feature is available in more than 70 languages, and our translation model has been vetted by native speakers to determine its authenticity.
The Listen Feature
As ELL students work to improve their English speaking and writing while understanding content in other courses, the Juice can help with both of these challenges. With the listen feature, located directly next to the translation button at the top of each article, students can hear the article spoken in English to get more comfortable with the spoken language, with the text of the article in front of them. By using the listen feature as they read, students can gain a deeper understanding of English phonetics and the corresponding written prose.
Tailored Learning Experiences
Every student learns in a different way. For ELL students, learning differences often center around their language acquisition needs. A one-size-fits-all educational model inevitably poses larger challenges to students who still have to translate lessons as they hear them. The Juice’s tailored learning experience adjusts reading levels of the same content by altering key words or phrases by ability, allowing all students to understand the same material at their own pace. Our goal is to ensure that each student is sufficiently challenged, without being blown off course by a curriculum that can’t wait for them to understand key concepts at their pace.
Decades of a one-size-fits-all approach to education have failed to integrate the diverse learning styles and needs of students, often leaving students behind. Tailored learning experiences offer a solution by adjusting each students’ educational journey to their distinct abilities. For ELL students, this outlook on education can keep them engaged and capable in the classroom; educators can give them the tools they need to succeed in school.
Personalized Content
Personalized content allows students to choose what material interests them. When learners pursue topics that spark their curiosity, they can foster a love for learning that extends beyond the classroom. By allowing students to follow their interests, education becomes ingrained in their lives and future goals. This relevance ignites passion and engagement in their studies.
In an era where every aspect of life is digitally personalized, students are accustomed to technology that caters to their every preference. As such, young minds have come to expect a personal touch from all aspects of life. In sharp contrast, the traditional education system that standardizes information feels cold and impersonal. When everything else in life feels specifically “for them,” education can feel less relevant. This can be especially stark for ELL students, who might come from different cultural backgrounds.
In an aim to bring students closer to their education, The Juice learns with each article students select, and how long they spend engrossed in that content. Then, The Juice can recommend articles that cover the same topics that students find engaging. In having options, students identify with the content they read, and are significantly more likely to spend time reading.
With diverse cultures, languages, and opinions in the classroom, The Juice can be a powerful tool for educators to bridge the differences in learning abilities; helping to unlock the potential of countless learners, one article at a time.
