It is difficult to capture multimodal MALL resources in print format. This appendix contains screenshots to provide a visual representation of the app contents, though they do not provide the full multimodal experience.
To experience the multimodal MALL app used in this research, The English Club app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store on Android or the Apple Store on Apple mobile devices (smartphones or tablets). Installation instructions are in Appendix 14. The app has changed minimally since the research.
The app displays a learner’s personal study space in an imaginary world with desk and bookcases.
Levels shelves –From here access the Introduction and Levels 1-50, with the boxes for each level opening as the learner completes each previous level.
Narrator Franny explaining how to use the app. She speaks aloud in the learner’s L1. Here she explains the confetti that celebrates finishing all the learning activities in a level.
Learner's personal albums containing learned material, trophies (that fill with color as levels are completed), medals and connection to the Apple Game Center (deactivated for the study intervention)
Review: When the level is first opened, the purple review box is on the desk. The box
contains letter, word, and rules ( tips) cards learned in the previous levels. (The number of levels back to review, and the maximum number of cards per color, can be set in the app settings to suit the learner’s learning profile.) Tap the box to open it and display the cards. The number of remaining cards to review of each color appears in a circle above the card displayed.
Learn new material: After the review in each level, the boxes for the new material to be learned in that level appear on the desk. The white box contains cards for the new letters to be learned, the yellow box contains word cards with common and exception words, and the pink box contains the tips
animation cards (rules of spelling, syllable types and division patterns, the meanings of prefixes and suffixes, patterns of specific letters, general rules of English.)
Practice New Material: The learners desk for Level 2. Here all the new material has been learned (letter, words, and tips cards have been completed, the cards stamped, crossed off the checklist on the board, and moved up to the shelf, and can be accessed any time.) The “practice new material” activities have appeared on the desk: story, word-writing board, and game. They can be done in any order, and the learner can go back and forth among them.
The Help drawer contains tutorials of how to do any activity, the word card conventions list, a family tree of the characters, etc.
Figure 14: The English Club App –Desk Activities: Review, Learn New Material, Practice New Material
Letter reading) Letter-writing Letter on front, Sound(s) on back
Front of letter card for letter i, with graphemes for lower and upper case. Red line reminds learner that it is a vowel and has multiple
sounds. The lower-case grapheme is in the center (since most text appears in lower-case graphemes) and the upper-case grapheme in the lower right corner.
Back of letter card for i with the chosen clue words for the two phonemes it typically represents. Learner taps to hear each phoneme and clue word spoken aloud.
After learning the letter, its sounds and clue words, the learner should first try to recall the sounds and clue words by looking at the letter (grapheme) on the front of the card, then flip the card for a reminder or to check that they remembered correctly.
Tapping the pencil icon on the front of the letter card displays the letter- writing board. Tapping the upper or lower-case letter icon plays the name of the letter spoken aloud, and an animation of the correct way to write the graphemes.
The learner can write the graphemes with her finger or with a touch-pen, imitating the animated model. The learner can erase and rewrite the grapheme as many times as desired to practice.
Word cards – front with pictures, back with translations
A word card from Level 1. Regular words are green and irregular in red. Tap the word or picture to hear it spoken. Flip the card to read word translations. As words are played, the accented syllable is shown in bold.
The back of the word card displays the word meanings (translations, definitions) in the learner’s L1. Tap the word to hear it spoken while you read the definition.
In the Help drawer is the explanation of the conventions used on the yellow cards for the words and pictures (green words are regular, red are irregular, silent letters are transparent; past tense verbs have a sand clock beside the verb picture, etc.
Letter-writing practice
During review, learner hears a phoneme and writes all the ways that have been learned to that point for encoding that phoneme. Learner can request clue word hints displaying a picture of their clue word(s) and hearing it spoken aloud, for all the ways that have been learned to encode that phoneme.
Encoding phonemes with
graphemes: Valentina (top) says the sound of the letter or letter
combination. If the learner needs a reminder of his clue word, he can hear the sound and his clue word from Dan (below).
Then the learner writes the grapheme(s) that he thinks spell(s) the phoneme. The learner can flip Valentina to check himself, erase and correct as needed. “Thumbs up” means he knew it; “thumbs down” means it should come up again at the end of the series so it can be practiced again. Learners thus develop awareness of what they know well and what they need to practice more – “metacognition.”
Two graphics from the "b-d" tip animation, to help learners remember the directions of these commonly reversed letters
Three graphics from the “Capital Letters” tip animation, showing when to use capital letters in English (first letters of names, sentences, or important words in titles.)
Figure 18: The English Club App- Learning new material: Rules of English “Tips” cards: Animated videos
Pages of the L3 story, with words containing only letters i, t, p, n, s, a, d.
Learner can read the text, hear the text read aloud, record herself and play back for comparison, and flip the picture to see the translation of the page.
Word-writing practice: Learner sees a picture of the word and hears its sound, and writes it with her finger.
The learner can flip the picture to check her spelling of the word, erase and correct as needed.
Figure 20: The English Club App- Practicing new material: Writing words
Game modes - users can choose according to their learner profiles: "Take your time", "Play against the clock" and "Play to three mistakes.” This accommodates a learner’s preference for
excitement, competition with herself, or “no pressure” modes. (This choice of game modes was available on the Apple iPod devices used in the current study. They are not available in the later port to Android devices)
Game screen from Level 11: Learner hears the word and sees its picture, and chooses the correct way to write the word. Learners can replay the sound of the word as many times as desired until they are confident they can find the way it is spelled.
(The above game was available on the Apple iPod devices used in the current research. Two additional games are available, on a rotating basis, on Android devices.)