Developing language skills in multilingual learners is a vital step toward building overall language proficiency. To achieve this, students need opportunities to practice all four key areas: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. That’s why we’ve designed our latest features to provide engaging and effective practice across all these modalities!

New Feature Alert! 🚨

In May, we introduced an exciting feature that allowed teachers to translate entire books, text, audio, and video captions seamlessly. Today, we’re thrilled to take it a step further: students on school and district accounts can now access this powerful translation capability too!

Teachers can easily enable this feature through their library settings, giving students a more inclusive and accessible learning experience. Whether it’s translating a book for a language assignment or captions for better comprehension, this tool empowers students to explore and understand content like never before.

Screenshot of the Library Settings menu showcasing the new translation feature, which allows users to translate entire books, text, audio, and video captions. Teachers can enable these options for students via simple toggles.

But that’s not all—we’re excited to introduce new page templates specifically designed to help multilingual learners practice and strengthen their speaking and listening skills. These interactive templates give teachers an effortless way to incorporate engaging language activities into their lessons, empowering students to boost their confidence and proficiency in oral communication.

Why practice speaking and listening?

Speaking and listening are often the most challenging parts of learning a new language. These skills involve quick thinking, active participation, and understanding how to respond in different situations.

Our templates provide structured yet flexible activities that make practicing these skills manageable and fun.

Features of the new speaking and listening templates

Our page templates come equipped with several dynamic features designed to make language practice accessible and effective for students at all levels. Here are some examples:

Create a Sentence Activity

Encourage students to build sentences by dragging labeled word categories—such as "who or what," "action," and "object"—to create complete sentences. Students can then record themselves speaking the sentences, helping them practice fluency, grammar, and vocabulary.

Interactive 'Create a Sentence' page template designed to help multilingual learners practice sentence construction through speaking and listening. Perfect for building language proficiency in key modalities.

Look + Describe Activity

This activity challenges students to describe what they see in a picture and record their voice. Teachers can upload custom images tied to specific lessons, ensuring the content remains engaging and relevant.

Engage multilingual learners with this 'Look and Describe' page template, where students practice speaking skills by describing a playground scene and recording their voice. An ideal tool for enhancing speaking and listening proficiency.

Describe and Draw

A fun and interactive listening exercise where students listen to a description or prompt and then draw what they hear. This activity strengthens listening comprehension and helps students develop the ability to follow detailed instructions.

Enhance listening and speaking skills with the 'Describe and Draw' page template, where multilingual learners listen to a prompt and record their response. Perfect for building comprehension and articulation in language learning.

Two Truths and a Lie

Students record three statements about themselves—two that are true and one that is false. Peers listen to the recordings and use drag-and-drop stickers to guess which statement is the lie. This low-stakes activity encourages spontaneous speaking while sharpening listening comprehension.

Boost speaking and listening skills with the fun '2 Truths and a Lie' activity template. Multilingual learners can record statements, and peers use interactive stickers to guess the lie, enhancing language proficiency through playful engagement.

Vocabulary Match

Students drag vocabulary labels to match them with corresponding images, then record themselves pronouncing the words. Teachers can also enhance this activity by adding definitions, synonyms, or translations for more comprehensive vocabulary building.

Engage multilingual learners with the 'Vocab Match' template, where students match vocabulary words like 'pencil' and 'ruler' to images of school supplies. Features audio support for listening and pronunciation practice, enhancing vocabulary retention.

How these templates support all four modalities

While these templates focus on speaking and listening, they also include opportunities to practice reading and writing. For example, some activities have written prompts or follow-up questions to support comprehension and sentence-building skills.

Enhance your teaching with these new templates

Our templates are designed with flexibility in mind, giving educators the tools they need to customize lessons for their classrooms. With over 50 interactive templates, teachers can assign activities tailored to their students' specific needs while fostering collaboration and creativity.

Key Features of the Templates:

• Interactive Learning: Engaging visuals, audio, and recording tools keep students motivated.
• Customizable Content: Upload custom vocabulary, images, and prompts to fit any subject or skill level.
• Assignment Management: With user-friendly assignment tools, educators can easily assign work to individual students or groups, streamlining lesson planning and enabling targeted practice.
• Real-Time Progress Tracking: Built-in tools help teachers monitor student performance and provide personalized feedback.

Ready to get started?

These templates are now available! Simply search for “ELL” or "Newcomer" in the template tool and start integrating them into your lessons today. With these resources, you’ll be able to provide multilingual learners with targeted support for developing their language skills, especially in speaking and listening.

Frequently Asked Questions