ELL and Beyond: BrainPOP around the World!
Posted by Andrew Gardner on
TESOL Certified English Teacher Charles McKinney on BrainPOP in His ELL Classroom:
Ever since my American friend and former colleague in Beijing, China introduced me to BrainPOP, I have been an avid user of the site in my ELL teaching career. Students and coworkers alike can attest to my affinity for the fun-loving site that offers a variety of content in all subjects. BrainPOP Jr. enables me to make my young learner classes more exciting with interactive games and simple quizzes that I use to reinforce the target lesson. Some of my favorite BrainPOP movies include the Harlem Renaissance, Helen Keller, Geography and English videos. Another aspect I like about the site is that students can learn more information about each topic through exploring extra materials such as the quiz, and the comics and “quotables” on the Related Reading page. It doesn’t get any better than that!
So here’s what students of mine had to say about their attraction to BrainPOP:
Kenny from Bhutan said that “BrainPOP cartoons give life to the educational material and make it easier for us to learn. :-)”
Palm from Thailand remarked: “I like to use BrainPOP because it’s easy to learn English and history or philosophy together because of the movies on the website. Moreover, it’s fun to see Moby the robot do something crazy! I think this website is very useful.”
Based in Bangkok, Charles McKinney is a TESOL certified teacher teaching ELL to young learners, teenagers, adults and now young professionals/college students. He is also finishing an accelerated master’s program in media communications.
What do your students think about BrainPOP? Let us know in the comments!
