More Than Just Word of the Day: Vocabulary Apps for English Learners

The authors developed a tool for teachers to evaluate the quality of vocabulary apps they might use to support English language learners (ELs). The evaluation tool examines the instructional practices and activities, and the technological features of an app. This study describes the results the authors found when they used this tool to evaluate 53 vocabulary apps available for ELs. They found that the overall quality of these apps was poor. Although most included narration, many were lacking features that could better support ELs such as automatic translations to another language and visuals.