14+ Language iPad Apps for ESL/ELL Students

I recently received a request for iPad apps that ESL/ELL learners could use to adapt to the English language. The following list are mostly free apps, with descriptions quoted from Apple's iTunes page.

Dictionary and Thesaurus- from Dictionary.com

Dragon Dictation- “Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition application powered by Dragon® NaturallySpeaking® that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or email messages. In fact, it’s up to five (5) times faster than typing on the keyboard”

Free Apps to Support Vocabulary Acquisition by ELLs- from Edutopia

Google Translate- translate 80 languages

iGE Lite- “iGE is a guide to the structure of the English Language that is specifically designed for mobile devices to meet the needs of busy teachers and students.”

iPad Apps for English Language Learners- free and $$ apps listed here

Phrasal Verbs Machine- “animated illustrations of 100 phrasal verbs set in the circus world of our main character Phraso and his friends.”

Phrasalstein- “Doctor Phrasalstein who, with the help of his friends, will teach us 100 phrasal verbs using animations inspired by the classic “horror movie” genre, with a touch of humour and irony."

Frequently, phrasal verbs have more than one meaning. For the examples we’ve selected, we’ve used the most common and well-known meaning for some while going with the more obscure meaning for others. In any case, you’ll always find an example sentence in English as well as other meanings whenever they are useful or necessary. What’s more, you’ll be provided with the translation in Spanish, German, Italian, Russian and French. "

TED- students can watch inspiring talks and practice their listening skills

Vocaba- “Vocabla is an app for improving your English vocabulary. You can translate, collect & memorize words, phrases, idioms and other chunks of language.”

Word Mover- “Word Mover allows children and teens to create "found poetry" by choosing from word banks and existing famous works; additionally, users can add new words to create a piece of poetry by moving/manipulating the text.

FEATURES:

- Multi-user poem storage

- User management with the ability to delete or restore within 2 weeks

- 6 poem categories, each with the ability to personalize

- 12 backgrounds for stylizing poems

- Helpful how-to information available throughout app

- Auto-saving of poems as they are created

- Viewing of finished poem for proofreading

- Ability to save poem to photos

- Ability to print poem on a wireless printer

- Ability to send poem by e-mail