Digital tools in the English classroom in elementary school

Interview, Teacher Education

In this interview with elementary school teacher Anna Lena Lutz, you’ll learn about the digital tools available for teaching English and how they can benefit your students.

7. September 2023

“I decide whether to use analog or digital teaching aids in my classes each session. Here, the focus is on the unit’s learning objectives.”

Your new online professional development is about digital tools in the elementary school English classroom. How can elementary school students benefit from the use of digital tools?

Anna Lena Lutz: Digital tools can make the learning process more varied and interesting. It is well known that the use of digital media in the classroom can be very motivating. Digital tools can individualize the learning process and make it more efficient through automatic feedback methods. They increase student activation and open up new ways of working together.

You have organized your online training into the four basic skills of teaching English: Listening and Listening Comprehension, Speaking, Reading and Reading Comprehension, and Writing. What opportunities must digital tools offer to promote these competencies?

Anna Lena Lutz: Digital tools should above all be easy to use, if possible even self-explanatory. To do this, they need a clearly understandable user interface. This is the only way to continue to focus on strengthening the four basic competencies.

Anna Lena Lutz is a primary school teacher and media officer at a primary school in the capital of Baden-Württemberg. After studying European Studies at the University of Education in Karlsruhe, she found her great passion in teaching. Her main subjects are German, Science and English. Through her role as media officer, she has made it her goal to make her school media literate. School closures due to the pandemic accelerated this effort. With the submission of the media development plan, her primary school is now on its way to becoming a digital school of tomorrow.

In November 2017, she created her blog and Instagram account, where she regularly shares glimpses of her daily life at school. Open, student-oriented work is especially close to her heart. In order to become more textbook-independent and to promote holistic, interdisciplinary teaching, she designs her own teaching materials.

Can you share an example of using digital tools in the English classroom?

Anna Lena Lutz: Storytelling is a popular method of teaching English. Unfortunately, the learning group’s experience and vocabulary do not always match the authentic literature in the target language. When that’s the case, I like to write my own short stories for my study group. In my text, I can embed the vocabulary for the unit and meaningful sentence structures in a repetitive way. Using SimpleShow, I can generate a digital story from the text, with appealing pictures, which I can play for the class.

English Lessons Interview Image 2

In addition to digital tools, you’ll also introduce analog ideas and games in your online training. How do you decide whether to use analog or digital teaching tools?

Anna Lena Lutz: For each unit, I decide whether to use analog or digital resources. The focus is on the learning objectives of the unit. The learning objectives determine which methods and tools are effective for learning. Of course, reality also plays a role in the selection process: What digital resources do I have in my classroom? How much preparation and follow-up does the assignment require? What added value does the use of digital media bring to the classroom? These issues should not be ignored and should be considered in the planning process.

Online training:

Digital tools in the English classroom in elementary school

In this online professional development, you’ll learn how to promote the basic skills of teaching English in elementary school using digital tools and analog ideas.

To the online training

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Digital tools in the English classroom in elementary school

Interview, Teacher Education

In this interview with elementary school teacher Anna Lena Lutz, you'll learn about the digital tools available for teaching English and how they can benefit your students.

7. September 2023

Digital tools in the English classroom in elementary school

“I decide whether to use analog or digital teaching aids in my classes each session. Here, the focus is on the unit’s learning objectives.”

You have organized your online training into the four basic skills of teaching English: Listening and Listening Comprehension, Speaking, Reading and Reading Comprehension, and Writing. What opportunities must digital tools offer to promote these competencies?

Can you share an example of using digital tools in the English classroom?

In addition to digital tools, you’ll also introduce analog ideas and games in your online training. How do you decide whether to use analog or digital teaching tools?

Online training:

Digital tools in the English classroom in elementary school

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