Learning Prepositions
Independent Project
Problem Statement
ESL learners usually have difficulties in distinguishing different prepositions and apply them flexibly. Important as they are, prepositions are vague and confusing even for native speakers,
Target Audience Analysis
Qs: Why is preposition hard to learn?
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Prepositions are a tricky subject due to its inconsistency.
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Ways of visualizing spatial relationship differ from culture to culture.
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Teachers usually do not take learning preposition seriously.
Goal of the Project
The goal of this app is to enable learners to learn about different meanings of prepositions through visual images and animation, to help them distinguish different prepositions, and to enable them to complete sentence with appropriate prepositions.
Target Audience
To narrow down target audience, this app is targeted towards English language learners who have no or very little prior knowledge of prepositions but already know some English words.
Learning Goals
Qs 1: How to help ESL learners learn English preposition?
Use concept map -- a good way to teach prep is to help students build up schema about the central meaning of a preposition and its relationship with peripheral meanings originated from the central meaning.
Qs 2: How to help learners compare different prepositions?
Enable learners to manipulate objects on the screen and observe the change of words.
Qs 3: How to help learners integrate new knowledge with existing knowledge?
Enable learners to select the appropriate prepositions to construct sentences using prepositions together with nouns and verbs.
Qs 4: How to help learners practice the knowledge they learned in real life scenarios?
Enable learners to choose prepositions in real-world scenarios and upload photos for discussion.
Rachel Guo | rg2891@tc.columbia.edu | 175.2683.5198