Develop Your English with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Overview
Sue Robbins is a Senior Lecturer in English Language in the Department of Language Studies, University of Sussex, UK. She teaches English for Academic Purposes, English for Specific Purposes and general English to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as argumentation and discursive writing. Sue's practice is informed by the values and ethics of open practice and her interests lie in the application of theory to practice and Education for Sustainable Development. Her recent e-textbook ‘Develop Your English: with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals’ is a finalist in the 2024 ELTons Innovation Awards in the Excellence in Course Innovation category.
Develop Your English: with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is an interactive e-textbook for learners of English as an International Language, published by Open Press at University of Sussex. Pursuing interests in both open educational practices and the creation of digital content I developed the book on the Pressbooks platform, using the e-authoring tool H5P to develop the interactive content.
PressbooksLink opens in a new window are a small team that builds software to support new models for book publishing based on the ethics of open education and the intersection of books and the web. It’s an intuitive platform (based on WordPress) which offers instant, easy access with no sign-ups required, supports a range of browsers and embeds a range of accessibility features which can improve inclusivity.
H5PLink opens in a new window is an open source community project which aims to make it easier for creators to deliver and publish their content. It is supported on the Pressbooks platform, where I used it extensively to create interactive tasks that help students extend a range of skills. There are free open-source H5P plugins for Moodle and WordPress, meaning the digital content you create can be shared on any website and by weblink, and H5P also provides LTI integration with Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard and Brightspace so you can create and embed H5P content in your VLE (or your blog) to add engaging, interactive elements to your courses and modules.
Contributor
Ms Sue Robbins (she/her)Link opens in a new window, University of Sussex
English for Academic PurposesLink opens in a new window (2024)
Lesson plan
- To develop your digital content go to H5P.org and create a free account. H5P.org is the community site for H5P and provides a free service for trying it out. Note that all content created on H5P.org is publicly available, and because it is a test site may sometimes be temporarily inaccessible. H5P recommend switching to their H5P.com paid version, which hosts content, if you want to make more than occasional use of the tool. To get started, though, go to H5P.org and create an account.
- H5P offers a wide range of activity typesLink opens in a new window. If you need some inspiration, or would like to see how the different content types can be used in practice, you can find examples of many of them integrated into the units in Develop Your EnglishLink opens in a new window. An activity such as Structure StripLink opens in a new window or Documentation ToolLink opens in a new window allows you to scaffold students' note taking, and Interactive VideoLink opens in a new window allows you to embed questions, prompts and quizzes into a video, to scaffold students’ ability to listen and extract main points or details.
- There is a learning curve, as the editor (where you input your text) looks nothing like the finished content. Each task type is accompanied by an explanatory video, however, which guides you through the process. An easy task to get you started is Fill in the Blanks, where you simply paste some text (questions, paragraph, short text) into the editor and use asterisks around the words that should be blanked out.
Tutor's observations
Students comment that the inclusion of interactive H5P tasks stimulates engagement, and the variety of tasks proves motivating. Inclusion of a wide range of different task types allows us to offer students opportunities to interact with content in many different ways.
H5P tasks are accompanied by automated feedback, meaning students are able to assess their own progress and develop an understanding of their abilities, with the option of repeating tasks if desired. Most content types allow you to add feedback comments to explain or expand on right/wrong answers. If you have integrated H5P into your VLE (for which you need a paid H5P.com account) analytics are available so that you can see what students answer to the different H5P questions.
Based on my own experience, I’d say it’s worth persevering with the initial trial-and-error stage of learning how to create H5P content. The activities lend themselves well to self-study and to the production of content for a ‘flipped learning’ approach. They can encourage engagement with the VLE, and also be used in class as individual or group work tasks that encourage discussion and collaboration, and for checking understanding or key texts or concepts.
Student testimonies
‘The interactive practices woven throughout not only engaged me but also proved to be relevant and essential for reinforcing knowledge. I appreciated the effort to make the content both enjoyable and educational.’
‘This book infuses fun into language learning and actively engages learners’ intelligence.’
‘The inclusion of a range of task types prevents readers from becoming bored. The variety enhances the engagement of the reader and enables the assessment of their comprehension on various levels, including information extraction, note-taking, literacy and grammar.’
‘The fact that I can record myself answering the questions is just amazing, and very helpful. I felt confident about the given questions.’
‘Learners can receive immediate feedback, facilitating a quicker grasp of the material.'
‘The automated feedback and instant answers to tasks were so prompt and helpful. Indeed, they provided valuable guidance, allowing for immediate clarification and reinforcing correct language usage.’
‘I like all the exercises peppered throughout the unit, as well as the fact you can complete, reset and try again.’
Links to more like this
Categories: dpl_categories
Tools: H5P
Departments: University of Sussex