I’ve been a fan of BrainPop.com for years now. I began using their animated movies around 2001 with my ELL students. At the time, the movies were only available in English but they never failed to engage even my newest arrivals. The movies were focussed and concise and the characters were “simpaticos,” or likeable for my students. I would often utilize the movies at the beginning of a lesson or a unit to build background knowledge and to kick start content-relevant vocabulary lists.
Since I now mainly work with teachers and don’t get a chance to work with students much, I had not visited BrainPop of late. That is until recently, when my four year old daughter and I were talking about mammals that I decided to once again visit the site. We picked up a trial membership and sure enough found a great movie about mammals. Of course, she was hooked immediately and watched as many movies as she could until our trial ran out (note to self: a home license would make a good B-day gift).
I’ve now spent a good amount of time on the site, along with BrainPop Jr. and BrainPop Español, and have been impressed by the many nice features that could useful to ELL classrooms:
- Closed captioning is available on all the movies in English.
- Many of the movies are translated into Spanish at BrainPop Español.
- Movies for the Pre K – 3 crowd (or for older ELLs with early language skills) are available at Brainpop Jr.
- Movie controls are easy to use and include a pause button to allow for discussion (a mute button would be nice, so that teachers or students could add their own narration).
- Printable quizzes and activities are also available.
I’d like to see the BrainPop Español site developed further to include more movies and features like closed captioning and Spanish language printables. But overall, all three sites still pack a powerful instructional punch for ELLs and non-Ells alike.
