MEMRA AN EFFECTIVE APP FOR
MEMORIZING ENGLISH WORDS AND
PHRASES
Prosper Somto Evergreen
Dept. of Software Engineering and
Computer Applications
Saint Petersburg State electrotechnical
University “LETI”
Saint Petersbug, Russia
prosperevergreen@gmail.com
Abstract—English Language has become very important in
our world today and having the knowledge of English language
has proved to be very useful and beneficial. Through the use of
mobile technology, learning English has become easier and
accessible to most of its users. Many developer and researchers
have attempted to provide solutions and means for learning
English through their works and applications. This research
paper attempts to improve on the existing applications by
completing preliminary research to understand design
approach of presenting words and phrases for learning
English. The researcher has developed an app which uses the
words intends to be learnt to create tasks involving writing,
listening and paring for the users. The further study involved
the use of questionnaire to collect students’ opinions toward
the app
Keywords— Memra, m-learning, CTML, Interface Design,
English
I. INTRODUCTION
English is the most spoken language in the world today,
with approximately 400 million native speakers. Also, 53
countries have its official language to be English Language.
English is the main business language and it has become
almost a necessity for people to speak English if they are to
enter a global workforce. For a programmer, the knowledge
of English is also useful as the syntaxes of most
programming languages are usually in English thereby
making it easier to understand the function of the syntaxes.
The process of learning English language can be divided into
two parts; learning the words and learning the grammar
rules.
Every language is made up words and learning the words
makes it possible to understand the language. English
language consists of about 171,476 words by the Oxford
dictionary. Learning these words, understanding and
memorizing them makes the process of learning English
language fast and achievable. The methods by which these
words and phrases are presented for learning affects rate at
which the learners can assimilate and remember them, which
is what this article tries to solve with the use of m-learning.
The use of mobile assistant language learning has been
made possible some years ago, and m-learning has proven to
be very helpful [6].
Mobile technology has improved the educational
environment in different ways such as in ubiquity, instant
connectivity, personalization, and self-directed learningcommunity [7]. M-Learning qualities can be analyzed with
four characteristics: First, m-Learning environment provides
the possibility to learn anywhere. Second, we can access the
learning system that we want at any time. This characteristic
encourages independent and self-paced learning [7].
II. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RELATED WORKS
We tried to find some relevant analogies and studies on
similar topics with reference to existing applications. Also,
Analogies were selected based on their popularity.
Memrise is an App for learning English vocabulary. It
implements a gaming strategy for this purpose as well as an
automatic spaced-repetition system (SRS). The application
is free to download on iOS and Android devices. It engages
it learners by rewarding their learning success with points
which is similar to a gaming system [1].
Duolingo is a language learning application which is free
to download and use. It consists of semantical and
grammatical lesson units with different activities such as
translation, matching, speaking and listening [2].
Quizlet is an app that provides teachers a rich source of
vocabulary set in various languages from which they can
select the vocabulary set needed to create their lessons [3]. It
provides flash cards, easy to play games which engages the
student as well as provides effective result in a reasonable
amount of time [3]. It uses a spaced-repetition system as an
adaptive approach to help users improve on their mistakes.
Busuu is an application that provides its users with a
social network which aims at helping each other improve
their language skills [4]. It also provides its users with
various learning units as well. Another objective of Busuu is
that its users will gain the language skills such as reading,
speaking, writing and listening [4]. This is made possible
through its components that involves vocabulary and
grammar practice [4].
VocBlast is a mobile app developed to assist engineering
students of higher institution improve their English language
skills most specially to enrich their technical vocabulary [5].
VocBlast is made up of ten (10) different interesting games
arranged in an increased difficulty level aimed at enhancing
the users vocabulary [5].
Three criteria was chosen to compare this analogies
based on their design system:
Pedagogic Features: Instructional activity and individual
exercise features used to teach the users. It can also be seen
as the method used in teaching the students.
Adaptability: This considers if the application provides
an adaptive system which serve more specific to the user's
need.
Content and Focus: Here we consider the topics covered
by the app and the goal it tries to achieve.
TABLE I.
TABLE OF COMPARISON
Pedagogic
Features
Memrise
Duolingo
QUIZLET
BUSUU
VocBlast
spacedrepetition
system, game
semantical and
grammatical
lesson
Flashcard
packages
L1, flashcards,
writing
exercises
Game
shown in Figure 1. Furthermore, the user is required to enter
a maximum of seven (7) words or phrases as shown in
Figure 2. This is in accordance to space-repetition principle
by learning bit by bit and not in bulk [9].
adaptability
Content and
Focus
absent
vocabulary
learning
absent
language
learning
present
language
learning
absent
vocabulary and
grammar
absent
Engineering
Vocabulary
As m-leaning should provide a chance to enlarge learning
resources. That is to say that each learner should have the
freedom to choose the resource best for his or her learning
style and level [7].
Based on this literature review, it is found that most of
the lesson plans and materials are almost always the same or
preset. This increases the time to learn a specific set of
vocabulary. Also, only Quizlet pays much attention on the
user’s mistakes using an adaptive design system. However, it
takes a lot of time to create a lesson(set) on Quizlet.
Fig. 1. Choose your level
In other to solve this problem, The Cognitive Theory of
Multimedia Learning CTML principles is considered. This
theory proves that using words as well as pictures to teach is
more effective than using just words alone [8]. Words can be
played as audio or typed whereas pictures could be in form
of photos, animations or videos [8]. By combining this
cognitive research based on CTML we can maximize the
effectiveness of learning.
In other to provide a more improved system as well as
making it more adaptive, we combined the CTML with a
spaced-repetition system. This involves spreading the study
over several sections or units of lessons which provides a
repeated practice for the use and results to the retention of
knowledge over a longer period of time [9].
III. RESEARCH DESIGN
The design structure of Memra vocabulary app is
described, and the planned test pattern is explained.
A. The Design of Memra Vocabulary app
To provide access to all mobile users such as Android,
iOS and Nokia, the researcher chooses to create a browser
friendly app written with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
In order to effectively help students, improve their
vocabulary, the researcher develops an app which serves the
needs of the user by generating task specific to the words or
phrases the user intends to learn. This is achieved by giving
the user the ability to input the words or phrases they wish to
learn. The program provides useful details and tasks for the
words or phrases the student wishes to learn.
Firstly, the program requests the user's level this to help
decide the type of lessons to be presented to the user as
Fig. 2. Enter words to learn
Secondly, the application presents the user with
some description of the words or phrases they wish to
learn such as translations, transcription, pronunciation
and sometimes pictures. An example is shown in Figure
3.
Fig. 5. Matching with sound
Fig. 3. Matching with transcription
Thirdly, after the learning stage, the user is presented
with different series of tasks such as matching, mapping, fill
in the blank space, listening, writing tasks. An example is
shown in Figure 4 and Figure 5.
Finally, the program also takes note of the user’s
mistakes and addresses them by providing further tasks on
these words or phrase. There are different modules which are
broken down to mix and then to units
B. The Questionnaire of Students' Experience towards the
app
At the end of the app development, a test was conducted
to ascertain the effectiveness of the app. For this, a
questionnaire was designed to collect the data. Five factors
were considered:
1. How easy it was to use the app
2. How fast the student was able to learn the words
3. How interesting and captivating the app is.
4. How helpful and relevant the app is
5. How to improve the app.
The first four questions are rated on a scale of 5 while the
last question accepts the users respond as text input. About
30 students were selected with different English
backgrounds, age and specialty. The average results are
shown in Graph 1.
Graph 1. Response Statistics
Memra App review for 30 students
5,2
Fig. 4. Matching with translation
Average Rating
5
4,8
4,6
4,4
4,2
Question 1
Question 2
Question 3
Question 4
From the results, all students gave the app a rating of 5
for question 1, 4.5 for question 2, 4.8 for question 3 and 5 for
question 5.
Some of their recommendations includes: adding video
tasks, providing the opportunity to continue from where the
user stopped etc.
IV. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Conclusions
This paper proposed a self-developed English vocabulary
app for Russian speakers to use. The researcher designs
bilingual interface and provides sample sentences and sets of
tasks for the target user. The conclusions of the study can be
summarized as follows:
1.
Five applications were considered and it was found
that they lacked either an adaptive approach or a
design specific to the user.
2.
Achieve CTML and Space-repetition goals: That is
by using various multimedia resources necessary to
provide an interesting but also effective learning
environment for vocabulary acquisition.
3.
A browser friendly application was created to
provide access to all mobile users irrespective of
their operating systems.
4.
An experiment was conducted on 30 selected
students and data collected suggested that the app
was effective and helpful.
B. Suggestions
There are was a limitation of only accepting seven
phrases with a maximum of four words each. It is suggested
to create an application with a longer length of phrase.
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