High-quality instructional materials play a vital role in L2 learning and instruction. They not only provide learners with comprehensible input, opportunities to practice and use new language forms, and receive feedback on their progress, but good materials can also be motivating and engaging, which can help learners stay motivated and engaged in the learning process. More importantly, instructional materials should be available for learners to use independently on their own or with instructors’ facilitation in language courses and programs. As such, interactive learning contents can provide a promising and flexible way to help students improve their language skills in a more engaging and effective way. However, materials development for low-resourced or less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) such as Vietnamese can be a time-consuming and expensive process due to a number of challenges.
In this article, I will show how language instructors can use an open-source authoring tool called H5P to create interactive learning materials for learners of Vietnamese. These materials can be easily managed through various learning management systems (LMSs) or web platforms and can be shared with other instructors and/or learners in a productive, cost-effective way. I will demonstrate how instructors can leverage one single H5P content type to design multiple activities for language learners to practice various language skills and aspects. The examples will be in Vietnamese, but the ideas and techniques can be applied to languages other than Vietnamese.
1. What is H5P?
H5P stands for HTML 5 Package, an open-source, community-driven authoring tool that allows instructional designers to create, share, and reuse interactive contents and applications in a browser with a plugin. It is a free and easy-to-use platform that supports a variety of content types, including interactive presentations, games, quizzes, and simulations. H5P is compatible with a variety of learning management systems (LMS), making it easy to integrate into existing learning environments. What makes H5P unique is its simplicity in generating content, allowing creators to design interactive elements effortlessly without needing extensive coding knowledge. Moreover, it’s free for end-users, thereby promoting content sharing for collaborative enhancement in a cost-effective way.
2. Why is H5P?
H5P has a number of features that give it a competitive advantage over commercial authoring tools. These include:
- Open source: H5P is open source, which means that it is free to use and modify. This makes it a more affordable option for schools and businesses that are looking for an authoring tool. It also makes it easier to create and share Open Educational Resources (OERs) among creators.
- Cross-platform: H5P content can be created and used on any platform, including Windows, Mac, and Linux. This makes it a more versatile option than commercial authoring tools that are often limited to a single platform. The tool is compatible with a variety of devices (computers, phones), browsers, learning management systems (LMSs) (e.g., Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard), and content management systems (CMSs) (WordPress, Drupal).
- Easy to use: H5P is easy to use, even for people who are not familiar with coding. This makes it a good option for teachers and content creators who want to create interactive content without having to learn a complex programming language. It can be easily installed via a plugin, and users can see what they get as they go.
- Wide range of content types: H5P supports a wide range of content types, including quizzes, presentations, games, and simulations. This makes it a good option for creating a variety of interactive learning experiences. There are currently over 50 content types that users can use. New interactive types can be developed and modified by the community.
- Supportive community: H5P has a large and supportive community of users who are constantly creating new content and sharing tips and tricks. This makes it a good option for people who want to learn more about H5P and get help with creating content.
3. How to use H5P?
To get started with H5P, the quickest way is to create an account on H5P.org. This will allow you to create or reuse any content types available there. Alternatively, H5P is often available on a learning management system (LMS) such as Moodle, Canvas, or Blackboard. You can also install the H5P plugin on a self-hosted website that is backed by open source software, such as WordPress or Drupal. There are a number of tutorials and examples of how to use H5P out there. For example, the H5P website has a number of tutorials, including a getting started guide, a tutorial on how to create interactive content, and a tutorial on how to embed H5P content in a website.
4. H5P in Use: Sort the Paragraphs
In this section, I will show how a single H5P content type called “Sort the paragraphs” can be used to create learning materials that help students practice different language skills and aspects. This activity was chosen because it allows students to participate in an activity that is often used in language teaching and assessment materials, known as a “text unscrambler”. This demonstrates that technology should be driven by pedagogy and can be based on real-world teaching and learning needs, not just for the sake of the tool or instrument itself.
Text unscrambler is referred to by various names, including unscrambling jumbled sentences, reordering jumbled words, sentence strips or strip stories (Lanteigne, 2017) and it can occur at the word, sentence, and discourse levels. At the word level, learners can engage in activities such as rearranging letters to form meaningful words. E.g., three letters Ó-C-H can be CHÓ (dog), CÓ (to have), ÓC (brain), HÓC (to choke). At the sentence level, learners can be asked to rearrange words to make meaningful sentences. E.g., nhà./nói/Em/với/mẹ/Việt/ba/ở/ > Em nói tiếng Việt với ba mẹ ở nhà; Ở nhà, ba mẹ nói tiếng Việt với em. At the discourse level, learners are often asked to rearrange chunks of texts, sentences or paragraphs into an appropriate order. The discourse-level text unscrambler is an effective tool for practicing a variety of language and literacy skills.
These activities can be done in paper form, as is commonly found in language learning textbooks or classroom activities, such as rearranging text strips (cut from a story, transcript, passage) in the correct order.
Sort the Paragraphs is a H5P content type that can help teachers design the text unscrambling activity which can be used to teach reading, listening, and writing skills, and to introduce various genres, such as conversations, song lyrics, poems, and stories, recipes, essays and more. (see demos on the author’s website).
a. Use Sort the Paragraphs for reading
The reading materials can be a passage from a textbook, a news report, a recipe, a poem or a story. This activity is useful to language learners to practice their reading skills. It can tap into several global and specific reading skills as well as employing top-down and bottom-up reading strategies.
Example #1. A short paragraph for the Novice High level
Example #2. A recipe for the Intermediate (low/mid) Level
b. Use Sort the Paragraphs for listening
Sort the Paragraphs can also be an excellent type of H5P activity to introduce a conversation and engage learners with it. For example, learners can be asked to listen to a conversation and rearrange the transcript as in the following example.
Teachers can also embed a short video or movie excerpt and ask learners to sort the events occurring in sequences or to sort the mixed chunks of transcripts as in the following demo.
c. Use Sort the Paragraphs for writing
Teachers can create the activity for learners to learn about the essay structure or a paragraph structure. For example, learners can rearrange the bullet point to make an outline for a paragraph including a topic sentence and supporting details. Learners can also read a news report and recognize the structure of a news report in Vietnamese as shown in the following example.
d. Use Sort the Paragraphs for literature
Sort the Paragraphs can be used to introduce poetry in the classroom through a pair work or group work. For example, teachers can find a relevant and meaningful poem and prepare it in this H5P activity. In the class, learners can work in pairs or in small groups to reassemble the mixed lines into the original poem. It requires ‘deep processing’ and different levels of reading to get the task done. Teachers can make it easier or more difficult to introduce a chunk of poem lines or line by line. Of course, this activity can be done in paper (cut the poem into strips) or be converted into a listening activity (listen to the poem read by the teacher and arrange the lines). Apart from poems, well-sequenced stories or song lyrics can be excellent candidates for this content type.
e. Make use of GenAI for Sort the Paragraphs
With the surge of Gen AI tools, teachers can leverage AI tools to generate texts and use the Sort the Paragraphs activity to
provide more practice for students. For example, a teacher can use an AI tool to generate a set of paragraphs on a particular topic. The teacher can then use the Sort the Paragraphs activity to have students organize the paragraphs into a coherent essay. This activity can help students to develop their critical thinking and writing skills.
5. Conclusion
In this article, I show how language instructors can use H5P to create interactive learning materials for Vietnamese learners. These materials can be managed through LMSs or web platforms and shared with other instructors and learners. I demonstrate how instructors can leverage one H5P content type called ‘Sort the Paragraphs’ to design multiple activities for language learners. There are many more H5P content types available and teachers can always be creative in how they employ them to meet their pedagogical objectives.
About the author
Hoan Nguyen is currently a Lecturer in Vietnamese in the Heritage Language Program, Linguistics Department at UC San Diego. Her research interests lie in the intersection of language acquisition, processing, and proficiency, with a specific focus on Vietnamese heritage speakers. She has conducted research on how classifiers facilitate predictive processing among heritage speakers of Vietnamese and have presented on this topic at various conferences. For more info, please visit https://hoantn.net
* This article is published by GUAVA Newsletter on December 31, 2023 based on the blog post published on March 28, 2023.
Nguyen, H. (2023). Designing interactive language learning materials with H5P. GUAVA Newsletter, 3, 8-11. Retrieved at https://guavamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/GUAVA-Newsletter-Vol3-Dec2023.pdf