Readlang

Readlang makes reading much more easier to understand. It’s implemented in chrome, students can click and get the translation very convineintly while they’re reading. And Readlang will automatically make those vocabularies into flashcards for the students to review.

However, I think it still has some shortcomings when it comes to learning the language. It’s important that we ask the students to limit their use of Readlang, or otherwise, the students will simply use it as a translation tool that translates the whole passage into their native languages which will impede their learning of the L2. However, it’s hard for teachers to monitor the students if they are using Readlang properly when they’re not in the classroom. So, I think it’s important for the teachers to tell the students they need to limit the translation length and the frequency of using Readlang. Also, it might be more beneficial if the teachers recommend this tool to students who have high autonomy. Another imperfection of Readlang is that the translation can be inaccurate. This is more visible in vocabulary translations because the correct meaning of a single word is decided by the language context. Students might be misleaded if they use Readlang to translate the words they don’t know. As a conclusion, I don’t think I will recommend Readlang to my students when they’re reading a passage for the first time. However, I will let my students use it when they’re doing reviews.