1

USING WEB 20 TOOLS FOR ESP VOCABULARY DRILL

Stephen Roney John Allan College of the North Atlantic Qatar (Qatar) Niagara College (Canada)

Doha Qatar St Catherines Canada stephenroneycna-qatareduqa abudhabiscorpiongmailcom

Abstract Inevitably learning a language involves a great deal of memorization Many find this difficult and painful nor does such drill really require a teacher to be present Computers on the other hand endless in their patience are ideal for this At College of the North AtlanticmdashQatar we are using a variety of tools freely available on the WWW to cut through the boredom factor and to allow students to accomplish self-paced vocabulary drill on their own time

This talk demonstrates our system and the tools we use and attempts to evaluate the results we have achieved Included are the following Web 20 packages Quia Web Classtools Content Generator Quizlet Spelling City Hot Potatoes WidgetBox Google Gadgets Impress ImTranslator ChronMe Abrakadoodle QuickFlashGames and to return continuous feedback SurveyGizmo All are available free on or from the Internet and so can be set up anywhere at any school at no cost

Keywords - ESL CALL Web 20 vocabulary ESP CLIL Language Learning Innovations e-Learning Projects and Experiences Web Classroom Applications

THE RATIONALE No matter how you parse it the largest part of learning a new language is hard slogging memorization Though memorization used to be the backbone of the curriculum we dont like memorization these days and we seek to avoid it We call it ldquodrill and killrdquo The classic schemes for lesson plans rarely even allow for it they envision some new datum or procedure being introduced in every lesson and being tested at the end Memorization drill does not fit that model

Language training may have suffered as a result Our own students here at College of the North Altantic-Qatar (CNAQ) commonly wonder why they seem to study the same language points even the same vocabulary semester after semester year after year To which the honest answer is because they apparently do not know it yet But then we remember wondering the same thing about our educations in French as a Second Language in Canadian schoolsmdashevery year it was the passeacute composeacute again

It may be that this is due to our resistance to working more on memorization we must repeat the same lessons year after year because we did not repeat them sufficiently hour after hour day after day the first time around

Drill of course we always say is boring for students But I think we also resist drill in class because it is boring for us as teachers If each student must repeat the same spoken exercise ten times to get it right we as teachers of a class of say twenty most accordingly listen to it 200 times Each semester How many of us put in twenty years of costly education to end up doing that

But is it really so boring for students as well Is it really so painful Perhaps not perhaps instead we are dealing here with a lost art Michael Knox Beran claims things were different as recently as a century ago ldquoA visitor to a first-grade classroom in New York in 1912rdquo he writes ldquoremarked on how quickly pupils absorbed the verses their teacher had sung to them At the end of twenty-five or thirty minutes the visitor said a large majority of the class seemed to know most of the wordsmdasha remarkable fact since there were more than fifty children present and this was only the second week of school ldquo [1]

So perhaps it is the teacher boredom factor we most must overcome If there ever was an educational procedure that could properly be automated then it is this matter of drill It is the heavy lifting of the teaching field Drill ye tarriers drill

Proceedings of EDULEARN09 Conference 6th-8th July 2009 Barcelona Spain

ISBN978-84-612-9802-0002775

Happily the computer offers a handy solution and Web 20 makes it virtually free Computers can drill forever without becoming bored They can tailor their questions to the developing comprehension of each individual student reducing the load for him or her And perhaps most importantly they are able to make the task funmdashyes fun

In the current trend to ESP (English for Specific Purposes) CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) and corpus linguistics we are often working specifically with target word lists most famously Ogdens Basic English list Coxheads Academic Word List and Wests General Service List At CNAQ we have run a selection of such words through a series of Web 20 tools in order to create a drill kit accessible to students in our classes and in our Learning Commons at all times In the present paper we outline the tools and the procedure step-by-step Note that while our own focus is vocabulary a very similar procedure could also be used for points of grammar or in any other subjects in which memorization is important

Computer-assisted language learning is over thirty years old but Web 20 adds an important new level of interactivity and accessibility With it we are able to offer a variety of activites so that the learner always feels that they are working on a fresh task However we will not really know if these educational experiences are successful until a few terms of trial feedback and alteration are completed We are as Higgins states ldquotransferring the act of teaching and learning to a new mediumrdquo ldquoWhen a predicted learning event does not take placerdquo he continues ldquowe are forced to conclude either that the machine is unsuitable or that our model of how to use it was based on a misconceptionrdquo [2] All this remains to be seenmdashall we can offer here is theory and the outlines of our experiment as we have set it up

2 THE PROCEDURE First of course we assemble a list of words to be studied If your target is the Academic Word List or some other established list this is straightforward If you need to create your own list on the fly based on the needs of a specific field or textbook here is a good Web 20 approach go to Amazon (wwwamazoncom of course) and select a textbook in your field or the textbook you actually use With luck it will offer Amazons new concordance feature Scroll down the display page for that book to the section ldquoInside this Bookrdquo and look for ldquoconcordancerdquo This will produce an automatic list of the 100 most-frequently-used words in that bookmdashand examples of their use in context Amazons ldquostatistically improbable phrasesrdquo list in the same section of their web page is also useful for targeting terminology special to the field

If you cannot find a good text at Amazon offering this feature another tactic for compiling a custom list quickly is to take a passage from a relevant textbook and run it through the Vocab Grabber httpwwwvisualthesauruscomvocabgrabber This will generate a list of the most common words in the passage classified by subject area

Here is our sample target list of words for business students

assets acquisition argue adapt bureaucracy collect competition consumers corporation couple decade dominate

21 Spelling City

First stop is the web site Spelling City httpwwwspellingcitycomindexphp to work on pronunciation and spelling (free requires registration) It is designed for native speakers but is entirely suitable for

002776

our purposes Signing in to our account we enter our word list as a batch file just as shown above This automatically generates 12 different exercises

bull A ldquoTeach Merdquo module which pronounces the word and then spells it out letter by letter for the student

bull A ldquoSpelling Testrdquo in which the word is sounded out both alone and in a sentence and the student types in the correct spelling This helps familiarize students with the words usage in context

and ten word games

bull ldquoMatch Itrdquo the word must be matched to the correct sentence

bull ldquoAlphabetizerdquo the words must be put in alphabetical order This too can be a valuable ESL skill for students like ours at College of the North Atlantic-Qatar whose native language is written in a different script

bull ldquoHangmouserdquo a version of Hangman The classic way to practice spelling without tears Unfortunately Spelling Citys version is without clues to the word

bull ldquoWordsearchrdquo

bull ldquoUnscramblerdquo a scrambled-letters game with two distractors added each time

bull ldquoAudio Word Matchrdquo a ldquoConcentrationrdquo or ldquoPelmanismrdquo game in which the words are pronounced as they are turned over This will help with sight reading as well as pronunciation and spelling

bull ldquoWhich Wordrdquo a multiple choice quiz to match words to the correct sentence

bull ldquoComplete the Wordrdquo a low-level spelling activity in which students insert the one letter missing from one of the target words The program pronounces each letter Good for teaching phonemes as well as the specific words on our list

bull ldquoSentence Unscramblerdquo helping again with usage

bull And of course the ever-popular ldquoCrosswordrdquo The clues are once again sentences using the word in context

Spelling City offers satisfying sound effects that usually produce some enjoyment in a class Most of these exercises can also be printed off the site promises they all will be printable eventually

22 Quizlet

We have not yet dealt with the matter of learning the formal definitions of our words We now therefore proceed to Quizlet httpquizletcom (free requires registration) Again it allows batch entry and by entering our word list once again just as we have it we can make use of a valuable Quizlet feature it can automatically give us word definitions offering suggestions from a dictionary and from other users The database from previous users is large enough to give a vast range of choices including definitions specific to a particular field For the word ldquodominaterdquo for example Quizlet offers 434 options

This gives us the following list terms and definitions

assets The resources owned by a business acquisition The purchase of additional resources by a business enterprise argue To put forth reasons for or against debate adapt Make fit for or change to suit a new purpose bureaucracy Complex systems with many departments many rules and many people in the chain of command collect Call for and obtain payment competition A contest between businesses or individuals to sell a product or service consumers People who use goods or services for their personal benefit corporation A business that is publically traded couple Two items of the same kind decade A period of 10 years

002777

dominate Control rule enjoy a commanding position

The touch of a button then gives us six new activities

bull ldquoFamiliarizerdquo flash cards matching words with definitions

bull ldquoLearnrdquo the student must type in the word to match the definition with a running grade

bull ldquoTestrdquo generates an interactive test on the vocabulary with a customizable mix of matching multiple choice short answer and true-false questions This can be printed off if preferred and can be randomized each time so that no two students share the same test This has obvious benefits for preventing cheating

bull ldquoScatterrdquo an activity in which students drag words onto the corresponding definitions As they do so both disappear gradually clearing the screen

bull ldquoSpace Racerdquo a challenging activity in which students must type in the correct word before the definition disappears from the screen

bull ldquoVoice Racerdquo uses voice recognition technology for pronunciation practice Just like ldquoSpace Racerdquo but to win students must pronounce the defined word into their microphones before the definition disappears

bull ldquoVoice Scatterrdquo like scatter but both words and definitions must be properly pronounced

Quizlet offers some additional features it tracks ldquomost missed wordsrdquo for example Both the list of terms and the flash cards are printable You can link exercises directly to a class or teacher web site on either Facebook or MySpace You can create class groups and assign lists directly through Quizlet students then also have the option to leave messages discussing the terms among themselves Sets can also be exported directly to Moodle as a Moodle quiz Like any proper Web 20 application Quizlet also offers you a large library of flashcard sets already created by other users sorted by category What you need may already be there

23 Scholastic Word Wizard

We have now covered listening speaking spelling comprehension and usage in context of our target words at least to some degree There is one concern here however If our students learn the definitions of these words in only one phrasing they will not truly fully comprehend the words They will miss the more subtle colorations of meaning Native speakers of course learn these colourations by repeatedly encountering the words in different contexts but our students may not have that luxury It is our job if we can to accelerate the process for them In order to meet this concern it is probably worthwhile to have at least one more set of similar exercises but using somewhat different definitions

Our next stop therefore is Scholastics Word Wizard dictionarys ldquoMinidictionaryrdquo feature (httpwordwizardscholasticcomminidictionary) Like Spelling City it is designed for native speakers but if your target word list is not too arcane it can save you a bit of work (Free does not require registration)

We enter our batch file the bare word list once again We can adjust our ldquograde levelrdquo here depending on the fluency of our students as we might use the FOG index or the Flesch-Kincaid scalemdashanything from 1 to 12 Our current target is about grade 9 The site then automatically generates our word definitions for us including if desired the part of speech When a word has more than one definition we are allowed to select the definition we prefer

For our present purposes we will omit the part of speech

This produces the following new list

Table 1 Raw word list as generated by Scholastics Minidictionary

acquisition something acquired

argue to have a battle with words quarrel contend

assets property that can be exchanged for cash

002778

bureaucracy an organized group of hired officials esp governmental

collect to obtain payment (usu fol by on)

competition the striving of business firms against one another to secure trade

consumers those who purchase goods or services

corporation an association of persons recognized by law and authorized to carry out certain functions with powers independent of the individual members

couple two of the same kind of thing or of related things considered together

decade a unit of time equal to ten years

dominate to rise above tower over

We now have accurate definitions for each word If some are unsuitable we can of course modify them in any word processor a little cleanup may be needed Our text is also generated in table format we must strip it out to plain text But this is a simple matter in any word processor This list is printablemdashso that the learners can take it home for study If we want yet another set of definitions we can batch-enter our word list once again and select definitions for a lower grade level

Word Wizard also offers its own built-in quiz httpwordwizardscholasticcomquizmaker

24 Study Stack

We proceed with our stripped and cleaned list to Study Stack (httpwwwstudystackcom) a site similar to Quizlet At present it is clearly inferior indeed unsatisfactory Some of its eleven activities do not seem to work and some quiz randomly on answers instead of questions Nevertheless it is free and quite easy to add to our box of tools And it may be improved in future

Although it allows batch entry it does not recognize the tab character as a delimiter as we have been using it needs a symbol instead

25 SortMyList

This is not a problem we proceed to SortMyList (httpsortmylistcom) (free no registration) Here we can automatically change our separator character from a tab to say ldquordquo

Submitting the list to StudyStack we now have eleven more activities Since not all of them are suitable a good option which Study Stack allows is to embed only those modules we want directly into our own web page

26 Flashcard Machine

One thing is we feel still missing Many find it helps memorization quite a bit to be able to also associate a word or concept with a visual image Nothing we have so far does that Therefore we proceed to the Flashcard Machine (httpwwwflashcardmachinecom) (Free requires registraton) We can batch-enter our word list again using tabs as delimiters But unlike Quizlet or StudyStack Flashcard Machine allows us to upload images for our cardsmdashor audio files

Where to get the visuals We took advantage of Microsoft Offices vast online clip art library (httpofficemicrosoftcomen-usclipartFX101321031033aspx) (Free no registration) Another good source is Creative Commons Search (httpsearchcreativecommonsorg) which lets you search for images that are copyright-free or licensed for free use

Typical of a Web 20 application the Flashcard Machine also offers a database of flashcard sets created by other users in which you may find some pre-created sets useful for your purposes

002779

Another option for visuals is to create a slide show in PowerPoint free if like so many you already own it or using Zoho Google Docs or Open Office We prefer this option ourselves because it makes the visuals larger and therefore gives them greater impact which is part of the value of visuals The slide show can be linked in directly to your web page or can be uploaded to a service like SlideShare (httpwwwslidesharenet) and linked to there

27 Hot Potatoes

We now have a broad set of vocabulary practice tools including listening practice pronunciation practice varied definitions and images as a mnemonic device But we are still limited in one area the use of the words in context While Spelling City offers some of this its usage database is generic For ESP we will usually need to see the words as applied in our given field

Hot Potatoes (httphotpotuvicca) (free requires registraton requires download) still seems to be the best tool available for this though it is too hoar with age to be considered Web 20 We will use its jCloze application Hot Potatoes also offers jCross for making crosswords jMatch for matching exercises jQuiz for multiple choice jMix for scrambled sentences and ldquoThe Masherrdquo for linking them all together

For sentences there are several good concordancers on the Web Most notably the British National Corpus (httpwwwnatcorpoxacukindexxml) will search a full cross section of documents in British English totalling 100000000 words and return full sentences For ESP it also makes sense to use the Hong Kong Polytechnical Universitys Virtual Language Centre httpvlcpolyueduhk which allows you to select from more limited corpora in specific fields

From these sources we copy and paste into jCloze and select our target words as the gaps to be filled

Fig 1 A jCloze exercise

28 Other approaches to word definitions

One of the oldest traditions of pedagogymdashdating back to ancient Greecemdashis the idea that in teaching language the usage examples shown to students should be from the very best writing These are easier to memorize they give an ideal pattern for usage and they add interest and educational value

002780

to the lesson Theon writes in his Progymnasmata (1st century AD) that ldquoif we receive very fine imprints on our soul from fine exempla we shall also imitate themrdquo [3]

In order to achieve this we go to jCloze again but use a different source to generate a different set of sentences a set derived from famous proverbs and quotations Quote Mountain is one good resource httpwwwquotemountaincomfullsearchphp

Here are the sample sentences Quote Mountain offered with the target terms italicized

All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth ndash Socrates

For organizations and employees alike the only real security is the ability to grow change and adapt

You may easily play a joke on a man who likes to argue -- agree with him

Every companys greatest assets are its customers because without customers there is no company

Bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy but an inevitable complement to it

If someone were to pay you $10 for every kind word you ever spoke and collect $05 for every unkind word would you be rich or poor

Pride is an admission of weakness it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals

Consumers are statistics Customers are people

You look at any giant corporation and I mean the biggies and they all started with a guy with an idea doing it well

If you think nobody cares if youre alive try missing a couple of car payments

Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade

We come to reason not to dominate We do not seek to have our way but to find a common way

By good luck some of the quotations or proverbs even refer specifically to business our target subject

Something else we can do to help the memorization task is to also offer students verbal as well as visual images that is definitions of the terms that are expressly metaphoric or idiomatic that ldquopaint a picturerdquo These are useful mnemonics add some sense of connotation as well as denotation and are for most students intrinsically motivational Language learners enjoy idioms and enjoy learning to use them correctly It is very cool

And so we go with our terms to any online thesaurus The largest currently so far as we know is at Thesauruscom (httpthesaurusreferencecom) Entering our terms one by one we choose the synonym which seems most colourful and most seems to illustrate the meaning of the word

assets property acquisition gain argue cross swords adapt roll with the punches bureaucracy red tape collect pass the hat competition a horse race consumers end users corporation outfit couple twosome decade tenner dominate call the shots

Some certainly work better than others But we have pulled up some useful and familiar idioms that shed a new graphic light on the significance of the terms

002781

29 SpellMaster

Variety in presentation is also important if only for maintaining interest So instead of making yet more exercises with the same tools we proceed to SpellMaster (httpwwwspellmastercom) Here we can download two packs of educational game templates (free no registration) Both accept batch entry as a simple text file By inserting our word list with synonyms as above into the first pack SpellMaster proper we generate five more drill activities

bull ldquoJigWordsrdquo students drag and drop our idiom definitions to words from the word list

bull ldquoMatchWordsrdquo a concentrationPelmanism game

bull ldquoWordSearchrdquo a particularly strong example of the genre with three levels of difficulty

bull ldquoWordWebrdquo an interesting spelling exercise The letters are all given but the student must point to them in sequence

bull ldquoSpeedWordrdquo more good spelling practice at a higher level Students must spell the word correctly from the synonym or idiom before time runs out and can adjust the time limit to make the exercise more challenging

The second pack creates more exercises for pronunciation practice although it requires just a little more work We do not need our definitions here we need only our original word list with each item repeated then repeated again with the file extension ldquomp3rdquo The result (we did it by hand using the copy and paste function from our word processor)

assets assets assetsmp3 acquisition acquisition acquisitionmp3 argue argue arguemp3 hellip and so forth

Now we record the sound files to go with it using Audacity a free download (httpaudacitysourceforgenet) We record our voice saying the words one by one save them with the indicated file names and we now have three more activities to help students with their spelling pronunciation and comprehension of the target vocabulary

bull ldquoJigSoundrdquo they match the spoken to the written form

bull ldquoListenMatchrdquo concentrationPelmanism matching the sound to the written form

bull ldquoListenampSpellrdquo students spell out the word after hearing the spoken form with a time limit

210 Quia

We can do still more to address the very important boredom factor no exercise is valuable if the students will not do it Indeed a learning activity is generally more valuable in direct proportion to how well it can attract and hold student attention and enthusiasm As Plato put it ldquoDo not train students to learning by force and harshness but direct them to it by what amuses their minds so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of eachrdquo

This being so it is worth noting that the repetition usually necessary to fix something in memory is actually an integral part of many of the activities most of us most enjoy games music singing dancing sports

Fortunately there are a variety of tools on the web some free for creating interactive vocabulary games to exploit this valuable truth

Quia (httpwwwquiacomweb) is not free You can get a free 30-day trial for the price of filling out the registration form however and its collection of activities developed by others is free (httpwwwquiacomshared) It produces 13 activity types as well as quizzes and surveys Batch entry is possible but the activities are complicated enough in their requirements that it is generally necessary to reformat material for each activity One can set up a question bank though to reuse individual questions as test items or in other activities It also offers automatic marking and activity tracking We know at a glance for example that our own students are most fond of the ldquoRags to Richesrdquo game and we can get a readout of how much time they spend on each module This has obvious research as well as evaluative value

002782

bull ldquoRags to Richesrdquo simulates the popular TV show ldquoWho Wants to be a Millionairerdquo All the rhetorical impact of that show tested and validated on TV worldwide is hereby harnessed to your students language learning You can enter your own ldquohintsrdquo for your students or accept electronically generated ones

bull ldquoChallenge Boardrdquo approximates ldquoJeopardyrdquo with the same advantages One small difficulty here is parsing our output into categories to suit the game format but one ready technique is to divide your terms by part of speech--ldquoIll take verbs for 200rdquo A good free alternative to Quia for making Jeopardy-type activities incidentally has recently appeared JeopardyLabs (httpjeopardylabscom) It does not allow batch entry registration is not required It offers a collection of already-created games and the output is considerably more visually impressive

bull ldquoBattleshiprdquo the classic game It fits a little awkwardly though into the educational context Each time the student has a hit he must answer a multiple-choice question to make it count The question format luckily matches that for ldquoRags to Richesrdquo allowing recycling of items

These three are the jewels of the collection in terms of building student enthusiasm Other Quia options are similar to those available elsewhere

bull ldquoHangmanrdquo superior to that in Spelling City in that customized hints or your target definitions can be included

bull ldquoJava Gamesrdquo generates three activities in one flash cards word search and concentration It lets you remove cards from the set once you have mastered them It also like Flashcard Machine accommodates images and audio files

bull ldquoColumnsrdquo the familiar matching columns activity

bull ldquoClozerdquo multiple-choice as well as gapfill clozes Students win virtual ldquocoinsrdquo for correct answers Similar to jCloze

bull ldquoJumbled Wordsrdquo is the equivalent of Spelling Citys ldquoUnscramblerdquo

bull ldquoScavenger Huntrdquo is a miniature WebQuest template and could be used to guide students to look up their own definitions for selected terms from online sources

Other Quia activities have more specialized uses ordering sequential lists of terms fitting terms into larger categories They are not relevant for our current purposes

Quias ldquoQuizrdquo function allows automatic grading by computer insertion of reading texts illustrations or even sound files and a variety of question types including short answer multiple choice cloze truefalse and essays A good option for on-line evaluation

For all these activities and those that follow it is possible to drum up extra enthusiasm by setting them as a class competition with leader boards and running totals of high scores

211 Classtools

Classtoolsnet (free no registration required) provides a different sort of game its ldquoarcade game generatorrdquo makes four word-practice versions of classic computer games All can be created from one batch-entered file It requires an asterisk for a denominator easily accomplished in SortMyList

Of the games ldquoWord Shootrdquo seems the most efficient for learning with a very satisfying audio track It gradually grows more challenging as the student becomes more proficient an addicting feature tried and validated in the gaming world

bull ldquoCannonBall Funrdquo demands more skill to play but probably compensates by being more addictive for most over time One must learn to carefully aim ones cannon as well as to recognize the correct definitions

bull ldquoManic Minerrdquo is a multilevel maze or ldquoplatformrdquo game (like the original Mario series) but requiring the player to walk towards correct answers and avoid wrong ones

bull ldquoMatching Pairsrdquo is another version of ldquoconcentrationrdquoPelmanism

Classtools offers other options one worth considering is the ldquoDustbin Gamerdquo We can use it to ask the students to sort the word list into parts of speech or into relevant subject subcategories Identifying parts of speech of course will give them some idea of how to use the words in a sentence

002783

212 Content Generator

Content Generator (httpwwwcontentgeneratornet) is another good source of online game templates It has more options than Classtools However most of Content Generatorrsquos 14 (so far) Flash game templates cost some money Five templates at last check can be downloaded for free The site is also not terribly well-organized you must register (free) and hunt through the online forums for the downloads

bull ldquoFling the Teacherrdquo is very loosely based on ldquoWho Wants to be a Millionairerdquo but amounts to a completely new game with a unique incentive for students If they answer 15 or more multiple-choice questions correctly they get the supreme satisfaction of watching a cartoon ldquoteacherrdquo customizable to look like their own flung by a catapult across the virtual terrain

bull ldquoTeacher Invadersrdquo is based on the classic arcade game ldquoSpace Invadersrdquo Every now and then the player must answer a short-answer question to be able to continue The incentive is artificial and fits awkwardly into the original game but the graphics are pleasantly humorous

bull ldquoHalf a Minrdquo is a word scramble activity with definition a built-in timer and some interesting graphics It plays very well

bull ldquoMultiple-choicerdquo is a fairly straightforward multiple-choice quiz but with a built-in timer

bull ldquoMatch-uprdquo is a classic ldquomatch the two columnsrdquo activity also with a timer

Other packages available for a fee and worthy of consideration for vocabulary practice include ldquoPenalty Shootoutrdquomdasha football (soccer) simulation ldquoWalk the Plankrdquo--another creative way to get revenge on your teacher ldquoHoopshotrdquomdasha basketball simulation ldquoEn Garderdquo a fencing simulation and ldquoGrade or No Graderdquo reminiscent of the TV show ldquoLetrsquos Make a Dealrdquo

The sitersquos ldquoShowcaserdquo offers many already-created games for classroom use again you might find that what you need has already been created httpwwwcontentgeneratornetforumindexphpautocom=links

213 Teach-ICT

If however you feel you might be interested in purchasing additional games from Content Generator be forewarned that rather similar challenges are available for free at Teach ICTcom (httpwwwteach-ictcom) (free registration required) These are made by and for IT teachers but teachers of other subjects are welcomed to use them No fewer than 24 different activity templates are online plus three more for printable exercises Unfortunately they do not allow for batch entry each game must be created individually

Notable among the offerings are

bull ldquoSave Your Teamrdquo a very well-done football (soccer) shoot-out based on the hangman theme

bull ldquoRacing Cubesrdquo an arcade-style race simulation The game is stopped periodically and the student must answer a fill-in-the-blank question to continue

bull ldquoDunkinrsquo Teacherrdquo like Content Generatorrsquos ldquoWalk the Plankrdquo Each correct answer to a series of multiple-choice questions inches a teacher closer to the end of a plank which eventually drops him into a vat ofmdashwe presumemdashboiling oil The game includes sound effects and taunts by the teacher

bull ldquoBingordquo automates the generation of a whole-class bingo game using the target words

bull ldquoBuild Itrdquo multiple choice questions with the reward of gradually constructing an image

bull ldquoCatch the Fruitrdquo a classic arcade game A cartoon fox must catch falling fruit in a basket As with ldquoRacing Cubesrdquo the vocabulary element is purely extrinsic the game pauses every now and then for a short-answer question

bull ldquoBalloon Attackrdquo the same cartoon fox must burst balloons with a peashooter before the sun setsmdashwith short-answer questions to proceed to the next level The vocabulary element fits in better here but is still perhaps too peripheral to the game Perhaps too much bang not enough buck

002784

bull ldquoSpot the Teacherrdquo ldquoWhack-a-Molerdquo with teachers as moles Multiple-choice questions inserted

bull ldquoMazerdquo ldquoPac Manrdquo When yoursquore about to be eaten you can save yourself by answering a question correctly Rather nicely done

bull ldquoBreakoutrdquo Here you earn a life for each question answered correctly at the beginning

bull ldquoBash the Wordrdquo Choose your weapon choose your game colours and hit only words related to the given topic This has obvious value for ESP but is perhaps too general for our present purposes

bull ldquoHangmanrdquo A Bart Simpson clone meets his Maker Difficult because the computer does not keep track of guessed letters

bull ldquoTic-Tac-Toerdquo You must answer a multiple choice question correctly to place a marker This proves a strong incentivemdashgiven the nature of the game miss one move and itrsquos all over

bull ldquoMulti-Choice 1 2 and 3rdquo three slightly different straightforward multiple choice quizzes without bells and whistles

bull ldquoExam Question Practicerdquo allows for essay questions which can then be printed out and includes a ldquoresearchrdquo button that searches a term on Google This is the only option in all we have reviewed here that fully allows for writing practice using the target vocabulary However the use of the computer for this is trivial and arbitrary

bull ldquoTrue-Falserdquo just as you might expect

bull ldquoDrag and Droprdquo a very flexible drag-and-drop interface that allows images

bull ldquoFlash Cardsrdquo really our old friend ldquoConcentrationrdquo

bull ldquoColumnsrdquo column match

bull ldquoText Twisterrdquo challenges you to find valid English words in a given set of letters Not suitable for vocabulary drill

bull ldquoWordsearchrdquo aka ldquoWord findrdquo

214 WriteBoard

We still have not offered anything that gives the student holistic writing practice using the target words For this probably the most practical tool offered by Web 20 is the wiki

To fully practice our word list therefore we opened an account at WriteBoard (httpwwwwriteboardcom free requires registration) to create a simple wiki with our words Students can be charged with writing an essay (or even a poem) on the given word or one using a selection of the given words Other students can then comment and vote and prizes can be awarded for the most popular entries after a set time Other possibilities having students add their own definitions for each word or upload images that represent the term

Writeboard offers the instructor activity logs showing the actual labour exerted by each student This can be used for evaluation of students but also of the activity itself WriteBoard also lets students publish their wiki creations in a variety of digital and hard copy formats It is also a strong collaborative tool since an unlimited number of students can be active on the wiki Collaborative story-writing is another possibility

3 THE PRODUCT

In order to make all of these exercises easily accessible both to students and to teachers we have linked them all through a web page This can be distributed locally by CD or shared drive or uploaded to a free web hosting service such as Office Live (httpwwwofficelivecom) Office requires registration but does not charge for this There are many other sites offering free web hosting on the off-chance that your institution does not have its own web page Of course if your school has a functioning Learning Management System the activities can also be linked through this

002785

In our case the primary planned use is in our Learning Commons or Independent Learning Centre Students when not in class can go there and work on their vocabulary from the web page at their own pace The full range of options is probably much greater than any one student would needmdashbut together they probably provide suitable options for almost any imaginable learning style

We have added one additional feature a survey which allows students and instructors to send feedback immediately on what features and tools they find most or least valuable or to report bugs or typos There are several online services we chose Survey Gizmo (httpwwwsurveygizmocom) It gives us detailed feedback on our web page whenever we want to check Over time we can assure ourselves that our web page meets the real requirements of our students in an optimal way This will also collect our data to demonstrate the success or failure of our Web 20 experiment

To round out the web page we have taken advantage of the new Web 20 trend to mashable ldquowidgetsrdquo for a few more tools and items of interest related to vocabulary acquisition Our own selection and perhaps yours was radically limited by the eccentricities of the campus firewall Nevertheless we managed to sneak through a few that seem worthy of mention

bull The ldquoImTranslatorrdquo Widget available from WidgetBox (httpwwwwidgetboxcom) offers instant translation across a generous selection of languages including our own L1 and target Arabic and English Students can also have the entered word pronounced for them by a choice of male or female voice There is some amusement at least in also having it pronounced in accents from other languagesmdashand probably some practical use for our students as we are teaching English as an international language Students can also print or email their term or look it up in a dictionary

bull The ldquoGoogle Dictionary Gadgetrdquo is even better for this last task of dictionary lookup Taken from the collection at httpwwwgooglecomwebmastersgadgets it offers a fast choice of 14 reference works five dictionaries Wikipedia Wikia and seven different custom Google searches

bull ldquoChronmerdquo from WidgetBox is a small onscreen timerstopwatch allowing a student to time his own activitiesmdashor conceivably count down the minutes until class ends

bull WidgetBoxrsquos ldquoTXTrdquo widget also pronounces words or texts cut and pasted to its interface

bull With the ldquoVocaroordquo Widget (from httpvocaroocom) students can record their voice and depending on the capabilities of their workstation their Webcam image as well They can then post it to the Web or forward it by emailmdashperhaps to their teacher for marking Itrsquos almost a little free language lab in a widget

We have also added an assortment of general word game widgets

bull ldquoWord Artrdquo by Abracadoodle lets students in a very literal sense play with words changing size and orientation then printing their art From WidgetBox

bull ldquoQuick Wordsrdquo from QuickFlashGames like Boggle has students try to recognize English words in a random set of letters From Google Gadgets

bull ldquoBefore and Afterrdquo from Google Gadgets is like the TV show ldquoWheel of Fortunerdquo Letter by letter you must guess a list of related words

bull ldquoHangmanrdquo from Google Gadgets offers eight word categories allowing some ESP use

While it is too soon to declare it a success (or failure) based on actual use we are hopeful that this approach will in the future become a significant element in the repertoire of language teaching and teaching in general Perhaps at next years conference we will be able to report further

And not incidentally in these recessionary times and for our Third World colleagues this Web 20 mashup is available almost for free Our own web pages cost us nothing more than the price of a one year subscription to Quia $49 US We could have done it entirely for free without Quia but could not resist the purchase

REFERENCES

[1] Michael Knox Beran ldquoIn Defense of Memorizationrdquo City Journal Summer 2004 httpwwwcity-journalorghtml14_3_defense_memorizationhtml accessed May 15 2009

4

002786

[2] John Higgins Language Learners and Computers (Bristol UK Longman 1988)

[3] Theon ldquoProgymnasmatardquo trans Patricia P Matsen 1987 in Matsen Rollinson and Sousa eds Readings from Classical Rhetoric (Carbondale IL Southern Illinois University Press 1990) p255 He is echoing he says Apollonius of Rhodes

002787