It’s that time of year again. Controlled assessments are done and in my Y11 class we are already in full swing for the run up to the reading and listening exams. During this period my classes spend a lot of time honing these skills in readiness for their exams. On of the key elements for me in order for my students to attain good grades in these exams is the acquisition and retention of vocabulary. In the past this has meant vocabulary learning homework followed up by the traditional vocabulary test. This year though my class and I have been trailing a new method of learning vocabulary using our iPads. There are many vocabulary learning products on the market but these are often very expensive. Our method does require a little bit of effort from you as the teacher but it’s great fun and my class and I are already seeing the benefits.
At the beginning of a new topic. I create a vocabulary list on the vocabulary learning site Quizlet I have my own account but my students don’t I just give them the link to my lists via our VLE My Big Campus. The class then have 15 mins at the start of the lesson to try and learn as many words as they can. Once 15 minutes is up we continue with the rest of our lesson as usual. At the end of the lesson the students are “tested” on their vocabulary by playing a game of Kahoot.
This is an online tool where you can make quizzes for your students to play. Their are 2 parts to this gaming tool; the teacher end getkahoot.com and the student kahoot.it In the teacher interface you create multiple choice quizzes for your students to play. The student interface changes their iPad/iPod/iPhone into a response pad. The teacher projects the question on to the board and the students answer via their iPad. After each question students find out if they got the question correct, they gain points for answering correctly and quickly. They also get shown a leader board, this makes for a fun competitive end to the lesson.
After each lesson I extend the Quizlet list with any new words we have come across and in turn add extra questions to my Kahoot ready for some vocabulary learning time in our next lesson.
Why not give it a go. My students now love vocab fests as we call them which is a real win in my book!
I’ll be talking about Kahoot in my presentation fabulous formative assessment at #ililc5 this February.
Musings from the island 