The Summary and Reflection of Vocabulary Teaching
As the language teachers of today, we have a lot of web-based possibilities and we should be aware of these privileges for us, and s it can be easily guessable, this writing is about vocabulary teaching and how we can manage this by using various vocabulary teaching tools. While doing this, we will focus on Wordchamp (www.wordchamp.com), Gerry’s Vocabulary Teacher, and Text-to-speech technology.
Firstly, I would like to tell bout Wordchamp (www.wordchamp.com). It is a web-site that enables all the learners from every proficiency level to learn or practice their English at their home. There are many activities and tools, and you can decide on what you want to learn and how you can learn. It is also possible to contact to the teachers and other learners so that you can ask and answer the questions. I think it is very important for a language tool to enable members to communicate with each other to help one another. When we come to the features of this tool, it presents 130 different kinds of language to us to learn and practice the language activities. There are language drills in this tool under the name of flashcard tab so that you can create your own flashcards and also use the existing flash cards. In the Web-Reader section, it enables the learners to develop their reading skills in the foreign language that you want to learn. You can also translate the complex or unknown words by using the tool existing in the web-site. In addition, you can find a language partner and a tutor. Another feature of this tool is to be able to create your own class and your students. Therefore, you can compose an interactive studying environment about the assignments. You can invite the students by using the tool to your online class. Also you can follow the progress of the students’ situation. However, you should pay a bit fee about $12.50.
The second tool that we can use during the vocabulary teaching is Gerry’s Vocabulary Teacher. It is a new program for the users to learn the words in their contexts i.e. a sample sentence. Unlike Wordchamp, this tool is suitable for intermediate –advanced second language learners. You can use this program to review and to develop your vocabulary. As a teacher you can prepare vocabulary tests to improve the students’ vocabulary skills. This program presents Gap-fill sentences, Crossword puzzles, Discussion topics, Proverbs & Quotations, Web-based exercises, Different parts of speech, and Find someone who. All these sub branches of the tool are very useful for both the teachers and the students to develop the vocabulary skills. You can improve the students’ vocabulary knowledge by teaching them the words with their use in the sentence.
As for the last tool we will mention, Text-to-speech technology, it has been created especially for the blind people; however, it is also very beneficial for the language learners to improve their listening skills and pronunciation in the target language. This is a computer-based system that reads the texts aloud. While using this system you can decide the fast of the speech of texts so that you can have a chance to listen the texts according to your proficiency and pleasure. You can choose the voice gender of the speech such as female voice or male voice. In fact, one of the disadvantageous sides of this system is the lack of intonation. Despite that, I think it is very useful to improve listening skills at least in terms of pronunciation because you can save the audio files of the parts of speech to listen later them.
As you can see, all these tools and systems are very practical for vocabulary teaching. Of course they have some limitations of them, but I believe that nothing is perfect as nobody is.
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