Recently, I remarked to a colleague that I was having trouble thinking of new ideas for semi-controlled practice in my vocabulary lessons.
Basically, in my vocabulary lessons, I had two ideas for semi-controlled practice that I used over and over again: either students are instructed to write a sentence, or, to increase the challenge, students write a sentence using the make sentences game. But with some of the classes that I've had for a long time, the students were getting tired of these games.
"I need a new way to do semi-controlled practice for vocabulary," I said to my colleague.
He suggested I might try to make things fresh by using a website like quizziz.
I've mentioned https://quizizz.com/ before on this blog (here and here), but in addition to what I've previously talked about, another feature is that it has questions with open-ended answers.
So, you can write in a prompt like: Make a sentence using the word "educate".
Now, there's no way for the quizziz website to determine which answers are right or wrong, and consequently the website can't award points like it normally does. (So some of the fun game element is unfortunately removed), but students do sometimes enjoy just getting a chance to use their phones and tablets during the lesson, and it is something different. I don't do this every lesson, but when I think students are getting sick of writing sentences up on the whiteboard, I'll make a quizziz activity for the semi-controlled practice instead.
At the end of the quizziz activity, I can see all the sentences the students have written, and we can go over them together and discuss them as a class.
Quizziz also offers the option to put pictures in the prompts, which can make the exercise a bit more controlled. So, instead of saying "write a sentence using the word 'educate'", you can say: Make a sentence describing this picture. Use the word "educate".
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