Reviewing Vocabulary Words
with quiz.4teachers.org
by
Subject/Level: The lesson works well for any foreign language class, any level.
Objective: To help students master a particular vocabulary list or prepare students for an upcoming vocabulary quiz.
Materials: One computer per student.
Length: One class period.
Preparation: The teacher must create an account at the website quiz.4teachers.org and create an online quiz with the specific vocabulary words the students currently are studying. Depending on the teacher’s computer skills, this initial step will take 30 to 60 minutes. However, having given this lesson more than six different vocabulary lists, I have found that I can now create an entire quiz at this website in about 10 minutes.
I’ve long suspected that students study for vocabulary quizzes by simply staring at a vocabulary list. This is a very passive activity that, at best, puts the words in their short-term memory. A few very motivated students will create flashcards for themselves, but once the cards are made, looking at the flashcards remains a passive activity. In this more active method, students must repeatedly type the correct vocabulary words to achieve a perfect score.
In this lesson students take an online quiz at the website quiz.4teachers.org that their teacher has created ahead of time. The benefits of using an online quiz are:
· The students must type in the correct answer each time they take the quiz. The website gives immediately feedback to the student (60% correct, 82% correct, etc.), and I have students retake the quiz until they get 100%. By they time they get 100%, most students have had to take the quiz several times and therefore have typed each answer several times.
· These quizzes are accessible to students at home via the internet. I offer extra credit to any student who takes the quiz online the night before a test and gets above 90%. As a teacher, you can go to quiz.4teachers.org to see which students took the quiz at home and when. (You’ll be surprised to see the number of students who take it between midnight and 6am.)
· Assuming that quiz.4teachers.org continues to exist, teachers will be able to use the quizzes they’ve created year after year.
Special note: entering special foreign language characters like é, ó, ú, ü, ß, ç, etc. can be challenging for beginners. For help, go to: