by Jingfei Zhang, English Language Centre, School of Languages, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
WordWall can be used to facilitate vocabulary learning and teaching, since the engaging elements in WordWall can not only stimulate motivation, but also improve vocabulary retention.
WordWall provides a variety of interactive activities. I am going to introduce an activity that I frequently use when teaching vocabulary—anagram (See Image 1). I normally use this activity for vocabulary review in the next lesson or as self-study materials since it can test students’ vocabulary retention. Teachers input the related words, which are jumbled and presented to students so that students need to rearrange the letters into the correct order. Students not only need to remember the meaning, but also the spelling.
Image 1
This activity aims to:
- Review vocabulary in an engaging and interactive way.
- Reinforce vocabulary learning by integrating self-study materials.
Activity length
10-15 minutes
Technology used
Course area
Various subjects, mainly for EAP
Level
All
Target skill(s)
Vocabulary learning, Interactive classroom activities
Set-ups:
Step 1:
Visit the website:https://wordwall.net (Image 2)
Step 2:
Choose “sign up” and provide an email address and password to create your account (Image 3).
Step 3:
Log in with your account and choose “create activity”.
Step 4:
Select the template of Anagram (Image 4).
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Step 5:
After that, you need to enter the content based on the lesson plan. You can add as many words as you like by clicking “add a new word”. Once you have finished, click “done” (Image 5).
Step 6:
After saving the activity, you need to publish the acitivity so that students and other teachers can see it. You can either share the link or the QR code with students (Image 6).
Here is a link for an “anagram” activity so that teachers can reuse it: https://wordwall.net/resource/55181727
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Procedure:
Students can participate in the activities by simply scanning the QR code or accessing the link (Image 7).
After completing the activity, students can check the answers by themselves. By clicking “show answers”, students can compare their own answers with the correct ones. You can also ask students to put their names in the "leaderboard“ so that you can access their grades and the time they used to finish the task. You can also test students again for those vocabulary items that students make frequent mistakes with(Image 8).
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Caveats and alternatives:
Caveats:
Due to the Internet connection, the QR code tends to be slower than the link. Teachers can share the link with students or embed on LMO. Students need to copy the link and paste into the browser, which is faster than simply clicking the link.
Alternatives:
(1) There are some other functions with WordWall you can use. Once you have created an activity, you can switch it to a different template (Image 9). Here are some possible templates that you can use to replace “anagram”.
- Match up: teachers can input pairs of words and corresponding definitions, or images. These pairs will be randomized and presented to learners to match.
- Quiz: the quiz activity allows teachers to design interactive quizzes with multiple-choice questions.
- Flash cards: this activity can be assigned to students as self-study. It creates digital flashcards for vocabulary review
Image 9
(2) You can also change the theme and font size (Image 10). In addition, although you can only create 5 activities without upgrading your account, you can reuse the template because you can edit any activity (Image 11). In addition, you can also change the time limits and the layout (Image 12).
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Some functions in WordWall can be found in other platforms (Kahoot quiz, crossword puzzle, wheel of names, etc.), but Wordwall hosts a wide variety of these activities in one place. (Images 13)
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