Does the Quizlet app help students learn new foreign language vocabulary more effectively?10/24/2018 In today’s world of learning language students need to keep pace and be able to acquire new vocabulary quickly and easily. When trying to communicate it’s imperative that students have the relevant vocabulary to hand and don’t have to rush off and look up every word in a dictionary. To this end, I am looking to find new methods to help my students do this. In high schools today, students are learning languages using different formats and it is important to get them engaged and focused on the new topics and vocabulary at hand. I have looked at many research papers that seem to indicate that online learning is helping students become more engaged and make progress. Ferit Kiliçkaya and Jaroslaw Krajka conducted a study in 2010 which showed that students retained vocabulary longer when using online digital flashcards as opposed to traditional teaching methods. Emrah Baki BAŞOĞLU & Ömür AKDEMİR also conducted a study in 2010 and found that students who used vocabulary apps on their smartphones learned more. There have been several other studies including those by Gilbert Dizon and Daniel Tang in 2017 and by Neil Davie and Tobias Hilber in 2015 which also compared the use of traditional flashcards with digital ones, but their results were inconclusive.
I will carry out my study with a class of 25 French 1 students. I will teach them two different vocabulary lists, the first using traditional teaching methods (ie paper flashcards and reading/writing activities) and the second I will use traditional teaching methods, plus Quizlet. Before any vocabulary is taught I will give students a pre-test to see how much vocabulary they know. I will then teach approximately 25-30 words of new vocabulary using the different methods and give students a vocabulary test with 20 different words - 10 to put into English and 10 to put into French. Once complete, I will compare the results of the tests. I will also compare them with 1 other test that I did where I taught the vocabulary using the Quizlet app. I will also investigate: Does the Quizlet app engage students more in the classroom? How do students perceive the Quizlet app? I will do this by giving students a survey monkey. This contains 9 questions which ask students about their study habits with regard to Quizlet and their perceptions of the app as a whole. I will then analyze this data once the study is complete. The data from the survey will be recorded in percentages. References: What would a teacher do? 5/29/17 Useful Tech Tools: Quizlet. Retrieved from: https://www.whatwouldateacherdo.com/wwatd-blog/archives/05-2017 Eftychia Xerou, Salomi Papadima-Sophocleous, and Antigoni Parmaxi, 2015 A social constructionist approach to teaching and learning vocabulary for Italian for academic purposes. Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED572145.pdf Neil Davie and Tobias Hilber, 2015, Mobile-assisted Language Learning: Student Attitudes To Using Smartphones To Learn English Vocabulary. Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED562454.pdf Gilbert Dizon & Daniel Tang, 2017, Comparing the Efficacy of Digital Flashcards versus Paper Flashcards to Improve Receptive and Productive L2 Vocabulary. Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1154334.pdf
3 Comments
Jona Sandau
10/26/2018 12:58:01 pm
Natasha, your study sounds super exciting! Vocabulary is SO important to so many subjects! I will be watching excitedly! Perhaps I will use Quizlet, too, in my language arts classes to improve comprehension!
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10/27/2018 05:11:44 pm
Thx! Please let me know how it goes if you do!
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Tess Giner
10/27/2018 08:11:17 pm
I'm really interested in what your study shows because I want to try your idea with my students. Later. When I've completed my own research. Seriously, I think this is fascinating work because it can be used in all subjects. I teach vocabulary in several traditional ways. i always wonder if it is enough.
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AuthorI am a French & Spanish teacher at Justin-Siena High School wanting to get new ideas to motivate my students. Archives
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