When I visit classes taught in Chinese,\u00a0I often\u00a0find students engaged, active, and inquisitive. In my own classes\u2014or while visiting other English-based classes\u2014I observe less of these learning qualities. I do realize that tackling this gorilla will take a multifaceted, systemic approach, yet I would like to introduce an app that will help tranquilize that gorilla at the very least: Quizlet.<\/a> Quizlet is a vocabulary building app that has proven itself to be quite engaging for my students here in Chongqing.<\/p>\n When you first explore Quizlet, you may just think it\u2019s a fancy version of online flashcards. However, you\u2019ll see that Quizlet goes a bit deeper than that once you explore its functionality. Yes, kids and teachers can (and do) create vocabulary sets that can be used as flashcards. As a teacher, I even have my students create and share Quizlet sets for all of their other classes amongst each other. But Quizlet doesn\u2019t stop there. Once the flashcard sets are formed, Quizlet lets students study the sets in different ways to fit their various and varying learning needs and styles:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n All of the different options above provide the students and teachers with instantaneous, formative feedback which in turn allows them to move past the known vocabulary in order to target and re-learn (or re-teach) specific words that are often missed or sometimes missed. Additionally, Quizlet gives us the rare opportunity to target both the introverted and extroverted learner at the same time. It allows the introverted and competitive extrovert space and choice to work in their comfort zone, be it through competitive games or solo practice.<\/p>\n One of the first surprises I encountered after using Quizlet<\/a> was that my students were interacting with the website outside of class time! Students now make sets to share amongst themselves and for other content areas. They even hold unofficial competitions in the Match<\/strong> and Gravity<\/strong> games. To put it in educational terms, the students take ownership<\/em> of their vocabulary learning\u2014and that\u2019s what makes Quizlet such a powerful tool.<\/p>\n Being web-based, Quizlet<\/a> has an app for both Apple and Android, so it works for 1-to-1 schools as well as in schools with limited machines like mine. It also works through China\u2019s firewall (no VPN required) so students can access the site both in class and at home. For those teachers with little free time to make a set, Quizlet has millions of premade sets to choose from on just about every topic imaginable. You can even type in your textbook\u2019s name using the search feature, and you\u2019ll probably find that another teacher had previously created unit sets for it! Just find the set you want, copy it, modify it, and send it to your classes.<\/p>\n I have found vocabulary for almost every textbook I\u2019ve searched\u2014 from Conceptual Physics<\/em> by Hewitt to National Geographic\u2019s World Culture and Geography<\/em>, it makes the process very easy for the teacher. You can integrate this app into your classroom to varying degrees: From making Quizlet<\/a> classes and tracking student progress to simply upload sets and practice in class.<\/p>\n I have not done any quantitative diagnostics on the use of Quizlet<\/a> in my classes, yet I can tell you that in my 20-years of teaching I have never seen such active participation from students. I truly just sit back and smile because I did nothing but stumble into Quizlet Live<\/a>. I urge you to give it a try!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every day in our international classrooms here in China, there is gorilla in here with us. We don\u2019t ignore this gorilla, yet we sometimes have difficulty overcoming the challenges of his presence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridgenetwork.cn\/cambridge-international-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridgenetwork.cn\/cambridge-international-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridgenetwork.cn\/cambridge-international-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridgenetwork.cn\/cambridge-international-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridgenetwork.cn\/cambridge-international-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1241"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridgenetwork.cn\/cambridge-international-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1309,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridgenetwork.cn\/cambridge-international-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions\/1309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridgenetwork.cn\/cambridge-international-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridgenetwork.cn\/cambridge-international-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridgenetwork.cn\/cambridge-international-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridgenetwork.cn\/cambridge-international-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.cambridgenetwork.cn\/cambridge-international-en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/70495877639927718-1024x768.jpg\")
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Why Online Teaching Tools Work<\/h4>\n
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