Bring your own vocabulary: Engaging students in vocabulary learning with mobile & collaborative technologies

BRING YOUR OWN VOCABULARY

Engaging students in vocabulary learning with mobile & collaborative technologies

Benoît Guilbaud @BenGuilbaud

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported licence (CC BY-NC 3.0).

More details at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

@BenGuilbaud, 2014

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Sydney Uni CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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• Language for specific purposes: medical French - prevalence of lexicon

• Y1&2 MBChB undergraduates / two academic years / 71 B2 students

• Attempt to increase student engagement, motivation and collaboration

• Draw on students’ specialist knowledge and clinical placement experience

CONTEXT

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Vocab

TRADITIONAL VOCABULARY TEACHING (and maybe learning)

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BETTER VOCABULARY LEARNING

Vocab!+++

Vocab

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WHY?

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WHAT’S IN IT FOR…

Students Tutors• Increasing breadth of vocabulary

easily and systematically

• Active participants in their learning process

• Collaboratively involved in content design

• Engage with outward-facing learning & OER production

• Reduces need for specialist knowledge

• Keeps students engaged outside of contact hours

• Increases class motivation

• Saves time

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HOW?

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GOOGLE DRIVE QUIZLET

+

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GOOGLE DRIVE

• Template list created by tutor for each topic/fortnight

• Each student adds 5 words and their translations

• Content is checked, curated and completed by tutor

• Final list imported into web 2.0 vocab app Quizlet

• Students learn/revise list for formative test the following week

• Summative vocab test in final exam

QUIZLET

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GOOGLE DRIVE

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QUIZLET

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QUIZLET

IOS ANDROID WINDOWS PHONEWEB

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THE STUDY

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THE STUDY

• End-of-semester questionnaire

• 53 open and closed questions

• 44% respondents

18/06/2013 11:19Survey Results

Page 1 of 14https://selectsurveys.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/PrintOverview.aspx?SurveyID=9lK34l83

1. Please enter your full name (Optional) (NB: all survey results will be anonymised entirely)

Total Respondents 14

(skipped this question) 15

2. Which of the following units were you enrolled on in 2012-13?

ResponseTotal

ResponsePercent Points Avg

Medical French level 1 7 35% n/a n/aMedical French level 2 9 45% n/a n/aBusiness French"further" level 4 20% n/a n/a

Total Respondents 20 100%

(skipped this question) 9

3. "I understand that my answers may be used and quoted anonymouly for the purpose of the present research study." Click hereto read more.

ResponseTotal

ResponsePercent Points Avg

Yes 20 100% n/a n/aTotal Respondents 20

(skipped this question) 9

4. From which devices did you usually access Quizlet? Tick all answers that apply.

ResponseTotal

ResponsePercent Points Avg

University PC 9 53% n/a n/aPersonalcomputer(includinglaptop)

17 100% n/a n/a

Smartphone 5 29% n/a n/aTablet 0 0% n/a n/aPrinted lists 1 6% n/a n/aOther, pleasespecify 0 0% n/a n/a

Total Respondents 17

(skipped this question) 12

5. From which device did you access Quizlet the most?

ResponseTotal

ResponsePercent Points Avg

University PC 1 6% n/a n/aPersonal computer(including laptop) 14 82% n/a n/a

Smartphone 2 12% n/a n/aTablet 0 0% n/a n/aPrinted lists 0 0% n/a n/aOther (as specifiedabove) 0 0% n/a n/a

Total Respondents 17 100%

(skipped this question) 12

Quizlet survey 2013

Respondents: 29 displayed, 29 total Status: Closed

Launched Date: 05/06/2013 Closed Date: 16/06/2013

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FINDINGS

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VOCABULARY LEARNING

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“QUIZLET WAS USEFUL TO MY LEARNING”

Very usefulUseful

NeutralUseless

Very useless

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“I FOUND THAT QUIZLET MOTIVATED ME TO REVISE VOCABULARY”

Strongly agree Agree NeutralDisagree Strongly disagree

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PLACE OF USEVery often Often Sometimes Rarely Never

Public transports

Home

University & library

Outdoors

Work

Around campus

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LENGTH OF REVISION SESSION

AVERAGE MAX

40 mins 100 mins

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CLASS-GENERATED VOCABULARY LISTS

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“COLLABORATIVELY CREATING VOCABULARY LISTS IS A GOOD WAY TO ENCOURAGE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT”

Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

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HOW IMPORTANT IS IT THAT STUDENTS ARE INCLUDED IN THE DESIGN OF STUDY MATERIALS?

Very importantImportant

NeutralUnimportant

Very unimportant

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Technical problems 4%

Late entries (delaying test revisions) 29%

Duplicate entries 21%

Inaccurate entries 29%

Irrelevant entries 34%

% of respondents agreeing

ISSUES WITH CLASS-GENERATED LISTS OCCURRING “OFTEN”

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Very likely

Likely

Neutral

Unlikely

LIKELINESS OF SHARING OWN LEARNING RESOURCES

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Very pleased

Pleased

Neutral

PLEASED TO SHARE CLASS-MADE RESOURCES

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VIEWS ON BYOD• Free choice of learning device is favoured.

• University-sanctioned platforms should be widely compatible.

• Despite empirical evidence that students enjoy using their own devices in class, survey responses show reluctance to bring devices to class.

• BYOD may create discrepancies in access to learning.

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CONCLUSIONS

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CONCLUSIONS• Experience very positive overall

• High level of student engagement and satisfaction

• Several positive comments in unit satisfaction survey

• Summative test results show very effective learning

• System works best for individual words and short phrases

• Importance of thorough curation of contents by tutor

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COMMENTS

• “Provided there is appropriate oversight this is a fantastic resource.”

• “I will definitely continue to use Quizlet in the future. I have also

started using it to help me learn other areas of my medicine

degree.”

• “Quizlet has revolutionised the way I learn vocabulary.”

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REFERENCES• Casserly, C.M., Smith, MS.S, 2008. Revolutionizing education through innovation: Can openness transform teaching and

learning? In: Iiyoshi, T. & Kumar V. (eds), 2008. The collective advancement of Eduction through Open Technology, Open Content and Open Knowledge. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.

• Couros, A., 2011. Why networked learning matters. Education in a Changing Environment (ECE) 6th International Conference, Creativity and Engagement in Higher Education, 6-8 July 2011, University of Salford, Greater Manchester, UK.

• Craig, D.V., 2011. Encouraging Participatory Culture and Language Learning: Assisting ELLs in Becoming Part of the Digital Youth. In: TNTESOL Journal, 4(1) pp. 84-93.

• Kop, R., Hill, A., 2008. Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the past? In: International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3) [Online]. Accessible at: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewArticle/523 [accessed 27th June 2013].

• Martin, A., Madigan, D. (eds), 2006. Digital Literacies for Learning. London: Facet publishing.

• Nation, I.S.P., 2001. Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cambridge Applied Linguistics.

• Siemens, G., 2005. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. In: International journal instructional technology and distance learning, 2(1) [Online]. Accessible at: http://itdl.org/journal/jan_05/index.htm [accessed 27th June 2013].

ANY QUESTIONS?

Benoît Guilbaud @BenGuilbaud

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