WORDREADY® reviews
IATEFL CALL Review, Summer 2007
A Review of WORDREADY
Nik Peachey
I first came across WORDREADY when a link to the (www.L2.co.uk) site was circulating around various educational discussion lists. The link was to some free vocabulary games that can be accessed at (http://www.L2.co.uk/web/en/games) and there was quite a bit of excitement being generated by these games. Although the games were quite simple (wordsearches and crosswords) the amount of thought and attention to detail that had gone into the design of the games was immediately apparent.
When I found out who was behind the company that produced these I wasn't at all surprised. Having worked for the British Council for many years as a teacher, trainer and ICT trainer I was already well acquainted with the work of the people behind L2. They had been responsible for the production of some of the British Council's most successful learning technology products, a set of multimedia CDROMs for general English (The Network English series) and an outstanding interactive CD-ROM for young learners. As an ICT trainer I had worked with many technophobe EL teachers helping them to take their first steps into the multimedia classroom, and for both me and those reluctant teachers the Network English CDs had always provided the "break though" moment when they realise "Hey students can learn something from computer based materials".
So I was delighted when I had the opportunity to log in and have a really good look at the WORDREADY package.
What is WORDREADY?
WORDREADY is a web based multimedia vocabulary learning tool for young learners aged 7-12 (or the young at heart). The tool is based around a lexicon of 1000 high frequency words each of which has a graphic illustration, recording of the pronunciation, example phrase, a recording of the example phrase and a translation into any one of, at present, 8 different languages. These features are combined into multimedia "word cards" which are used together in various combinations to form a variety of different language learning exercise types.
The exercise types are structured to take the learner through a five-stage process of acquisition from initial exposure, through recognition and reconstruction to reproduction.
What's really amazing about the system though is that while the learner works on the exercises, their progress is being tracked and the computer is creating and selecting new exercises for them based on the degree of success they have with each of their previous exercises, thus providing a personalised learning journey that is unique to each individual student.
How to use WORDREADY
The tool itself can be used in one of two ways. Firstly, it can be accessed by students autonomously, through any computer with a web browser and a good Internet connection. Each student has their own unique user name and password and can log in to their profile from any location at any time.
Students can be initially registered at any one of three levels; Start Off, Move On and Fly Away, and these are aligned to the Council of Europe's Common European Framework. They then work through the materials at their own pace for 10-15 minutes each day, or whenever they have the time. L2 recommend that the teacher does an initial introduction lesson with students so that they know how to access the materials and certainly with lower age groups I'm sure this is a good idea.
The teacher is also able to log in monitor and track their students' progress and also to check that they are completing their work. WORDREADY isn't designed to be a complete language learning system, it is a supplementary one, so it is intended that it be used along side a structured classroom course.
The integration of the materials into a face 2 face course has been made much easier by L2 though. They have supplied a "classroom" interface for teachers so that teachers working with interactive whiteboards or data projectors can access all the materials in the classroom, and select groups of words to be used for specific in class activities.
Considering how complex the underlying technology is, WORDREADY is surprisingly easy to use. The students' interface is very clean and uncluttered with clear attractive visual layout and a small character to the right of the screen who guides students through the exercises. The exercises themselves respond very quickly, so there are no delays after clicking, audio is delivered quickly and clearly and even impatient students who click round the screen would find it very hard to crash the system.
Personally, I enjoyed clicking through the exercises with my support language set to Spanish, and if WORDREADY were available as a tool for learning Spanish with English support I would be more than happy to use it myself, despite the fact that it's been a very long time since I was a young learner.
From the admin / teacher perspective, the interface is also very simple and clear. Student profiles have to be set up and activated by a teacher / administrator, but I gave this the "impatient never read the manual first" test and found that I was able to create and activate student accounts and log in to check their progress pretty well without it.
Once the users are set up the teacher can check through each individual student to see how many words they have studied and what degree of understanding they have developed (through 5 stages of understanding) of those words.
What I liked about it
There are a number of WORDREADY features that I find very appealing.
I think the ability to provide personalised learning journeys is enormously powerful. There is nothing worse than students having to plough through screen after screen of material that they already know, just to get to the stage where they can begin learning.
The visual design of the materials is attractive and stylish, but still clean and intuitive, so learners can spend their time learning the language not learning how to use the software.
The progress / reporting interface offers the teacher enough information for them to quickly and accurately track their students' progress with out burying them in reams of superfluous data.
The classroom interface for teachers is a valuable stand alone tool as it enables teachers to create classroom exercises that are attractive accessible and truly interactive. I've seen these demonstrated on an interactive smart board with students touching and dragging images and audio around the screen to great effect.
Most autonomous online language learning is aimed at higher levels, so it's really refreshing to see a package that's aimed at beginners and young learners to boot.
Most of all, what I like about it is that it does what it says on the box. It's a simple to use cleverly designed tool for developing vocabulary.
What I didn't like about it
Initially I was sceptical about the use of translation, as it's something that I have always tried to avoid in class, but I did find it to be used 'intelligently' with this package. The translation is used as a crutch in the early stages of presentation and is gradually phased out as the students become more confident with the words.
I'm kind of disappointed that it's only available for learning English. It seems like it wouldn't take too much work to develop it for other languages, and if it were available for other languages I'm sure there would be a market for it, even among very old young learners like myself.
How much is it?
At the time of writing, a 12 month subscription to WORDREADY cost from £20 for single user home licence down to as little as £3.50 per student for school purchases. When you think of the prices of supplementary books (the last soft back vocabulary resource book I bought was £12.95) that seems like a pretty good deal for a multimedia learning tool which can be used from both home and school to provide personalised enjoyable learning paths for our students.
Nik Peachey is a freelance learning and technology consultant, trainer and materials designer. At present he is working on the design of a Business English course for Second Life and also publishes his own blog for EL teachers interested in using technology: (http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/).
IATEFL CALL Review, Summer 2007
IATEFL Young Learner Publication 2006 - 2 28
WORDREADY
A mesmerising new vocabulary tool for teachers to use with Young Learners.
Nigel Heritage
Gazing at the computer screen, I was transfixed. How could one piece of technology do so much? A whoosh sound if you matched the correct word to picture and a clunk and "try again" notice if you used the wrong next letter to spell it. Using clear, attractive graphics, WORDREADY covers almost all aspects of learning vocabulary. Supporting the written word and image you hear natural native-speaker voices giving you constant high-quality shaping of letter sounds, words and context sentences. The only thing it doesn't do, and I don't think any technology can yet, is to correct the learner's pronunciation of the new vocabulary.
WORDREADY is designed for young learners to acquire new vocabulary at their own pace. It provides a list of 1,000+ words from the Cambridge ESOL Young Learner Exam syllabus. It is based on very sound pedagogy, one example of which is the changing presentation of sets of words. WORDREADY selects different sets of 6 words every time to avoid serial learning and all words are periodically re-cycled to ensure secure learning. Most impressive of all, WORDREADY notices the words that are not being learnt and represents them more quickly than other words. It actually is a computer programme that teaches!
So how is a teacher involved in the WORDREADY vocabulary learning process? There are two ways. First the teacher is able to oversee the whole class working at their own pace. Using the classroom management tool, the teacher sets the level of vocabulary to be learnt and monitors learner progress from the records supplied by WORDREADY. Students can use WORDREADY on any computer with their personalised log-in, so a WORDREADY session can become part of a lesson or be given as homework. The management process is straightforward even for teachers who find IT a bit challenging.
Second the teacher can manipulate the supplementary multimedia flashcards for whole class activities. These flashcards are for use with a projector or digital whiteboards. The written words and instructions can be entirely in English, or with translations in the learner's own language. They allow the teacher to select and present sets of six words, with images and sounds, for a range of activities; pre-teaching words, revising vocabulary, stimulating students to create stories or just for some fun word games. The flashcards are delightful to use and an ideal support for the individual vocabulary learning.
An intriguing aspect of WORDREADY is that you don't actually buy anything to get access to it; there is no software package or CD Rom. Rather you pay an annual subscription to have access to the WORDREADY programme. This method allows schools to buy a certain number of access log-ons for one academic year and then adjust the number, as required, the following year. Incredibly, it is very reasonably priced.
The WORDREADY website offers detailed explanations of everything about the programme, although not always in a way that is easy to comprehend. The best way to understand more is to use the demo and learn by doing. I think you will be impressed.
Nigel Heritage is a freelance EFL trainer and consultant specializing in young learners. Trained at International House in 1983, he subsequently worked as Children's Coordinator at IH and has since gained extensive experience in UK Summer Schools.
IATEFL Young Learner Publication 2006 - 2 28
