Although vocabulary quizzes were given every week, these too were collected, corrected, and returned with little feedback. To put it in terms my students would appreciate, the new vocabulary never made it from RAM onto their hard drives. Armed with a hobbyist's knowledge of programming and Macromedia Director authoring software, I set out to design on-line vocabulary study activities and quizzes that would address these challenges. The first goal was to improve the feedback students received while studying. Using Director, I created a simple program that presents students with a definition and a list of words from a given week's list.
Students read the definition and then click the word in the list that goes with it.
Feedback is simple and immediate. If a guess is correct, the computer signals so with the sound of applause and adds a point to the student's score. If a student's guess is wrong, the computer gasps in mock horror and shows the correct answer. In addition, the software tracks the incorrect answers students give, presenting them with a review list at the end of the activity. The activity also includes a help system, allowing students to see how the word is used in a typical sentence, hear it pronounced, and peek at the Japanese translation.