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Background
1. Types of activities
2. Process for creating
3. Description of hot
5. When and how
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By
Christian Gallie
The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with the necessary
background information about the activity set that I have created using
a program called hot potatoes.
The activities are divided into two main sections: grammar and vocabulary.
As mentioned in the introduction, the class for which the activities were
designed for is a Structure & Composition class which focus is on academic
writing. The rationale for designing grammar and vocabulary activities
is that grammar and vocabulary are important features in writing. As mentioned
by Jones et al (2000), grammar and writing are closely related. Acuracy
in writing requires a good knowledge of the grammar. As far as vocabulary
is concerned, Decarrio (2001) points out that the learning of vocabulary
is central in the acquisition of both L1 and L2, and also that most students
come to the language classroom with the expectations of learning a large
amount of vocabulary. This need, as he says, need to be addressed. Suffice
it to say that the knowledge of grammar and the amount of vocabulary in
one's repertoire play an important role in efficient writing.
Section 2 is made of 7 activities and numbered 1 through 7. There are
four fill-in-the-blanks, one multiple choice, one matching, and one crossword
puzzle. As can be seen, there is a dominating fill-in-the-blank. This is
due to the fact that vocabulary words, as opposed to grammar features,
need to be in contexts, as suugested by researchers like Decarrio (2001),
and Groot (2000). Consequently, I provided the context in which students
should fit the vocabulary word. As you shall see, the same words will tend
to reoccur in order to provide students as many contexts as possible as
suggested by Decarrio (2001). Although they include some general vocabulary,
most of the activities are based on academic vocabulary, based on the students'
needs to enter college and university. This is based on Coxhead's argument
that students have difficulty with academic vocabulary. Therfore, they
need to familiarize themselves with such words.
2. Process for Creating the Activities and Suggestions The primary step in the process of the creation of the activities was
to have an authentic material, precisely a textbook that was currently
used by ESL students. Language authenticity, as mentioned by Byrd (1995)
guide learners to the ways people actually use the language. Because the
learners are preparing to enter college and university, the activities
should prepare them to meet the expectations of college and university.
The needs of students, which were already clearly observable throught the
textbbok were then taken into account for the design of the activities.
I looked through the textbook and identified the main grammar and vocabulary
features that seemed important for writing and which were likely to cause
trouble to the students. The next step was to collaborate with my colleagues.
Prowse (1998) suggests materials writers collaborate in order to get ideas
from many sources. Working with colleagues gave me new perspectives to
better meet the needs of the students. Finally, after the actual writing
of the activities, I had ESL students try them and give feedback on their
appropriateness. Kessler & Plakans (2001) have suggested that materials
writers obtain feedabck from the actual learners for whom the materials
are intended. Students feedabck actually give you strong insights in terms
of what improvement or change need to be made. Because they are the actual
users of the activities, it would be a mistake not to have their feedabck
and concretely address their needs, expectations, and characteristics.
Hot Potatoes is a program created by a team at University of Victoria
Hot Potatoes is actually a suite of software packages. Included in the
set
1. JBC: Create a Multiple Choice Quiz 2. J Quiz: Create a Short Answer Quiz 3.
J Mix: Create a Jumbled Sentence Activity (In the U.S.
4. J Cross: Create a crossword puzzle 5. J Match: Create a Matching Exercise 6.
J Cloze: Create a Fill-in-the-Blank Exercises.
First and foremost, the activities purports to make students practice
on grammar and vocabulary features deemed important for writing purposes.
Although they have the format of quizzes and tests, they do not test students
on their knowledge. They rather supplement the textbook in terms of vocabulary
and grammar. Besides, the textbook does not have enough activities on those
features, which seem however to be important features that learners themselves
expect to be taught in a language class. Students can use those activities
to develop their knowledge or review grammar and vocabulary lessons already
covered in class. The scores that dispay on the screen have the purpose
of motivating students to learn more and do better rather than testing
their knowledge.
There is not any actual logic that students are required to follow.
Yet, by having two sections, grammar and vocabulary, the rationale was
to make students move smoothly from one focus to the other. Depending on
the problem area they want to work on, students can freely practice on
any of the activities in their own preferred sequence. However, for activity
5 and 6 in the vocabulary section, I would definitely suggest that they
do # 1 before # 2. The reason is that these two activities are based on
the same vocabulary feature with some specific explanations on the first
on which is needed for the second part. Besides, I have given special instructions
on those two activities. As a whole I will recommend that you following
the instructions that are given for each activity.
I wish you enjoy these activities and learn from them for your academic career. Good Luck! You can e-mail me for
your comments.
- Byrd, P. (1995). Issues in the writing and publication of grammar
textbooks. In Patricia Byrd (Ed.), Material writer's
- Byrd, P.(2001). Textbooks: Evaluation for selection and analysis for
implementation. In Marianne Celce-Murcia (Ed.),
- Coxhead, A. (2000). A New Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly, 34, (2). - Decarrio, J.S. (2001). Vocabulary learning and teaching. In Celce-Murcia
(Ed.), Teaching English as a second or
- Groot, P. (2000). Computer Assisted Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition.
Language
Learning and
- John, S., Byrd, P., Allomong, S., and Tanaka, Y. Heinle & Heinle
grammar activity inventory. Retrieved from
- Kessler, G. & Plakans, L. (2001). Incorporating Esol
Learners' Feedback and Usability Testing
- Prowse, P. (1998). How writers write: testimony from authors.
In Brian Tomlisson (Ed.), Materials
- Reid, J. Developing ESL writing materials for publication OR writing
as a learning experience. In Patricia Byrd
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