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VocabBuddy
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Version
1
Recent thinking in vocabulary teaching is tending
towards a dynamic, process-centred approach.
Vocabulary learning is being seen more and more as a
skill in which responsibility lies with the learner
to develop his or her own lexicon. VocabBuddy has
been designed with this in mind.
Teachers often advise learners to take notes on
vocabulary items that they encounter for the first
time in order to facilitate retention. However, it is
important to remember that the simple act of storing
a word--in whatever medium--does not guarantee its
retrieval. Factors involved in short and long-term
memorization will determine how well and for how long
learners retain words. The strengths of the
VocabBuddy program in this respect are that it allows
learners to easily organise vocabulary items into
meaningful groups, it increases the number of
exposures learners receive to vocabulary items
through the use of built-in vocabulary games, and it
puts the onus on learners to choose which items to
store.
Teachers of EFL recognise that it is difficult to
select vocabulary items to cover with their classes
since learners bring with them widely different
vocabulary needs - a word unknown to one student may
well be very familiar to his or her neighbour.
Furthermore, research has shown that much vocabulary
is learned by the students individually through
reading, and not deliberately, under the teacher's
control in class.
VocabBuddy aids EFL learners in this endeavour by
enabling them to :
-create their own dictionaries of words and phrases
each with notes, meanings, examples and pictures
-mark difficult or important entries in a Hotlist.
-listen to the pronunciation of any and all text
with VocabBuddy's built in access to Microsoft text
to speech technology
-play word games based on their dictionaries or Hot
List, meanings and examples.
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