4. Teaching Vocabulary with Poodll WordCards

Poodll WordCards helps students learn words and phrases. You provide a set of terms and definitions. Students study them on flashcards and practise them through a series of activities and games. WordCards keeps track of which words each student has learned, and it can bring earlier words back for review later in the course.

A common approach is to spread vocabulary across a course. For example, 40 words might be taught through 8 words in each of 5 WordCards activities. Students then review earlier words as the course continues.

Figure 4.1. A student’s word list with learned words marked.

WordCards organises words into three pools for each student.

A word is learned, and marked as such on the student’s word list, when the student has correctly matched, typed, said or selected it a set number of times. This is the Learned Point, which is 4 by default. Learned words are less likely to appear in practice, so students spend their time on words they do not yet know.

1. In your course, turn Edit mode on and select +, then Activity or resource.
2. Choose Poodll WordCards and enter a name.
3. Choose the Mode (see Section 4.3).
4. Set the Target Language, which is the language students are learning.
5. Set the Definitions Language, which is the language definitions will appear in.
6. Decide whether to Show language chooser, which lets students choose their own definitions language.
7. Review the other options, then select Save and display.

Figure 4.2. The main WordCards settings.

The Mode setting controls how students move through the activity.

In Steps Mode Options, choose an activity and a word set size (from 4 to 15) for each step. Step 1 uses new words. Steps 2 to 5 can use new words or review words: activities with (Review) in their name draw on words from earlier in the course. Choose None to leave out a step.

The defaults are:

Figure 4.3. Choosing the activity for each step.

In Free Mode Options, tick the activities you want students to be able to choose. All are on by default.

Figure 4.4. A student choosing a word pool and activity in Free mode.

Teaching tip: If the course’s first WordCards has a review step, students may have no earlier words to review. Consider using None for review steps in the first activity.

You can add words in four ways.

The Word Wizard looks up your words in a dictionary and offers definitions, translations and example sentences.

1. Open the Word Wizard tab.
2. Check the Definitions Language.
3. Enter the words, separated by commas or one per line.
4. Select Fetch Definitions.
5. Each word appears as a card listing its meanings. Find the one you want and select Use this. To change the definition or example sentence first, select Edit.
6. The word moves to the Added to this activity list.

For long lists, choose Add the words in the background. The first meaning of each word is used, and you do not need to stay on the page. You can also choose to make a picture for each word. Check and edit the words afterwards.

Figure 4.5. Choosing the meaning you want in the Word Wizard.

If a word or phrase, such as an idiom, is not in the dictionary, the Word Wizard may offer a Create with AI button. It may also offer Complete missing translations with AI. These need an AI provider configured on your Moodle site, and an administrator must make them available. Always check AI-suggested meanings.

Further down the Word Wizard page, the Image Wizard can generate a picture for each word that does not yet have one (Fetch Images), and Fetch translated sentences adds translations of the example sentences.

On the Words Admin tab, select Add New to add a word. You can view, edit and delete existing words in the table below. Only the term and definition are required.

Figure 4.6. Adding and managing words on the Words Admin tab.

On the Import tab, paste your list into Import Data, with one word per line, and choose the delimiter (tab, comma or pipe). Each line has this format. The last two fields are optional:

new-word | definition | TTS Voice | Model Sentence

For example:

Bonjour | Hello | Celine | Bonjour Monsieur

The Import tab can also export the activity’s terms, which is useful for reusing a word list in another activity.

The Learning Activity Options section lets you adjust several of these. For example, you can choose whether Choose the Answer shows the term or the definition at the top, and whether Say the Words shows the term or the model sentence.

Figure 4.7. WordCards practice activities.

Speaking activities need speech recognition support. Say the Words depends on voice transcription for the target language, which may not be available for every language. If it is not suitable for your language, choose another activity.

Teaching tip: Use Words Preview as Step 1 with mixed-ability classes. Students who already know a word can mark it, so they do not spend time practising it.

The word definitions and example sentences can be translated and shown in the student’s native language - if the words were added using the Word Wizard. The language is chosen in the native language chooser located above the list of words on the activity top page. The preference is shared between Poodll Wordcards, Poodll Solo and Poodll MiniLesson.

Figure 4.8. Native language chooser.

The Reports tab has reports for tracking word learning and attempts:

• Terms Learned: the number and percentage of terms each student has learned in this activity.
• Terms Learned in course: the same figures across this course.
• Terms Learned (Site): the same figures across the whole site.
• Grades Report: each student’s grade in this activity.
• All Attempts Report: a summary of attempts per student in this activity.

You can export report data with the Export to Excel button. If you change how an activity is graded, Re-push grades to gradebook on this page sends the grades to the gradebook again.

Figure 4.9. Tracking students’ word learning.

For activity completion, WordCards offers two conditions: The student has finished the activity and The student has learned all the words.

Word learning is tracked only for students. Use Switch role to… Student or a test student account.

Automated translations come from the Word Wizard. If you typed or imported a definition, it appears as you entered it. Words added with an older version of the plugin may also need updating. See Section 6.2.

Students can add any word from the activity to their My words list using the + on the card, then practise that list in Free mode. They cannot create new terms.

Speech recognition sometimes hears a similar word. Add the likely mistake to Acceptable mistranscribes on the word, or try the Guided STT (Poodll) transcriber in the activity settings.

Yes. The Master Instance and Push features let you push settings from one activity to others, if your role permits it. See How to use the Push Settings feature in WordCards.

• Introducing Poodll WordCards
• Configuring Poodll WordCards
• Free Mode and My Words
• Learned Words
• Definitions in User’s Native Language