Ten years ago I made 135 cards as part of a simple card-flipping game designed to get students thinking about vocabulary, pronouns, verb tenses, subject-verb agreement and overall basic sentence structure. Students of all ages loved it, and that was pleasing. It took a hell of a long time to cut out, paste together, laminate and then cut out again those little cards.
I'm enjoying a sort of renaissance over on the English Raven site as I dig up all of the old flashcards and card games there and find ways to breathe new life and practicality into them via all the wonderful tools Web 2.0 (and Web 2.5 I'm starting to think...) has dished up for us.
The new online version of When? Who? What? Where? is a pretty good example of what I'm talking about here. It used to be something you had to download and cut out (and it is, of course, still excellent for that purpose), but the version I recently uploaded to the site allows for the cards to be flipped on the screen. It also allows learners to record themselves based on the cards they see before them, listen to what they've said, re-record it if they want to, and then compare with an example sentence I've provided for them.
It was surprisingly simple to put together, and we're not talking world-quaking technology or tech skills here. But even with the limitations of (my) simplicity, it is surprisingly powerful in terms of practical, engaging practice for learners.
It's up there now and it's fully free for any learners anywhere to try out.
If you'd like to give it a whirl with your learners, I'd love to hear how they get on and what they think of it.
;-)
