Is word wall free

Wordwall takes vocabulary games and reviews into the digital world, and is easy to use for teachers and learners. If you are looking to add a new digital tool to your teaching, this is a very good place to start.

User experience.

This is the perfect tool to look at if you are short of time, even if you are not very confident with technology. You just need a computer or tablet connected to the internet, and after setting up an account (no problem), you can quickly start creating interactive activities or printable worksheets. The concept is simple: use the templates to create well-known activity types such as multiple choice, grouping or matching, or more complex games and quizzes.  

You can use a limited number of templates for free, and because Wordwall is web-based, with a good connection you can create activities quickly and easily in a matter of minutes. Once you have created an activity, it is shareable in different ways.

Language level and skills.

Wordwall is particularly useful for mixed-level classes, where you can assign fast finishers an activity which they can easily access online, even from their phone. It can also create a dynamic way to have class competitions.

For any level of learner, Wordwall has potential to be used for self-study, as you decide which content to use in the activities. You can set tasks for groups or individual learners by giving them an access code (although remember there is nothing to stop someone else doing the activity for them!). You could even get your learners to use Wordwall to create activities for their classmates.

Language learning content.

Most activities are based on ‘items’. These are best understood as words or phrases which you want to revise. You provide this content, although you can also use items or activities which other users have made.  

For example, you could create a set of items which are colours, and another set which are shapes. These items can be made into an interactive grouping activity, where students drag them into the right place, or they could be turned into multiple-choice questions. They can also be made into games suited to younger, primary-aged learners, such as ‘whack-a-mole’.

If you build up a large bank of items for each group of vocabulary, you can then, in one click, create an online activity of your choice to revise them. You can also, if you prefer, create a printable worksheet.

Tracking learning.

If you like, you can track your students’ scores when they do an activity by using the ‘assignment’ feature. You share the link to the activity and it tracks the scores of each individual in one place. The number of assignments you can set is limited according to your price plan. Although this probably works best if you can track regularly, even with the basic (free) plan you can use this feature a few times a month.

The multi-player game feature allows you to host a real-time quiz for students, who can join using their own web-enabled device.

Social interaction.

You can easily share activities you create with other teachers by making them publicly available on Wordwall’s website or posting them on social media. You can also embed them on websites.

Supporting teaching and learning.

Wordwall reminds me of when I used to use a ‘word box’: a real box which I put new words and phrases in, each one on a piece of card. Those cards could then be used for a number of different revision activities. Although some features can help other aspects of language learning, Wordwall feels most useful for this kind of vocabulary revision.

Research shows that exposing students to vocabulary at ‘spaced’ intervals is helpful to their learning, and this is even more helpful if there is some kind of task, such as grouping words or typing them out correctly. Wordwall can help with this.

Technical: user safety and data security.

Remember, it is important to plan how your learners will access online activities, and if you are going to ask them to use their own device (most probably a smartphone) in class to do so, it may be helpful to have rules in place already for how they can use their own devices.

Any content you create on Wordwall is by default ‘private’; to make it publicly available you have to select an option when you edit your content.

• Privacy policy

Wordwall is a recent find for me. I heard about it during this webinar on gamifying learning, which was quite interesting. I’ve since mentioned it to various colleagues, and the typical response has been ‘oh yeah, Wordwall, that’s pretty good’. So I guess I’m behind the times!

Basically, Wordwall allows you to create interactive resources online for use in class or at home. Activities are often games, but you can use it to bring more standard coursebook activities to life such as matching tasks. It’s very straightforward to create a resource – there are a variety of templates available, most of which are intuitive and require no more than 10 minutes to set up.  You can create five activities with the free membership, then unlimited activities (including a multiplayer quiz) when you sign up (costs me 120 baht per month which isn’t bad).

So far, I’ve mainly used the activities for…

• a ‘smart start’. Students tend to filter into my classes a bit late, so I use these activities as a review (or diagnostic) at the start of class. It’s been taking the place of Quizlet Live for me in the last month, although only for my Primary level students.
• breaktimes games.
• I’ve found that using Quizlet has been a good way to get learners to review vocabulary at home. Wordwall is having the same effect (so far anyway, maybe the novelty will wear off)
• end of term reviews. We’ve just had a half-term break – Wordwall was a nice, fun 20-minute end to the term, just to wrap things up.

I’m looking into ways I can use Wordwall for more productive tasks. Watch this space though.

For these example activities I’ve just used a quick vocabulary set for ‘personality adjectives’. You can add far more terms than I’ve used if you wish. Excuse any small errors – these are just examples! The game creation screen is similar for each activity – see the first ‘Group sort’ example.

Group sort

To check meaning you might want students to categorise the vocab – in this case positive versus negative.

This screenshot of the Group Sort tool shows how easy it is to do that. You can add as many groups as you want – for this example a category like ‘neutral’ might be needed.

Once you choose your words then you select a theme and change the settings…

I usually use a count down format (1 or 2 minutes) to add a bit of excitement. Here is what you might end up with…

Personality adjectives

Quick and easy. I find it a paper saver too. We are lucky enough to have interactive whiteboards at work so this is a good way to use them, to get learners energised, out of their seats and collaborating.

True/False

This template does roughly the same thing as Group Sort, but the format is a bit different. Words scroll across the screen and learners select the correct option for each one before they disappear. Works well as a speedy group game.

Personality adjectives True/False

Whack-a-mole

Whack-a-mole can be used in a similar way. This is the most frantic of the games and my learners go mad for it. I add some sneaky challenges into this game, like words with wrong spelling to try and trick the learners. This game works really well with my upper-primary kids (aged 9 and 10).

Personality adjectives

I find putting this game on a quicker setting is better:

Maze Game

I tend to use this one either as a breaktime game or as a homework activity. The students love it, but it’s a bit time-consuming for class time.

In this example I’ve shared a range of question types you could use. These relate to word form, spelling, pronunciation, etc, but there are plenty more options.

Personality adjectives

Some of the game style activities aren’t that good. I wouldn’t recommend the ‘Balloon Pop’ or ‘Aeroplane’ games as they are generally a bit easy even on their hardest settings, and the amount of practice learners get from these is much less as the games are slower. I guess it depends on your learners though – mine prefer the more fast-paced games and these certainly work better in the classroom. Here is an example of balloon pop for a partial synonyms activity from my coursebook, Beyond A2+.

Crossword

This is actually a pretty good, functional interactive crossword. Another good one for breaktimes or homework. It includes an online keyboard too, which is helpful if you use an IWB. I confess though, I haven’t checked the functionality of this on a mobile, so if you do please let me know how it goes.

Personality adjectives

You can change the template for crosswords and run these as a quiz instead. In fact, the basic membership allows for a multiplayer quiz function (you can just select to change a crossword to this template in a side bar). This gives you a log in, in similar style to Kahoot or Quizlet.

Here is an example of the quiz function, not in multiplayer though.

Personality adjectives quiz

You can also do a simple ‘open the box’ style question format (example). This is okay, but a bit limited and teacher-led.

Anagrams

The anagram function is another simple and effective tool. It takes about 90 seconds to create this resource – there’s an option to include clues if you want.

Personality adjectives

So, there are about 8 examples of resources you can create. That’s about a third of all those available on the basic membership.

Would I recommend Wordwall? Yes. I think it’s a good, easy-to-use site, and my learners have responded well to the resources. I’m going to be careful not to go overboard with using this though, and try to keep it more for homework, breaktimes and end of term. Games on their own aren’t learning, but this tool has it’s uses.

Categories: Lesson Ideas, reviews, vocabulary

Tags: adjectives, elt, games, ideas, review, tefl, vocabulary, word games, wordwall