Critical Review of Technology

Gerry's Vocabulary Teacher

It is available from the following link: http://www.cpr4esl.com/index.html

Gerry's Vocabulary Teacher has been designed to make life easier, and instruction more efficient, for those who teach English as a Second or Foreign Language.Gerry's Vocabulary Teacher was created by ESL teacher Gerry Luton, and Martin Holmes, formerly an ESL instructor and now a software designer. The purpose was simply to make the teaching task for Gerry a little easier through use of a tool which would allow him to quickly and easily provide mulitiple opportunities for his students to encounter and review vocabulary. Using the program, a gap-fill exercise to review 15 words can be created in about 3 minutes. Students constantly review vocabulary throughout the session, through gap-fill exercises, crossword puzzles using gap-fill sentences in context as clues, listening exercises using gap-fill sentences, discussions which require use of the target vocabulary, and many other activities.
Gerry's Vocabulary Teacher allows you to quickly and easily :
· create gap-fill exercises as hard-copy (paper) documents
· export your exercise into a Hot Potatoes JMatch or JCloze format to create interactive web-based exercises,
· create gap-fill exercises using American, British or Canadian English,
· import a new gap-fill exercise into an existing document,
· introduce new vocabulary for study,
· review vocabulary previously introduced in class,
· repeatedly recycle target vocabulary in varying contexts in order to enhance understanding,
· generate exercises tailor-made to specific students' needs for vocabulary instruction and/or review,
· focus separately on each of the ten sublists of the Academic Word List,
· test vocabulary compehension, and
· provide opportunities for students to practise target vocabulary in discussion activities.
Gerry's Vocabulary Teacher consists of a vast collection of sentences in context, illustrating over 2,600 words with a minimum of 15 contexts each, for a total of over 50,000 sentences and 750,000 words of data. Teachers choose the words to study, select from among a variety of sentences using the word and/or its various derivations in context, and with a few simple mouse-clicks, are able to create a complete vocabulary gap-fill exercise.
Furthermore, the program also allows users to edit or delete sentences contained within the database, and users can even add to their personal database collection with words and sentences of their own. Any changes or additions made are automatically saved to disc.
Gerry's Vocabulary Teacher is a 32-bit Windows application. This means that it will run on any computer running Windows 98, NT4, 2000, or XP. The Gerry's Vocabulary Teacher software program only takes up about 5Mb of space on your hard drive, or about as much space as a single song.

· Pricing is: One single-user registration Gerry's Vocabulary Teacher: US$50
· Extra seat (allows downloading of the program onto a 2nd computer): US$35
· CDRoom One single-user registration: US$75







How to use this tool?




The setup file is 4.63 mb and it downloads less then one minute. There are words on the left side of the page and you can choose one of them by clicking on it. On the right side of the page there are sentences related with the word you chose. If you choose a suitable sentence and then click on the Use buton. Your sentence appears in the Output section. If you want to have exercises you need to choose the RTF buton. After that, program asks you to name the file and then your word and the sentences related with that word appear. You need to fill in the blanks
He broke the law, and now he has to face the _______________ of his actions.

The victim was _______________ in the chest with a large kitchen knife.


To use Jmatch and JCloze, you need to have hotpotatoes installed on your computer. After choosing the sentences and words and putting them in output section, you choose the buttons of Jmatch and Jcloze, the program asks you a location and filename for your document. Then the files appear and you have the activities.

Evaluation of program
Actually the usage of this program is simple because the name of the items give us the clue about their function. Even if you do not have an idea about them, after clicking a few times on the buttons, you understand the relationship and the service of them in the program. Also the tool does not require any new technology such as a new computer. It is convenient to any kind of computer. It does not force the capacity of your computer or it does not require high speed connection as the program’s components are not complex. To be able to use the Jmatch and Jcloze, you need to download hotpotatoes program. Meanwhile, this tool does not require any special thing such as a webcam but for the listening activity, you can need a headphone.
Both the EFL and ESL can benefit from this tool. Also, any learner with a basic knowledge of computer can use this tool easily. I think that the foreign language students can find the sentences and exercies a bit easy and below their level. However they can use these activities to practice and test their vocabulary knowledge. The tool is also appropriate to the people who learn English individually. They do not need a teacher while doing the exercises because the tool presents a variety of example with the immediate feedback..
This program can be used by students and teachers effectively. The teacher brings the hard copies of the activites and hand out them to the students. So that, the exercies are done under the observation of teacher. Students can make up stories with the words or form new sentences. Then teacher gives homework to the students and each of them is expected to do cloze tests or activities at home then they bring the hard copies of them to the classroom and each of the student chooses the words and activities which they had difficulties.
The tool also offers the students to guess and learn the vocabularies by the help of a variety of different sentences. You can see many sentences and different usages of the words in the context which enhance the learning of the words. The students do not need the classical way of learning a vocabulary by writing many times. The diversity of the sentences increase the perspective of student. Also teachers have the easy way of accessing to many words and examples. However it is lack of some features such as it does not have the definitions of the words. Also it does not have other activities apart from cloze and matching activity. Moreover, it is not free. You need to pay for registration like US$50. If you do not pay, you are need to use a limited version which only offers five sentences for the exercises.