Some of language learning requires rote memorization, and rote memorization can be facilitated by technology, which can help in the organizing and delivery of content. It can also play an important role in feedback. Of course, a learner with flashcards or a classroom activity can often accomplish this as well, but computers can do it all faster and more efficiently. These days, however,  it sometimes seems that it is not fashionable to talk about rote learning in EFL because of the bad name the audio lingual approach still has, and the educational technology field to still pretty busy exploring social technologies and trying to distance itself from the time when CD-ROM-based fashcards and multiple choice questions was what people meant when they talked about using computers for language learning. But while social learning is very important, some rote memorization can go a long way in improving proficiency, especially (but not only) for less-proficient learners. Learning vocabulary requires much more than just memorizing meanings, however. To “know” a word, learners must know the meaning, written form, spoken form, grammatical behavior, collocations, register, associations, and frequency of that word (Schmitt, 2000). Last week, I  found out about 2 recently developed vocabulary learning sites, Learnit Lists and Quizlet. Each site uses a different approach and focuses on different vocabulary.

Learnit Lists focuses on the 1000 most common words and aims to help you learn 10 words daily in your target language by serving you a new list every day. There are 15 language pairs available, including English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese & Czech (you choose which language you want to go to and which language you want to go from). More languages will be added they say. The lists are simple one-to-one translations of important words and thus are out of context. I also found many errors in the Japanese translations of English words (nouns for verbs, particles as verbs). But even meaning aside, the site cannot help you with the spoken form, grammatical behavior, collocations, register, or associations. It can only give you the written form of high frequency vocabulary words (and no phrases or fixed expressions as far as I can see). Also, there is little learner control of content. Possibly useful for entry level learners, when the developers get the translations cleaned up.

Quizlet attempts to marry the best of rote learning techniques with the power of social networking. It bills itself as the “end of flashcards” and provides a nice system of self training and testing that you plug your own content into. If learners can be educated a little about the nature of vocabulary, they can then use this tool to learn it more efficiently. They can also share lists with others, reducing the time needed to input the vocabulary (which while it will facilitate learning, may cause some learners to avoid using this tool).  Some very common content is already available (important SAT vocab, prefixes and suffixes, for example) and there are groups creating ESL vocabulary with pronunciation and other content as well. The author lists the features as follows: the system keeps track of your progress, facilitates sharing with e-mail notification when others contribute sets to your  lists and allows chat boxes so learners can talk to each other while learning. Also, any language can be input and accent buttons for non-English letters can be used. The learning system is also nicely designed. It  provides pages that allow learners to familiarize themselves with the vocabulary, a call and response learning function and a testing function. Combine this with easy input and editing and sharing and you have a very powerful tool. Highly recommended!

Schmitt, N. (2000). Vocabulary in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.