Hotpotato

What is this?

This is a useful free software to create your own quiz. The quiz can be created in forms of multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence,crossword,matching /ordering and gap-filling exercises.You can download the exercises that you have created or publish them in the web.

you can download the software here:   http://hotpot.uvic.ca/

Why is the content good for language learning? 

•        Good teaching materials for language learning.
•         Instant feedback.
•         The score calculation of the quiz can assist in evaluating students' learning. 
•         It is a kind of drills to enhance memorize. 
•         Fit to the theory of behaviorism. 

How might you use it in a language teaching context?

Teacher can adapt and supplement their teaching materials by adding quizzes

• Pre-task: use the quiz to hold warming-up activity to test students' background knowledge on the topic; 
• Pre-task: use the quiz to review the knowledge learned in  the last class. 
• while-task: teacher can supplement the teaching materials and add more exercises for students to improve their comprehension. 
• while-task: students can be divided into different groups and use this tool to evaluate their work after their presentation. 
• after task: for evaluating the outcome of the learning and for reviewing and reinforcing the knowledge. 

Limitation 

• Time-consuming for designing a quiz.
• Sometimes technical problems occur.
• The layout and format of the quiz is old and lack of interesting.
• Drills are not for students constructing knowledges.
• Lack of interaction and communication in the class.