Skkn applying olympia crossword software in reviewing vocabularies to help the students in class 12b at nhu xuan ii upper secondary school remember vocabularies better

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING NHU XUAN II HIGH SCHOOL THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE APPLYING OLYMPIA CROSSWORD SOFTWARE IN REVIEWING VOCABULARIES TO HELP THE STUDENTS IN CLASS 12B AT NHU XUAN II UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL REMEMBER VOCABULARIES BETTER Author: Ha Thi Phuong Occupation: Teacher Field (Subject): English THANH HOA, NĂM 2022 skkn MỤC LỤC INTRODUCTION Page 1.1 Reasons for choosing the thesis Page 1.2 Objectives Page 1.3 Participants Page 1.4 Methods of the study Page CONTENTS Page 2.1 Page Theoretical basis 2.2 Reality before implementing the thesis The method: Applying Olympia Crossword Software in 2.3 reviewing vocabularies to help students be motivated in learning English and remember words better 2.3.1 Introduction of Olympia Crossword Software Page 2.3.2 Main functions and usage of Olympia Crossword software Page Page a Start the software Page b Open file Page c Create file/Edit file Page d Configuration settings 2.3.3 Using Olympia Crossword software in revising vocabulary 2.3.3 in reviewing lessons for grade 12’s students a Vocabulary tasks designed in the textbook of English 12 b Using Olympia Crossword software to make the Crossword puzzle in reviewing vocabularies for the students grade 12 Example Topic: Family life (Unit 1) Example Topic: EDUCATION (Unit +Unit 5) Page Page Page Page Page Page Page 12 Example Topic: SPORTS AND GAMES (Unit 12, Unit 13) Results after applying the research with the teaching activities, 2.4 my colleagues and my school CONCLUSION, SUGGESTIONS Page 14 3.1 Conclusion Page 18 3.2 Suggestions Page 19 skkn Page 16 Page 18 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Reasons for choosing the thesis In the world of the integration and development with the multilateral relations and information explosion, English remains an important role in comprehensive development for everyone, and more important: for every student It is essential that we carry out effective methods in order that students have certain abilities in using English From my own experience in teaching at Nhu Xuan II upper secondary school- a school in mountainous area of Nhu Xuan district- I see my students’ difficulties in learning English There is a default thought among students is English is very difficult for them to master and remembering vocabularies is always a big trouble for them Meanwhile, English has been a core subject of the national curriculum for a long time Especially, for the grade 12’s students, they are under a lot of pressure in studying because they will have to finished the secondary eduacation and prepare for the university entrance examination These are the final year students of the high school, requiring them to have a more efficient, and more modern method of learning to prepare well before taking the GCSE examination It is very necessary to train them the correct and effective learning methods Furthermore, in learning English, remembering vocabulary plays an important role so that they can master the language easier In fact, my students’ lexical background is very little However, it is so boring to learn vocabularies by writing down again and again to remember them This makes my students feel bored and demotivated, and they will forget all words they have learnt in a short period of time For above reasons, it is neccessary that I design more effective activities in order that my students will not be overwhelmed with the lessons and they are able to put what they learnt in long-term memory With the aim at helping my students remember english vocabularies better, I am going to present the initiative: Applying olympia crossword software to make crossword puzzle in reviewing vocabularies to help the students in Class 12B at Nhu Xuan II Upper Secondary School remember vocabularies better With the thesis I hope that I will contribute my little experience to help my students remember vocabularies longer and know how to use them in a better way 1.2 Objectives From my teaching at Nhu Xuan II Upper Secondary school, I find that my students, especially the students of grade 12, get a lot of trouble when learning English because they are under pressure of preparing for the GCSE examination at the end of the school year Many students dislike learning English because they always think that English is a very difficult subject and they cannot get high marks Another reason is that English is not the subject that they are majored after they graduate high school Because of these reasons, they not want to skkn spend time learning it Therefore, I decided to carry out this thesis for some main following purposes: - For the most important purpose, I want to create a comfortable learning environment, thereby forming passion and love for the subject for my students - Secondly, I want to help students logically synthesize vocabulary system of some main topics in English 12’s program - Furthermore, I want to help students enrich their lexical background to better serve in tests and exams - Last but not least, I hope I can create more effective methods in teaching to serve the next courses to improve the quality of teaching and learning for my school 1.3 Participants The subjects chosen for the research include 41 students in class 12B at Nhu Xuan II Upper secondary School The research was carried out in the checking old vocabularies of reading skill of academic schooling year 2021 – 2022 at Nhu Xuan II Upper secondary School 1.4 Methods of the study The study bases on teacher's main activities: through teaching time in the class and using the methods of analysis and comparison to see the effects of applying the use of Olympia crossword software to make Crossword puzzle in teaching CONTENTS 2.1 Theoretical basis How to create excitement for learners? That is an important requirement in teaching and learning activities because teaching - learning is a complex activity, the quality and effectiveness of the basic activity depends on learners To achieve high quality and efficiency, learners need to have: cognitive capacity, learning motivation, determination and interest in learning According to research by psychologists, interest has an important role in human activity, it is the motivation to motivate people to participate actively in that activity When working with interest, even when facing difficulties, people still feel comfortable and achieve high efficiency In learning activities, interest plays a very important role In fact, students' interest in subjects is directly proportional to their learning results Therefore, creating excitement for learners is considered a mandatory requirement for anyone doing teaching work, for any science subject In this situation, the application of new teaching methods based on the viewpoints of promoting student activeness and promoting the role of students' self-study is an urgent requirement Teachers need to have a new teaching method that is both highly effective, and helps students easily dominate knowledge, creating interest in learning To this, teachers need to apply teaching technologies, technical means in teaching to overcome the shortcomings of old methods, create a new quality for education - training skkn Gradually applying advanced methods and modern means to the teaching process, ensuring the time for students self-learning and self-studying On September 1, 2021, the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa province issued Document No 2365 / SGDĐT-GDTrH guiding the implementation of secondary education tasks in the school year 2021-2022, which identifies one of the following tasks: implement effectively teaching methods and forms, develop teaching plans that ensure the requirements of teaching methods, teaching techniques, teaching equipment and curricula, and methods of testing and assessment during the learning process In the TEMIS teacher training program (Module 2), the teaching method with games is also a modern teaching method to develop the quality and capacity of students in the subject of English According to Nurhayati – a famous entrepreneur of Indonesia “Game is one of methods that could render students feel that certain words are important and necessary” There are many games which can be used in teaching and learning process One kind of game is crossword puzzle Crossword puzzle could nurture the brain of students to memorize the new words of a new topic By crossword puzzle, the students can obtain new vocabularies and remember them better Olympia Crossword helps to prepare crossword lessons quickly, and more convenient with an extremely eye-catching decorative interface that will attract students and increase the excitement of students in lessons 2.2 Reality before implementing the thesis Through teaching 41 students in class 12B at Nhu Xuan II Upper Secondary School in the first semester of academic year 2021- 2022, I found that a large number of students passively learn due to not being able to work or refuse to work during school hours They easily forget things that they have just learnt Whenever being asked in English, their anwsers are always: “I don’t know anything about English”, “It’s so difficult”, “ I’ve forgotten all” A more awful answer is “ I am still confused at using Vietnamese, How can I master English?” These sayings make me think a lot At last, I worked out that the main reason for this situation is that they have not been interested in the subject yet Therefore, the important solution to overcome the situation is to find a way that helps my students get more interested in the subject In recent years, I have also used crossword puzzle in a few lessons to stimulate students’s spirit in the Warm –up stage Last year, I applied Olympia crossword software to adapt task in While-reading stage in Grade 10’s textbook, I found that students have a significant change in consciousness and interest in the subject In addition, the tasks of vocabulary in the textbook are designed in few common forms such as matching or filling missing words They are used unit by unit; therefore, after a long time, my students feel bored and demotivated As a result, they not like learning vocabulary anymore, and certainly, their lexical background is not improved skkn In the academic schooling year 2021-2022, I decide applying Olympia Crossword Software to make the Crossworld puzzle to make the lessons more interesting and help my students be more excited about learning and remembering new words effectively And it’s more important that through this activity, my students can enrich their lexical background to better served in tests and the exams 2.3 The method: Applying Olympia Crossword Software in reviewing vocabularies to help students be motivated in learning English and remember words better 2.3.1 Introduction of Olympia Crossword Software Olympia Crossword is one of many teaching support software for teachers, built by VietEdusoft software development team VietEdusoft (Viet Intelligent Education Technology) is a group of young Vietnamese people built and supported by author Phan Kiet The group was established in 2012 with the desire to help teachers get useful software products in teaching in the simplest way All products that the team build and develop are according to the following criteria: Simple, easy to use and completely free 2.3.2 Main functions and usage of Olympia Crossword software We can download Olympia Crossword software and many other teaching support software for teachers at Website http://vietedusoft.weebly.com The latest version is Olympia Crossword 6.1 After downloading the file [VietEduSoft]Olympia Crossword 6.1.rar, we will extract the Olympia Crossword 6.1 folder inside this folder with subfolders: - The folder "Phan Ho Tro" contains the system configuration file, we need to go to this folder and run the file named AddOXC.exe inside so that the software automatically installs some necessary configurations for the system Note that this only needs to be done once, the first time you use the software, once you have run this file, all subsequent uses of the software not need to this step anymore - The "Chuong trinh" folder is the folder containing the executable files, including the file Olympia Crossword 6.1.exe which is the file we need to open to start the program - The folder "cac bai vi du" contains a number of game files that have been created by the author group as a template for teachers, to use these sample files teachers just need to use software to open files with the extension TXT file in the folder “cards bai vi du” is the game will appear skkn a Start the software - Go to the "Programs" folder, left-click on the file named Olympia Crossword 6.1.exe to open the software We can create a desktop shortcut for this file so we can open the software faster next time Screenshot of the main interface of the software b Open file This is the function to open the crossword file for presentation, if you have finished designing and saving the file, you can click the "Open File" command button, find the path to where to save the crossword file with the extension txt for the presentation skkn Screenshot of the interface to open the presentation file On the presentation interface, there are command buttons with the following functions: - The horizontal words are numbered, when clicking on the number corresponding to the horizontal word, the question of the horizontal word will appear with a timer, and the word in the horizontal row will change to another color You can click on the clock to pause or resume timing - If students answer correctly, the teacher clicks on the command button with a green checkmark to flip open the horizontal word and character of the keyword will appear - If the student answers incorrectly, the teacher can hide the word from the horizontal row by clicking the red X command button ,then the word in the horizontal row will be marked in black, as shown in the picture above, the student answered wrongly from the row number - On the presentation interface, there are also a series of function buttons below as shown below: + The first command button: Powerpoint icon has the function to minimize the window or turn off the program + The second command button: the media play icon has the function of playing a video, the teacher can use the video to ask questions for the horizontal word + The third button: used to exit the slide show c Create file/Edit file skkn Screenshot of the crossword game design interface Teachers use Create/Edit files to design or edit games After designing or editing the game, the teacher presses the floppy-shaped button to save the file and name the file d Configuration settings Screenshot of the game configuration settings interface skkn This function allows users to change effects such as: background decoration effect, corner edge, hover effect, sound effect Choose to change the text color of the question, the color of the text from the horizontal line, the color of the cell and the key word Here the teacher can also set the time for the timer, the type of question to appear, and a few other parameters After the configuration is completed, click the blue V-shaped command button on the top to save it - Olympia Crossword software has a Vietnamese interface and an extremely detailed installation guide comes with the installer The crossword editing happens very quickly, and don't forget to add a countdown timer to make it more time for the crossword puzzle game 2.3.3 Using Olympia Crossword software in revising vocabulary in reviewing lessons for grade 12’s students a Vocabulary tasks designed in the textbook of English 12 Bellow are the tasks that are designed in the textbook of English 12: skkn + Unit 4: School Education system + Unit 5: Higher education +Unit 12: Water Sports + Unit 13: The 22nd SEA GAMES skkn + Unit 15: Women in society As you can see in the textbook of English 12, the stage of checking vocabulary is designed repeatedly in boring ways such as matching or filling in the gaps, look up new words in the dictionary It lacks a competition among students so they will feel bored and demotivated in learning b Using Olympia Crossword software to make the Crossword puzzle in reviewing vocabularies for the students grade 12 Crosswords are very suitable and highly effective, creating excitement for students and lively atmosphere in class, especially suitable for review periods, old test questions Olympia Crossword software helps teachers quickly design a crossword game with many horizontal words in just a few minutes of designing, which is very difficult to with software like Powerpoint or Flash Here, I present a few illustrative examples that I have used very effectively in my teaching in reviewing vocabularies of English 12 at class 12B at Nhu Xuan II Upper Secondary School where I am working Example Topic: Family life (Unit 1) In this topic, I design questions with the key word is CHORES + Question 1: Filling the missing word: They got married 30 years ago and have The answer: CHILDREN + Question 2: Filling the missing word: 10 skkn All members of my family _ the household chores The answer: SHARE Screenshot of the crossword game design interface of the topic + Question 3: Filling the missing word: My main is to the washing up The answer: RESPONSIBILITY + Question 4: Filling the missing word: We are a very closed-knit family and very of one another The answer: SUPPORTIVE + Question 5: Filling the missing word: My son is an boy He never makes argument against what I say to him The answer: OBEDIENT + Question 6: Filling the missing word: Although my parents are very at work, they spend as much time with their children as possible The answer: BUSY 11 skkn Screenshot of the interface to open the presentation file The image of the lesson that author use Olympia Crossword Software in teaching 12 skkn Example Topic: EDUCATION (Unit +Unit 5) Screenshot of the crossword game design interface of the topic In this topic, I design 11 questions with the key word is EXAMINATION + Question 1: Filling in the missing word: A schooling year in Vietnam is divided into two _ The answer: SEMESTERS + Question 2: Filling in the missing word: I understand the situation perfectly You not need to _ anymore The answer: EXPLAIN + Question 3: Answer the following question: Where in a school can you borrow books from? The answer: LIBRARY Question 4: Answer the following question: What is the stage of study for children aged from to 11? The answer: PRIMARY Question 5: Filling the missing word: A detailed plan for a course of study in a college or a school is called The answer: CURRICULUM Question 6: Filling the missing word: A person who goes to school to study is a 13 skkn The answer: STUDENT + Question 7: Answer the following question: Which word has the same meaning with “teacher”? The answer: EDUCATOR + Question 8: An adjective that means within a country The answer: NATIONAL Question 9: Filling the missing word: When you come to the interview, remembering to bring with you all school _ The answer: CERTIFICATES + Question 10: Filling the missing word: Schooling is _ for all children in Vietnam from the age of to 15 The answer: COMPULSORY + Question 11: Filling the missing word: The word that has the same meaning with “opportunity” is _ The answer: CHANCE Screenshot of the interface to open the presentation file 14 skkn The image of the lesson that author use Olympia Crossword Software in teaching Example Topic: SPORTS AND GAMES (Unit 12, Unit 13) Screenshot of the crossword game design interface of the topic 15 skkn In this topic, I design questions with the key word is SPORTS + Question 1: Filling in the missing word: The spirits of SEA GAMES are: _, co-operation for peace and development The answer: SOLIDARITY + Question 2: filling the missing word: With the strong support of their countrymen, the Vietnamese athletes competed in high _ The answer: SPIRITS + Question 3: Filling in the missing word: Defensive players are not allowed to interfere with the _’s unless the player is holding the ball The answer: OPPONENT + Question 4: Answer the question: Who presides over competitive athletic or sporting events? The answer: REFEREE + Question 5: filling the missing word: The word that has the closest meaning to “Cup” is _ The answer: TROPHY + Question 6: filling the missing word: A: What was the of the match? -B: 2- The answer: SCORE Screenshot of the interface to open the presentation file 16 skkn The image that student used Olympia Crossword Software in an English class 2.4 Results after applying the research with the teaching activities, my colleagues and my school After a period of time implementing the thesis of Experimental Initiative “Applying olympia crossword software to make crossword puzzle in reviewing vocabulary to help students in class 12B remember vocabularies better”, I found using Olympia Crossword is not only very simple and fast but also very effective in creating interest in learning for students With this teaching method, students no longer feel tired when they have to sit and listen without actively participating in the lecture They no longer feel panic at the minutes of checking old lessons, fear of exercises and revisions, but on the contrary, they are very excited, proactive and positive, they look forward to class to participate learning activities to play, play to learn The most important thing is that they also no longer to learn new words by heart by writing down words again and again As a result, their ability of remembering vocabularies is really improved and is put in a long- term memory Below are some images showing that my students can remember words and phrases effectively after playing crossword puzzle made by Olympia Crossword Software: 17 skkn Image 1: Student Do Yen Vy - the topic is Family life Image 2: Student Nguyen Thi Yen Vi- topic: Sports and games 18 skkn Image 3: Student Ha Trung Nguyen- topic: Education The results obtained through the implementation of the thesis for the change in the level of remembering vocabulary of students: To make out the change more clearly, apart from example topics I have presented above, I also made crossword puzzle for some other topics such as cultures, jobs, endangered species, … Below is the table that indicates the level of changing in remembering vocabularies of 41 students in class 12B at Nhu Xuan II Upper Secondary school before and after applying Olympia Crossword Software to make crossword puzzle: Ability of remembering vocabulary focus on topics Remember 100% of words Remember 75% of words Remember 50% of words Remember 25% of words Remember nothing Total Before implementing the thesis The Percentage number 0% 14,6% 17,1% 17 41,4% 11 26,9% 41 100% After implementing the thesis The Percentage number 17,1% 13 31,7% 10 24,3% 11 26,9% 0% 41 100% CONCLUSION, SUGGESTIONS 3.1 Conclusion The experimental results that I applied to class 12B that I was assigned to teach (school year 2021 - 2022), the number of students was 41 The results show that the level of remembering vocabularies has changed markedly, which proves that teaching with crossword puzzles is very effective, especially in reviewing lessons 19 skkn Using Olympia Crossword software is the simplest and most suitable way to implement teaching methods using crosswords The use of Olympia Crossword software in schools is also very feasible because of the preeminent features of the software as follows: - Simplicity and ease of use: To use the software, even teachers who are not proficient in computer science can use it fluently only after 10 to 15 minutes of getting used to the software The software has a pure Vietnamese interface, the functions are complete but very simple to implement, a normal teacher after having built a review question bank for each task, each lesson It only takes about 10 minutes to design a crossword puzzle for that lesson On the other hand, the software is very compact, only about 70MB in size and packaged as Portable software, so there is no need to install, just download and use it right away - Ease of sharing: Teachers after designing the game and saving it will get TXT file This is a game data text file, each game is a TXT file and the size is very small, only a few KB files, and when needing to share with colleagues, teachers only need to send these TXT files to colleagues via external memory devices or through Internet services (E-mail, Zalo, Messenger ) is a co-worker that is already usable and does not need a new design Moreover, the file editing feature allows teachers to edit and redesign questions according to their own plans, which ensures the appropriate level for each class object and students 3.2 Suggestions Through my teaching in class 12B at Nhu Xuan II Upper Secondary School, I found the above measures that I mentioned were easy to implement and effective I hope my colleagues teaching English and even other subjects will consult and exchange I also hope that we have more references and guidelines for teaching methods to serve the problem of method innovation to achieve higher efficiency I hope that it will be equiped with a lot of modern devices such as function rooms and overhead project (OHP) for teaching and learning foreign language Last but not least, I hope that teachers never stop learning and finding out new methods in teaching English In a small topic and limited time, the issues raised will certainly have many shortcomings and we hope that the superior leaders, colleagues, and students can supplement the above content to be complete and promote efficiency I express my sincere thanks! HEADMASTER'S Thanh Hoa, 15th May, 2022 CONFIRMATION I insist that this initiative experience be my own writing, not copy the others' contents Hà Thị Phượng 20 skkn