Hot Potato

Hot potato is a software that teachers can use this to design their own tasks (e.g. cloze, cross, sentences-making , matching, etc.) for students. This software is free to download and use. It is sweet that this software provides a tutorial for the beginners to learn how to use this software, since this software includes many kinds of ways to design tasks. After teachers finishing their tasks, they can put these tasks on the website, and then ask students to do these tasks online. In this way, students can be interested in learning English.

How to use:

1.     Teachers can use JMatch to design a match for students. Students need to match synonyms and in this way, students will get many synonyms and understand a new word deeply.

2.     Teachers can use JMix to make a Jumbled-Sentence. Teachers need to type the whole sentence in this software, and then put the words in wrong orders. In this way, teachers can practice students’ writing skills, and let students know the sentence structure. This task will more suitable for teachers to teach sentence structure.

 

3.     Teachers can use JCloze to make a gap-filling exercise for students. In this way, teacher can test whether students understand the text or not and test their English level.

 

4.     Teachers can use JCross to make a crossword exercise. Teachers need to give students some questions or hints to guess what the word is and this will motivate students to learn some knowledge outside the coursebook and new vocabulary.

 

5.     Teachers can use JQuiz to make quiz for students. This task can check students’ understanding of a text or the meanings of new vocabulary.



6.  Teachers can ask students to design their own tasks. Taking their tasks to school and let other students do these tasks. Teachers can check students’ understanding of what they have learnt. Also students can communicate with each other and get some feedbacks from their peers and teachers.

Advantages:

1.     Teachers can use this software to motivate students to learn English. Since teachers can design some interesting tasks for students to learn new vocabulary, to understand text deeply, to relate the text they have learnt to their daily life, etc.

2.      Teacher can use this software to make some homework for students. It is more interesting to do these tasks than to copy the new vocabulary many times. After students doing these tasks, they will remember the meaning or the use of new vocabulary, since these tasks are like games for students.

Disadvantages:

1.     The tasks which are designed by this software cannot be used in the test, since the answers can be found on the Internet easily.

2.     All tasks need to be typed by teachers. It is a heavy work for teacher to design a wonderful task for students to do. It will also waste teachers much time to design suitable tasks for students.