Try online vocabulary study with Smart.fm

Smart.fm is a very useful free site for pre-teaching or for reviewing vocabulary. Users can create lists for online flashcard-type drills, short matching quizzes, productive quizzes, and dictation. There is a wealth of material already there for students to access. Most of my students have quickly found either TOEIC and TOEFL prep or more casual and idiomatic vocabulary such as slang or song lyrics.

The system works by spaced repetition and some of the content is rich enough to maintain interest over time. There is also a social aspect that allows users to follow and encourage each other.

I recently created a list of 40 key vocabulary words from units 9-12 of Let’s Talk 1 for my Level 2 Eigo IIA class, but the system is open and anyone can use the list. Please take a look and consider giving it a try with a class if you have time in the computer room. Each target word has one or more example sentences with high quality audio for some basic, brief listening input and dictation practice.

Eigo IIA: U-80: Step 1: Units 9-12

Site navigation is in Japanese or English and login is quite simple. If students already have a Mixi, Yahoo, or Google account, they can simply login in with that username and password.