Creating a student-generated glossary in Moodle: How is it done and how effective is it?

Abstract

Vocabulary acquisition was proving extremely difficult and demotivating for students in a 2nd year Intensive Reading course at a private Japanese languages university, so technology, in the form of Moodle, was introduced to the course. The aim was to build a student-generated glossary that would provide students with information on necessary vocabulary items as well as various opportunities to see the items in different contexts. Instructing students on how to use the glossary, and then finding ways of getting them to use the glossary consistently were the biggest challenges.