Easy Online Categorization Tasks

Hello colleagues, I want to thank Joanne Frey for recommending the Flippity website during our recent English Language Acquisition Coffee Break. I've been creating a variety of activities using the site including vocabulary memory games and sorting exercises.

Here's a little back story on a sorting task I recently created. For me, getting acquainted with learners includes finding out who is working, what jobs people do now and what work they did in their home countries. Of course, I am also interested in what jobs learners aspire to. 

An activity I always do when working with lower-level learners is having them use the occupations pages in a picure dictionary to categorize the various jobs for jobs they like, jobs that are okay, and jobs they don't like. It's always fun and sometimes surprising to see which jobs students like as well as which ones they don't like.  

I started wondering how to engage learners in a similar categorization task in an online environment. Flippity has enabled me to do that. Those who are interested can check out the sorting activity here. I found the activity-creation process to be quite intuitive. There is a demonstration and a template available for each of the activities on the Flippity site. I also like that there is no sign-in or registration required, so all you have to do is share the link as I'm doing here.

For the sorting activity look for the Flippity Manipulatives. One thing I would like to try to create for low-level learners is a matching activity with words and photos. I expect this to be pretty easy on Flippity.

With the advanced learners I'm currently working with, the students have been able to work in Zoom breakout rooms to complete the Flippity matching game and sorting exercises, and this has worked extremely well in my class.

Let me know what questions you might have. Also, please tell us how it goes if/when you try out this useful activity creation site. And--if you are so inclined-- share the link to your activity with us here!

Take care, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, English Language Acquisition CoP