Teaching Tools:  

This program has a word ticker, games, multiple choice questions, spelling quizzes and a recall section. It does not have traditional flash cards but the word ticker and recall section perform a similar function. It also offers audio pronunciations of words and statistics.

One of the best things about this program is that you can create your own word lists or add word lists from outside the program. In addition, many of the quizzes can be customized not just by word list but by quiz preference, for example in one of the quizzes you can choose either “select meaning by word” or “select word by meaning.” Word lists with definitions, phonetic symbols, sample sentences and more can be exported to a Word RTF file.

Subjects Covered:  

Vocaboly includes over 12,000 word definitions that cover a broad range of student levels, from high school through GRE prep. It offers word lists specifically for the TOEFL, GMAT, SAT and GRE test preparation. This program also includes the Voice of America (VOA) word list for ESL learners. The software includes first definitions, parts of speech, a sample sentence and pronunciations.

Instruction Quality:  

Kudos to Vocaboly’s developers – we did not notice any obvious grammar or word usage errors while using this program. However, when we tried to close this program we discovered that the close button (the red x) would not work, neither would the Esc key or any other commonly used control keys. We had to shut our system down to get the program to close and this happened every time we used the program.

Help/Support:  

Vocaboly can be contacted by email. The program also includes embedded help and there is a user forum, though the forum is not that active. This vocabulary program would have faired much better in the review had they offered more support and more responsive support.

In comparison to all of the other vocabulary programs we reviewed, we thought Vocaboly was one of the best. We were really pleased to find a program that included valid definitions, correct grammar and accurate word usage. The software is flexible, offers vocabulary words for preparing for numerous tests and is low-priced, overall a good combination of qualities.