There are many possibilities for using word clouds in language courses. I've listed around 35 of them here with a few hints on what to do.- preview a presentation or a text - preview the current day’s lesson plan - predict the content of a text e.g. topics, style, purpose, intended audience - predict the content of a novel e.g. plot lines, characters, genre or themes as group work - complete reading comprehension questions just from a word cloud, then comparing answers after reading the actual text - summarise a presentation - turn a text into a picture (essay, report, paragraph, article, etc.) - identify the key words in a text based on their size in the word cloud - expanding vocabulary (definitions, synonyms, antonyms, or brainstorm words associated with a new one, match parts of collocations) - student-created flashcards of essential words (review, circle unknown, learn) - discussion starter (student chooses one word from cloud to speak about) - add to printed or online course materials - use as a background for slides or online materials - compare student responses (make one cloud, or separate ones to compare) - explore a topic (students add own ideas to a question stimulus & build a cloud) - take a quick class poll or track a poll over time (multiple clouds side-by-side) - introduce new course, syllabus or module (provides an overview of content) - introduce course objectives - student ice-breaker e.g. all input hobbies, interests, future aspirations, family, pets, favourite films or books, country of origin, etc. - highlight the main areas to focus on from rubrics to gain the best grades - highlight examples of misspelled or overused words in student writing by inputting their own work - illustrate contrasting ideas (show two clouds side-by-side), such as opposing arguments in essays or articles - research texts from multiple sources then combine them into a cloud - ‘find the words’ game (e.g. mix academic & non-academic in a cloud & identify) - ‘guess the topic’ game, or combine two topics in one cloud and students separate them out - ‘grammar game’ e.g. students classify words from a cloud into different parts of speech or different tenses - ‘sentence structure’ game e.g. input a complex sentence or short series of sentences into a word cloud, and have students reconstruct them in the correct word order - ‘memory game’ e.g. show a word cloud, take it off the screen, students write as many words as they can recall - identify parts of speech (students highlight or underline in different colours) - visual analysis of qualitative data (e.g. convert a table to a picture) - curriculum mapping across multiple subjects - checking the balance between course content and course objectives Here is a multiple-lesson design thanks to http://tborash.posterous.com/designing-lessons-using-wordle: While not a flawless design, these six steps seemed paramount in increasing students' desire to learn: - Students pre-assessing their own knowledge and understanding - "What does _insert topic here_ mean to me?"
- Students using Wordle to analyze the pre-assessment responses
- Students "doing stuff" to experience _insert topic here_ in real life - "What happens when I do this?" (this is the learning phase)
- Students responding to what they now know and understand - "What does _insert topic here_ mean to me today?"
- Students comparing the Wordle of their current thinking to that of their pre-assessment responses
- Students asking the question, "Given what I first thought, and what I now think, what do I think of next?"
Without the use of Wordle, we lose out on a central piece of this lesson design puzzle. An excellent article by Simon Thomas on using word clouds in language activities can be found at: http://efl-resource.com/language-activities-with-wordle-and-word-clouds-2/. This includes links to several other resources as well. Benefits: - assists with motivation - assists with thinking skills - enlivens course content in all macro-skills - appeals to visual learners Places to Try: http://abcya.com/word_clouds.htm (for young learners) http://www.literature-map.com/ (more for readers of English lit.) http://www.imagechef.com/ic/word_mosaic/ (has iOS & Android apps.) http://quintura.com/ (has iOS app.) http://tagcrowd.com/ http://taggalaxy.com/ http://tagul.com/ (each tag is linkable with a URL for navigation) http://www.tagxedo.com/ http://www.visualthesaurus.com/vocabgrabber/ (also has visual thesaurus!) http://worditout.com/ http://www.wordle.net/ (very easy to use, MOST favoured by teachers) http://wordsift.com/ (from Stanford University ELL) The word cloud illustrated above was prepared by myself using Wordle.
I'm pleased to announce a new page on 'Teacher Greg's Education Home'.
The motivation for it came from my desire to engage the many colleagues with whom I work, in a conversation about ELICOS (English Language Intensive Course of Study) and EAP (English for Academic Purposes) programs and how they operate at my institution. Like many workplaces, the pressures of just keeping on top of the teaching have meant that opportunities for genuine discussion, sharing and reflection have become rare, formal meetings have become ineffectual, and inefficiencies have naturally arisen as a result.
'TESOL forums' will be a chance to recover lost ground, to re-ignite the discussion, and to move forward in more practical ways. It will take some effort to 'sell' the idea and overcome the hesitation of others, but I'm taking the first steps while hoping this will lead them to continue the conversation.
Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history. -Joan Wallach Scott
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. -Maria Robinson
Greg Quinlivan09:42 - It is vitally important that we build the skills of digital literacy in ourselves, our families and our students. At this time, when there is so much growth in dependence on the Web as the primary source of knowledge and information, everyone needs to understand how to value and how to interpret what they see online, as well as how to find the best of what is available in efficient ways. I was fortunate to be an education student at a time when much initial work on digital literacies and the closely allied area of critical literacy was underway, so I learnt how to share these principles with my students, how to build students' skills through various projects and activities, and how to assess whether they were using these skills in their own time online. Now that I am teaching in a non-English speaking country, my role does not offer the same opportunities, and I worry that no one else is filling this gap for students here either. My understanding is that the majority of the world's digital users do not speak English as their first language, or at all, so they may also be missing out on building digital literacies, and may be making poor or less effective choices as a result. I am looking forward to reading Netsmart by Howard Rheingold, not just for my students and family, but for myself too. From the reviews, other resources, videos and tweets, I am sure it will be a valuable addition to this critically important field. Howard Rheingold originally shared this post:Today's quote from
http://www.rheingold.com/netsmart
"Digital literacies can leverage the Web’s architecture of participation, just as the spread of reading skills amplified collective intelligence five hundred years ago. Today’s digital literacies of attention, participation, collaboration, crap detection, and network smarts can make the difference between being empowered or manipulated, serene or frenetic. Most importantly, as people who are trying to get along day to day in a hyper-scale, warp-speed civilization that seems so often to be beyond anyone’s control, digital literacy is something powerful we can learn and exercise for ourselves and each other. "Netsmart »How can we use digital media so that they help us become empowered participants rather than passive consumers? In Net Smart, I show how to use social media intelligently, humanely, and, above all, min...
If you are looking for support in working with primary-aged students (or even lower secondary) of ESL or EFL, including ways of using "Smartboards", here's a great start to get you going. I've now compiled the "best of" links for these two categories, and am pleased to offer them to you. T he first is a collection of the best 65 sites for elementary ESL/EFL students and teachers. Under EFL/ESL elementary resources I've listed the best 65 sites for: video, stories, reading, e-books, music & song, activities, games, writing, lesson plans, vocabulary, spelling, dictionaries, quizzes & puzzles, speaking & pronunciation, phonics & ABCs, community sharing, rhymes, colouring, animation & cartoons, test writing, printables, flashcards, presentations, screen-casting, brainstorming, audio & sounds, collaboration, stickies, podcasts, posters, search tools and a complete LMS (learning management system). Many are also suited to interactive whiteboards.The second is a collection of the best 48 sites for learning how to use interactive white boards, such as Smartboard, and resources to use in class with elementary ESL/EFL students. Under IWB/Smartboard resources I've listed the best 48 sites for: training & tutorials in mastering smartboards, games, lesson plans, presentations, activities, spelling, reading, comics, worksheets, phonics and writing. The training sites have videos that will step you through everything you need to know to use IWB's effectively in class.These are real time-savers and are ones I've used. Many are also recommended by leading educationists in the field. If you click on the link below it will take you to ALL of my bookmarks, images, videos and documents at Zootool. You can search for items using keywords. Click on the resulting images to see more details of the site and tags for each. Click on the title to go to the page. With over 1,900 items and 900 tags you will find lots for teaching & learning English as well as many other general interest categories. The link is: http://zootool.com/user/gregqbear/
One Response to IPA: The theory and beyond. Is knowing the IPA essential? Do you use phonemic script in class? Why or why not? #ELTchat Summary 22/02/2012 (my comment to post at http://eltchat.com/2012/02/26/ipa-the-theory-and-beyond-is-knowing-the-ipa-essential-do-you-use-phonemic-script-in-class-why-or-why-not-eltchat-summary-22022012/- Gregory Quinlivan says:February 27, 2012 at 5:55 amFor the half of the world’s population whose first language does not use a Latin script, IPA is a waste of time.
In my situation, I teach students in Taiwan 40 minutes per week. Their first language uses traditional Chinese script and its more than 10,000 characters take many years for them to master. As one of the speakers mentioned, IPA is just another level of complexity to impose on them, which is why we don’t do it.
Students are quite capable of learning to speak reasonable English without IPA. For example, the excellent Synthetic Phonics approach used widely in the U.K. (and increasingly in the USA) offers a more straightforward system linked closely to English spelling.
Once students know some reference sounds used within key words, they can use them to learn new words, rather than trying to recall isolated, decontextualised symbols.
Although I had to endure some IPA as part of my own formal training, I see it more as a tool for professional linguists than for second language learners.
Are you looking for some useful resources for teaching elementary school EFL/ESL students?
Perhaps you want to know how to use Interactive Whiteboards or just need some resources for them?
Well, I have what you need - and FREE!
On the "Teach" link go to "Teaching Help" and you will find both.
Under EFL/ESL elementary resources I've listed the best 65 sites for:
video, stories, reading, e-books, music & song, activities, games, writing, lesson plans, vocabulary, spelling, dictionaries, quizzes & puzzles, speaking & pronunciation, phonics & ABCs, community sharing, rhymes, colouring, animation & cartoons, test writing, printables, flashcards, presentations, screen-casting, brainstorming, audio & sounds, collaboration, stickies, podcasts, posters, search tools and a complete LMS (learning management system). Many are also suited to interactive whiteboards.
Under IWB/Smartboard resources I've listed the best 48 sites for:
training & tutorials in mastering smartboards, games, lesson plans, presentations, activities, spelling, reading, comics, worksheets, phonics and writing. The training sites have videos that will step you through everything you need to know to use IWB's effectively in class.
Principled Possibilities - Ideas for Teaching is a unique publication representing the summation of four years of graduate study, and my own experiences, discoveries, experiments and successes over eight years of teaching throughout Asia and the Pacific. Uniquely the book includes: - a wide selection of academic papers, conference and training presentations, and curriculum and planning documents, - links to websites and other resources for exploring the topics further and contacting the author, - ideas ranging from working with absolute young beginners to adult and upper-intermediate level students, - discussions of current challenges and controversies in teaching, - approaches to online and computer-assisted learning, and - suggestions in the field of English language teaching. Here is the full introduction to give you some more details:My transition from office work to education was a late one, and came about more by accident than design. Having successfully trained as a classical musician, I realised that performance opportunities would be limited at my age, so it seemed that music education would be the most logical progression. Having successfully trained as a teacher, I discovered that music teaching opportunities would also be scarce, apart from those occasionally arising in outback Australia. At the suggestion of a friend I decided to dip my toes into the field of English language teaching by working at a winter camp in Shanghai, China. It was the joy of that experience which sparked my desire to work and travel further. Several training courses later I began my new career, at first in Australia with children and later with adults from Europe, South America and Asia. From there I have experienced life in the Sultanate of Brunei, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan, where I am presently located. While there is much material available in the field of EFL (English as a Foreign Language), I feel that my own experiences, discoveries, experiments, successes and failures over the last eight years in a variety of settings, with children to adults, and with absolute beginners to upper-intermediate students, are worth sharing with others. The present book, therefore, includes academic papers, conference and training presentations, and curriculum and planning papers to assist fellow educators. Many of these were developed in the context of formal tertiary training in Queensland, Australia, and refer to issues and cases from that location. Nevertheless, they are equally relevant in other English-speaking contexts. There are also links to my Internet-based materials and websites where electronic versions of many resources included here may be found for the reader’s convenience and further exploration. I don’t look on this publication as the final authority on all matters of English language teaching, but as part of the ongoing professional support and discussion so vital to our dynamically evolving and collaborative field. This is why I encourage readers to continue the conversation with me and others using the links given throughout. I wish to conclude this introduction by expressing my appreciation to fellow teachers, colleagues, university staff, and members of my personal learning network who have either directly or indirectly assisted in formulating my ideas and refining my approaches to teaching. Their originality, contributions, and occasional criticism, are all deeply valued. How can you get this book? Click on the Lulu link on my home page, or go directly here.
Abstract: Online learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) face many unique issues in choosing which program to study. The present paper begins with a review of criteria developed previously, and reassesses these based on subsequent pedagogical and technological innovations, particularly the evolution of Web 2.0 tools and “communicative language teaching” approaches. A new set of criteria were then applied to programs reviewed previously and to newer courses. These exposed ongoing problems of providers failing to adopt newer approaches despite most being available at no cost, a lack of standards, best practice models and external accreditation, and neglect in establishing a sense of community through enhanced student-teacher and student-student communication, which in turn impacts student motivation and the sense of isolation. The author suggests that more research effort it needed to encourage industry players to move forward, and to reassure learners of the quality and value for money of programs they may choose to complete. The videos by Nik Peachey and George Siemens will not play in a Slidecast, so if you would like to view them you will need to go here: Web 1.0 http://db.tt/U6kEP7L Web 2.0 http://db.tt/nZfnlZz Connectivism http://db.tt/9eCA2ds Sorry for any inconvenience. Greg Q.
 When reading a recent post by Karenne Sylvester called "Which came first: time or tenses?" (at http://kalinago.blogspot.com/2010/11/which-came-first-time-or-tenses.html) I thought it would be fun to see what sentences looked like without changing the form of the verb, but simply using modifiers or qualifiers to suggest the tense.
The table seen on the left (with some inspiration from http://www.athabascau.ca/courses/engl/155/support/verb_tenses.htm) is my attempt to answer that question.
What I'd like to know from readers is: when you look at these sentences, can you understand what is being said? In other words, ignoring the verb form, does the sentence communicate the intended time reference?
Having written them myself perhaps I'm too close to tell, but it seems to me that simply using the basic form of the verb (infinitive without the "to") does work. In each case the reader or listener, after getting over the initial shock, ought to be able to determine when the events were taking place relative to time.
When it comes to fluency and comprehension, it begs the question of whether we are sometimes too hard on our English learners who produce utterances like these, when we actually DO know what they mean.
Hi Jason,
I would echo your feelings about the differences between EFL and ESL students, though in EFL elementary schools I've found respect and motivation levels are as high as in ESL ones, though for different reasons. I agree that this changes when students move to high schools.
I think this stems largely from three factors, namely (a) minimal consequences for low performance (you don't need English to survive in your home country), (b) the influence of the local culture and (c) management of language programs by EFL speakers in educational administrations.
As an addition, I would also mention that teachers' own circumstances vary considerably from EFL to ESL situations. Living in one's own country with all the support networks, home comforts and L1 administrators makes it easier to survive and thrive. Here in Taiwan (and when I worked in Korea) I'm officially an "alien"! and at times it really feels that way.
Nice post, Greg.
Posted today at http://jasonrenshaw.typepad.com/jason_renshaws_web_log/2010/10/esl-versus-efl-is-there-a-difference.html
|
RSS Feed