Wordle (Word Clouds)
Wordle is very easy to use. Just copy and paste your text below. Then click on "submit" and it will take you straight to their website and make a beautiful word cloud. Or just go straight to the Wordle website.
Make sure you play with the edit, font, layout and colour settings. There are also language settings where you can choose to include or exclude common words like "and" and "it". You can print it when you've finished, or I use the Microsoft Office "snipping tool" to copy it and paste it into documents.
There are loads of ways to use this with students: here are just a few:
- Paste in 10 questions using one grammar structure (e.g. present perfect: "have you ever eaten horse?", "have you ever been to Australia?"). Make sure all common words are included. Students make questions for each other using the words in the Wordle. The common words (e.g. HAVE, YOU, BEEN, A, THE) will be bigger, so the students are more likely to remember to use them.
- Paste in 10 expressions based on a particular word (e.g. kill time, in the nick of time, time flies ...). Make sure all common words are included. Students try to reconstruct the expressions. Particularly useful if you are reviewing the expressions.
- Paste in a synopsis or page of a book. Students try to guess the story.
- Paste in a newspaper article or story they have read. Students try to retell the story.
- Paste in a list of vocabulary you want to revise (single words). Students pick a word and define it. The others guess the word. The words will all be the same size, but it'll still be pretty.