WONDERFUL WORLD OF WORD CLOUDS

Marija Huzjak-Šabanmhsaban@yahoo.com

Twitter: @mhsabanhttp://workshopmhs.blogspot.hr

INSPIRED BY:

Electronic Village Online (EVO)

(web communication tools)

The ITDi summer school MOOC for English Teachers (International Teacher Development Institute)

MOOC ( massive open online course)

PRESENTATION OVERVIEW

• What is a word cloud? • How to make a word cloud?• How to use word clouds in the

classroom?

WHAT IS A WORD CLOUD?

WHY TO USE IT?

WHAT TOOL TO USE TO MAKE A WORD CLOUD?

WORDLE Tagxedo

TagulTag Crowd

Word It Out Make Word Mosaic

Wordsift

GO TO WWW.WORDLE.NET

TYPE OR PASTE IN A BUNCH OF TEXT

TYPE OR PASTE IN A BUNCH OF TEXT

RUN THE JAVA APPLICATION

THE WORD CLOUD IS THERE!

DESIGN YOUR WORD CLOUD : PICK THE COLOR

DESIGN YOUR WORD CLOUD: CHOOSE THE LAYOUT

DESIGN YOUR WORD CLOUD : CHOOSE THE FONT

DESIGN YOUR WORD CLOUD : LANGUAGE OPTION

SAVE THIS WORD CLOUD!

WORD CLOUD AND TAGXEDO

SAVE YOUR WORDLE

Make sure you have Java application or Silverlight

Type a word more often to look bigger

Remove common words (& numbers)

To save the word cloud as a picture, click on PNG and keep -png extension.

Keep words together (compound nouns) using ~ (tilde) (swimming ~ pool)

WHAT CAN WE DO WITH WORD CLOUDS?

CREATE AN INTRODUCTION OR A BIO

SOME USEFUL TIPS

• Introduction at the first meeting with a class

• Business card design logo

• Embed it into our personal blog / web page

• Use it as a profile picture • Students create and use it to tell about

themselves, or

• Students create it without their names on the word cloud, submit it to the teacher then play “Guess Who I Am”

WRITE A SHORT STORY

True Story at a Car ParkPatrick finished his shopping in the supermarket of his home village of Portchester. He ambled slowly in the noonday sunshine into the car park behind the shopping centre to put his bags in the boot of his car.As he moved towards his car he observed two youths, dressed in red anoraks and wearing red baseball caps, struggling with the lock of a white Nissan Bluebird car. Patrick watched them for a few moments before speaking', You two seem to be having trouble, he said.'Oh, it's alright', replied one youth brightly, 'the key sometimes gets stuck in the lock.' 'Perhaps you would like to try my key', suggested Pat helpfully.'Why on earth would we want to do that?' said the other youth in a sarcastic voice.'Because it's my car', Pat retorted.

TIPS FOR WRITING A SHORT STORY

• ask students if they understand all words • explain new vocabulary • tell students to write a story using the words

from the word cloud (group work, pair work)• listen to their stories and choose the best one • decide which one is closest to the original • you can do the same with a newspaper article

FIND ANTONYMS

FIND SYNONYMS

SOME USEFUL TIPS

• Put students in pairs / groups

• Project the word cloud on a class display or give them copies

• Set a certain time limit

• Ask students to find the matching antonyms / synonyms

• The pair / group that has the most word matchings wins the game, or...

• Students exchange information with other pairs/groups to build the whole set of the antonyms / synonyms

SORT OUT ADJECTIVES

FIND EXTREME ADJECTIVES

SOME USEFUL TIPS FOR ADJECTIVES

• Students categorize the adjectives based on the number of syllables

• Ask them to write the Comparative and Superlative forms

• Students pick some of the adjectives to make sentences to describe and compare things around them

• Students can find extreme adjectives, similar adjectives, opposite adjectives...

Identify Regular & Irregular Verbs

IDENTIFY PARTS OF SPEECH

TIPS FOR IDENTIFYING REGULAR & IRREGULAR VERBS AND PARTS OF SPEECH

• Distribute copies of the word cloud /project it on a class display

• Make a chart/table on the board based on word categories and ask Ss to identify and fill in the columns with the words that belong to each category

• Ask students to pick some words to create sentences about themselves

PUT SONG LYRICS IN A WORD CLOUD

SONG LYRICS

TIPS FOR SONG LYRICS

• Before listening : to guess the title or what the song might be about, to pre teach vocabulary

• While listening : to help Ss find the words they missed

• After listening : to reflect back and make sentences using the vocabulary or grammar in the song, to summarize and retell the song

INTRODUCE NEW VOCABULARY

ESP – RENEWABLE ENERGY

INTRODUCE NEW TOPIC

TIPS FOR INTRODUCTION OF NEW VOCABULARY

• ask students if they understand all words

• ask them for synonyms • ask students to guess the topic

WRITE A RECIPE

TIPS FOR WRITING A RECIPE

• sort out ingredients and verbs used for cooking

•guess what we are going to cook• write a recipe (group work, pair work)• compare students’ work and choose the best recipe

UNIT REVISION

UNIT REVISION

TIPS FOR UNIT REVISION

• student will chose any word from a word cloud and explain it, translate it and say in what context it was used

• put all the units into word clouds and make class posters on the wall

MEMORY GAME

MEMORY GAME

Other possible topics :

• Parts of the body

• Public places

• Occupations

• Food, fruits & vegetables

• Sports & sport equipment

• Means of transportations

• Countries and nationalities

• Hobbies

• etc

RUN AND HIT GAME

RUN AND HIT GAME

• Display the word cloud on the board or on a class wall

• Put students in groups

• The teacher reads the definition of a word

• Each representative of the group should run to the board or to the wall and hit / tap the correct word (with their hand or a fly swatter)

• The fastest one wins some points for his/her group

• Repeat the procedure until all the words have been mentioned, and students are to take turns representing their group

CREATE A WORDLE GIFT

REFERENCES:• The Top 10 Ways to Use Wordle at School

- written by: Bright Hub Education Writer • edited by: Elizabeth Wistrom

• How to Make Word Clouds in the Classroom

- written by: Bright Hub Education Writer • edited by: Elizabeth Wistrom •

• Using Word Clouds in the Classroom Karen M. Bromley

• 45 interesting ways to use Wordle in the classroom. Retrieved from http://edudemic.com/2010/07/45-interesting-ways-to-use-wordle-in-the-classroom/.

•   108 Ways to Use Word Clouds in the Classroom – by Michael Gorman at (https://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/)

• http://www.englishforeveryone.org/Topics/Reading-Comprehension.htm

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE!