Creative Writing : Using Wordle

Lesson Plan: Advanced, , , ,

I’ve been using Wordle for quite a long time now but this idea is something I have not yet tried. This task involves using this great little tool called Wordle and the very popular Breaking News English site.
I read about this idea in Marisa Constantinides’ blog, which I highly recommend if you’re a teacher.

Lesson Plan:
• Tell students they are going to write a short news report. Write on the backboard the following heading

” Teacher on trial for attacking student”

and ask students to comment of this heading and what they think  might lead a teacher to attack a student.

• Display with the OHP the Wordle and ask students in pairs to brainstorm ideas for an article using the words in the Wordle Cloud. Explain new vocabulary if necessary

• Give students about 15 minutes to write the first draft of the article.
• Play the audio from Breaking News English twice and ask students to add, improve or edit their articles.
• Students write the final draft of the article on a coloured sheet of paper, which is them posted out on the walls of the classroom. Students stand up, read everybody’s article and vote for the best.

Students compare their aticle with the real one. Click here

• Finally, it would be interesting to talk a bit about the role a teacher plays in our society. These questions might be helpful to get them started.

Do you think being a teacher is easy or difficult?

Do you feel sorry for Mr Harvey or the student?

What kind of behaviour do you see in your classroom?

What can society do to make students respect their teachers?

If web cameras were put in classrooms, teachers would teach better classes and students would behave better. What do you think?

Google Set Labs: a language-based experiment

freeware, Resources, The English language, Vocabulary, Word of the Day

This little tool by google called Google Set Labs has lots of potential . It helps you to produce sets of items from a few examples so if you write a few items from a list of things it automatically creates a list of items from the same group.

I’ve decided to try with sports and personality adjectives and I wrote a few related-words as you can see from the pictures  below

Then , you can choose whether you want to a large set or a smalll set and it produces a massive list of words related to this area. It’s great for teachers to try to predict what sort of words related to a topic might be used in class and also great for students to try to extend their vocabulary.

Want to have a go at it??

Another cool site to watch videos: Watchmojo

Audio, Listening, Resources, ,

This is one of my favourite sites to see and use videos for my students. It’s called watchmojo and here you can enjoy free short clips in a wide variety of categories  such as Automotive, Education, Fashion, Film, Food, Gambling, Health, Music, Politics & Economy, Space, Sports, Technology and Travel.

I have chosen a video about how social media can affect relationships to show you some of its contents.  Ready to do some listening practice??

Blinkx: a video wall

Audio, Lesson Plan: Pre-Intermediate, Resources, ,

Another amazing tool. Blinkx claims to be the largest  and most advanced video search engine. It is said to  have  an index of over 35 million hours of searchable video. Users can search for video content, create personal video playlists, or build a customized Video Wall .

This is the video wall  I got from typing the word: celebrities.

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