The above Wordle is based on my two blogposts about Belgium and the role of culture in language teaching. Many thanks to my chum Carl Robinson, who did this for me.
And now it seems, ideas for using Wordle in the classroom are flooding … OK, TRICKLING in. But trickles can become floods, given a following wind. Many thanks to Anna Pires and David, who have started the ball rolling with some great ideas for using Wordle with students. (See the comments below)
I’ve also found some interesting Wordle stuff online. Take a look at this: 43 interesting ways to use Wordle in the classroom http://tinyurl.com/nw2cu6
Ken Wilson's Blog 
Wordles are great! I use them a lot in class & just the other day gave a training session to teachers on how to use them with students. One of my favourite activities is “wordling” song lyrics to get students to predict what the song is about. Try it with Coldplay’s “Viva La Vita”…sts thought we were going to listen to something religious or related to history. Loved the surprise look on their faces when I played the song.
So glad you’ve joined the Wordle fan club! 🙂
What a great idea, AP!
Any other Wordle teaching ideas?
I love storytelling in the classroom, regardless of age group – kids, teenagers or even adults. Another one my favourites is wordling fairytales. I bring to class wordles of well-known fairytales, having removed names of characters, and get sts to guess the fairytale. Then divide class into groups and give each group a fairytale which they have to reconstruct. Students are familiar with the stories, but lack that typical language associated with fairytales, e.g. huffed and puffed, lived happily ever after. With wordles you can make chunks stand out by adding the “~” between the words, e.g. huffed~and~puffed, thus keeping words together. Sts then practise their storytelling skills, deciding first who’s going to be the narrator, assigning lines & even the sound effects & perform for the rest of the class. They then create a modern day version of their fairtales. We always have great fun with this activity.
That’s really clever, AP… is there a book in this? 🙂
What this tells me is about Ken’s core values and beliefs. Look how much bigger “students” is than “teachers”, for example. It may be a very useful reflective exercise for the average blogger…. I’m off to do mine now.
Thanks, Darren – I HOPE that’s a compliment 🙂
Also many congratulations oni your Thornbury vid – love the worm’s eye view of the great man!
Ken,
Keep promoting wordle – it’s great!
I use wordle as a game/worksheet. A way to get students away from the paper/pencil traditional thing and speaking (which in effect is most language teaching’s goal). Also, to foster thinking skills. Here’s an example of What the Wordle. http://picasaweb.google.com/ddeubel/WhatTheWordleIsDifferent#slideshow
I have many more. Teacher’s could do the same. Just use ~ to keep words together when you type them into wordle.
Cheers,
David
http://eflclassroom.com
here´s another wordle I´ve used with my English in Mind 3 students: Who was Dennis Tito?
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1389489/Who_was_Dennis_Tito_and_what_is_he_famous_for%3F
thanks for the great post on Belgium btw, G.
That’s great, Guido. The only problem seems to be that almost all the words are the same size, so it becomes more like a straightforward prediction activity. However, it seems a good idea to write a text where more of the key words get repeated. Love the idea!
And congratulations for living in one of the world’s great cities! 😛
Point taken. I have one with heaps of “Have you ever..? questions where those 3 words do stand out. To form the rest of the question students have to make possible (or often funny) combinations of past participles and nouns. Stuck on the server @ school. G.
I use wordles for first lessons with students. I write my profile, approx 12 sentences, which I wordle, making sure to use a variety of different verb tenses. The class is divided into teams to give it a competitive edge and I give each team a different coloured board marker. Students then try to reconstruct my profile to find out a bit about me and can ask me yes/no questions. Once they’re pretty sure of a sentence, they run up to write it on the board. If it’s correct, I leave it on, if not I rub it out. This is a great activity for tense revision. I then elicit the question for each answer to review question forms. Students then interview partner with those questions and write up their profiles. These profiles are wordled, which I then put up around the room for students to discover whose profile each one belongs to.
This is great! And shows how much of a sharer you are, AP! If only all teachers realised the value of letting students know something about them.