Ever see random words placed in a cloud? These are word clouds and they provide tons of opportunities for language learners to engage with any topic. Word clouds can be created by teachers and students to highlight vocabulary related to any topic, person, or event. Many free web tools allow teachers and learners to create word cloud tools and choose from various colors, shapes, and backgrounds. Below, we have listed activity ideas and our favorite web tools and apps for creating word clouds. For ideas on how to effectively use these tools for learning, check out the webinar recording on Teaching with Word Clouds.
Word Cloud Activities
Word cloud tools are full of learning potential! Students can do the following with a word cloud:
- Make inferences about a topic, before reading or exploring the unit or chapter
- Guess the news story or current even from a word cloud of the article
- Guess the lyrics- Sporcle has an online quiz where students guess a popular song from a word cloud of lyrics
- Create About Me word clouds with character traits, likes, and favorites
- Describe their hobbies
- Research an animal and add facts they’ve discovered
- Create word clouds describing a famous person to preface a presentation or paper
- Analyze word clouds of presidential debates and speeches
- Create poetry in word clouds
- Share goals & resolutions
- Create a story with any of the words from a word cloud
For more more ideas on how to teach with word cloud tools check out the following:
- 101 Interesting Ways to Use Tagxedo
- Marisa Constantinides has shared this word cloud lesson plan and a comparison chart of many word cloud creators
Create Word Clouds
- Wordle– An easy way to create word clouds online. Repeat words
- Tagxedo– Create word clouds in different shapes.
- Tagul– The words in this word cloud are linked to a website.
- Word Mosaic– Chose a shape or symbol to add words to in a word cloud form
- Heart shaped word cloud tool works similar to Word Mosaic where students can add any symbol or word to the heart
- ABCya– Word cloud creator for children
- WorditOut– Another simple tool for creating colorful word clouds online
- Vocab Grabber– Paste in text from any article and a word cloud vocabulary list is generated. Click on the word to see the visual thesaurus of similar words.
- Word Cam– Free Android app to transform your photos into word clouds
- Image Chef has a free iOS and Android app to create word mosaic
Check out the Teaching with Technology Certification course we offer online.
Live TESOL webinars are presented every Friday at 4 PM EST or New York time with Shelly Terrell. TESOL Lectures are open to the public, so feel free to invite a friend. To enter a TESOL Webinar, click here https://americantesol.adobeconnect.com/terrell/. Next, click Enter as a Guest, type your name, and click Enter Room.