KNOW IT ALL with WORDSIFT!!

What is Wordsift?

Wordsift is a tool for creating word clouds demonstrating the commonness of words in a text of your choice. The most common words come in larger font while the less common ones appear smaller as can be seen in the attached word cloud. All you need to do is to find a text on a specific topic, copy it, and paste it on Wordsift, and it will do the rest for you. I personally prefer Wikipedia texts, for they are generally objective, long and detailed, which more authentically demonstrates the frequency of words in a text. Look at the word cloud above which I have created using a Wikipedia article on Linguistics. By looking at the word cloud, it becomes clear that in the field of linguistics, potential common words could be: language, linguistic, study, grammar, and theory, while words such as discipline, documentation, writing, and speaker, though absolutely relevant to the field of linguistics, may be less common when talking about linguistics in general.   

How Relevant is Wordsift for Language Teachers and Learners?

As can be seen from the example I have just given, Wordsift demonstrates the common words in a specific field, i.e., the jargon of the field. Therefore, teachers as well as students can test their knowledge of a specific field by creating word clouds with Wordsift, checking how many words they are familiar with and learning about the ones that they have not encountered before.

Due to my knowledge of their courses, I recommend students of English at An-Najah National University to create word clouds at the beginning of a certain module, like Drama, Shakespeare, Phonology, Syntax, etc., to keep the word cloud, and to highlight the new terms they encounter throughout the semester. In this way, the students get the chance to track their development of a specific field. In fact, it might be overwhelming at the beginning when the students encounter several technical terms that they are unfamiliar with; however, when they start to track their development gradually, they will definitely start feeling more secure and knowledgeable.

Moreover, Wordsift encourages learning vocabulary in context and through visualisation; therefore, it can function as a reliable tool for learning new vocabulary in context without having to translate the words into their first language. Here are some features of Wordsift which demonstrate how vocabulary learning becomes more visual and context-oriented through Wordsift:

First, after creating the word cloud, you will have the option of selecting any word which you want to learn more about, and Wordsift will create a simple map which illustrates the different contexts where the word is used and will organise related words in categories. In this way, your learning of vocabulary becomes wider, deeper and more systematic, for you will begin to learn vocabulary along with morphologically, syntactically and semantically related structures.

Second, Wordsift gives you the chance to select any of the words and to see the exact context where it occurred in your text. Therefore, learning vocabulary becomes more contextualised, for it is believed that knowledge of context makes it easier to remember the word and to use it more accurately in language production.

In addition, Wordsift has an image and video search options that are powered by Google. When selecting any word, you will be able to do a google image/video search on the same page, which also makes learning vocabulary more visual and interactive.

The last point I would like to talk about in Wordsift is that you can highlight words which belong to a certain genre like academic or scientific words, which also enhances vocabulary learning through grouping the words which fit together into categories.

Any concerns?

All the features mentioned above show that Wordsift is a very efficient method of learning vocabulary through contextualisation and visualisation. Nevertheless, you need to keep in mind that it is a computer programme that does all these tasks, and therefore the results might involve some inaccuracies on some occasions due to having words with multiple meanings. For instance, a google image search of the word discipline. which is synonymous with field in the context of linguistics, gave me results related to its meaning as will and self-control, which might leave students confused. Therefore, it is necessary when using Wordsift to have a look at the context in addition to the other features, for it demonstrates the word in the specific context that you have chosen.

Modern and Interactive Lessons with TES TEACH with blendspace!

Teachers as well as students who only depend on PowerPoint for designing lessons and making presentations probably have wished that it offered more options such as adding YouTube videos to the screen and making a short quiz to start or end the lesson with in order to increase students' level of engagement with the lesson. Well, now there is an easy and free option for making powerful and interactive lessons which will enhance the classroom environemnt. This tool is TES TEACH with blendspace. 

First, it will be so helpful to see this tutorial video which introduces the tool and offers a step-by-step guide to how it could be used:

What is special about TES TEACH with blendspace? 

An example of the options that TES TEACH offers

When you use Tes Teach with blendpace, you will easily support your original lessons with online content to effectively illustrate your points and to give examples of what you are teaching. For instance, while designing the lesson, you can easily search online to find information, pictures and videos to support the content of the lesson. These online resources can be attached to the slides directly in a neat way without having to download them to your device first.

I have designed a lesson using Tes Teach with blendspace to teach Macbeth. The lesson can be viewed simply by clicking here. I attached pictures from Google and videos from YouTube to illustrate the lesson further and to increase the students' engagement and understanding.Moreover, it linked me to 'Tes' where I could view what teachers have prepared and published about Macbeth, and many of the materials are free to use.

In addition, the students can join the lesson using their computers to take a quiz which can test their preparation for learning about a certain topic and their understanding at the end of the lesson. Also, as a teacher, you can evaluate your students' engagement with the lesson or even with Tes Teach as a tool for teaching through the interactive options of 'like and comment'.  Therefore, the teacher will be better able to plan for the next step after tracking the students' development and engagement through the various options that Tes Teach offers.

Some Pedagogical Underpinnings behind TES TEACH with Blendspace

Using computers along with the web supports blended learning, which is a term that refers to integrating technology with the traditional methods of teaching to give the students more space to work collaboratively and eventually independently. For instance, instead of telling the students the play of Macbeth and delivering all the knowledge by him/herself, the teacher can include what he/she expects the students to learn in the slides and ask them to watch the videos, read parts of the lesson together and share the knowledge with one another. In this way, the students work collaboratively to scaffold one another while doing the task, and with his/her observation of the students' development, the teacher can intervene to scaffold the students when he/she thinks it is getting too challenging for the students. As a result, the students' level of autonomy will increase, for they practice the skill of exploring knowledge by themselves. The teacher can also assign some tasks to be done as homework, which will give the opportunity for more engagement and interaction during the class.

Suitability for Palestinian Teachers

As I have mentioned in earlier blogs, the Ministry of Education in Palestine supports the use of technology in the classroom and is constantly providing more facilities and freedom to teachers to effectively use technology in classes. Hence, teachers can make use of Tes Teach with blendspace and design their lessons to enhance the students' understanding and engagement. Palestinian students are generally literate with technological tools and will easily accept and appreciate a tool such as Tes Teach with blendspace. However, English teachers will not be able to manage all their classes in the computer lab to make the students interact with the lesson. Nevertheless, this tool can still be used in the classroom with one computer device and a projector, and a smart teacher can make it as effective as when each student is using a computer. For instance, the teacher can divide the class into groups and make the quiz as a competition between the groups.

Any concerns?

A teacher needs to track his/her students' development and to see to what extent using the tool is efficient in order to know how to use it in future lessons. The students' response will determine how the teacher should use the tool and should determine the explicitness of instruction. Furthermore, teachers and presenters should be careful when using the online resources to design their lessons. These resources should be used to support the lesson and to make it more interactive and engaging; however, the teacher should keep the original content of the lesson and not over-depend on online resources to achieve the general outcome of a lesson.

YouTube as a Virtual Classroom: a Look at English with Lucy!

I would like to start this week's post with an anecdote. One of my students has once sent me a message (anonymously screenshotted here). I know you might not understand Arabic, so I'll tell you what her question was about. Basically, she was telling me that she was no longer interested in going to specialised institutions to learn English because she was not getting the education that she was expecting. Therefore, she has decided to start working on developing her own skills independently using different tools on the internet, especially YouTube. What she wanted from me was some recommendations for specific websites and YouTube channels which could help her learn autonomously. Thus, I recommended to her a few YouTube channels, most prominently English with Lucy.

What is English with Lucy about?

English with Lucy is an amazing YouTube channel which offers to students free English lessons. Through her tutorial videos, Lucy not only explains language lessons about various topics but also helps students develop different strategies for learning the language independently. See the video below, for example, through which she recommends some tricks and strategies to make English (or any second language you are interested in learning) part of your everyday life:

Who can benefit from this channel?

Well, everybody can follow English with Lucy and benefit from her lessons. However, from my experience with Palestinian students majoring in English, I have found that they have always complained that the course plan does not offer enough modules which would "teach" them aural/oral skills or all grammatical structures they want to learn since a great deal of the modules largely focuses on topics such as literature, drama, TEFL, etc. My answer to this issue has always been that students could work on developing their speaking and listening skills (or any skill, of course) because the major aim of the undergraduate programme is to focus on developing the students' knowledge and competence of their specialisation, yet it definitely is not able to cover EVERYTHING!

Why this Channel in particular?

What I love about English with Lucy is that the videos uploaded on it are filmed with high quality. Learners will usually be highly engaged with the material and the explanation that she presents without getting distracted in any way. Moreover, having a teacher with a great smile and sense of humour is absolutely necessary for keeping learners motivated. In Lucy's videos, she brilliantly maintains a very engaging sense of humour. As a result, students get eager to watch more videos because they enjoy the funny way through which she addresses her topics. 

In addition, some students may be in great need for English classes, but they might not be able to financially afford to get enrolled in ones. The great thing about YouTube, in general, and English with Lucy, in particular, is that students can enjoy the videos without having to pay a single penny. Moreover, students can kill two birds with one stone when watching videos presented by teachers whose first language is English. In addition to focusing on the content of the video and developing students' knowledge, Lucy offers an authentic context for learners which is very similar to the context of attending a lecture in an English-speaking country.

Besides the unique content briefly foreshadowed above, Lucy offers very helpful pronunciation tips which students, especially those majoring in English, can understand and practice quite easily, for they usually study pronunciation theoretically without getting the chance to apply the knowledge and master the skill. For instance, here is a video about the pronunciation of the -ed morpheme which is added to regular verbs to form the past tense:

Any Challenges?

However, the fact that Lucy is a native speaker and speaks with natural fluent English might be overwhelming for many students, especially for learners who have not got much exposure to natural spoken English. Nevertheless, I promise; just give yourself some time and you will discover that listening skills easily and quickly develop. From my experience with my students, this process happened much faster than they expected.

Moreover, Students need to be aware that Lucy is not the only teacher they can access online. She is absolutely competent, and watching her videos is both fun and rewarding, but they should always check other YouTube channels that are equally helpful. I suggest EngVid and Learn English with Papa Teach me.

WebQuest: The Way to Communicative Classroom

I have spent the past few days exploring the website Quest Garden in order to examine WebQuests and explore the educational value that they add to the language classroom. I have found many advantages for using WebQuests in language classes that I believe teachers of English, especially in the Palestinian context, need to be aware of in order to enhance their teaching skills through incorporating technology in their classes. I am saying that because I have been constantly contacting Palestinian teachers of English, like Mr. Tawfiq Khwaireh, who have informed me that the Ministry of Education has been supporting the use of technology in Palestinian schools, especially in governmental ones, through establishing new computer labs and making the internet accessible to teachers and students all over the school.

What are WebQuests?

The name "WebQuest" can be quite misleading. Web generally refers to the internet, and quest, as defined by Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, is "an act or instance of seeking". However, WebQuests do not involve looking new information up using Google or other search engines. In fact, they provide students with the necessary knowledge that they need to discover, and the students' job is to learn the new knowledge through using it to accomplish a task.

In an interview with Dr. Bernie Dodge, the creator of WebQuests, he explains that WebQuests have a standard format: introduction, description of the task, structured process, and evaluation.

In each of these parts, the students are provided with detailed explanations of what they are expected to accomplish.

Here is an example of a WebQuest that is particularly helpful for English teachers because it takes them directly to the context of using WebQuests in their teaching. This WebQuest was designed by Dr. Tilly Harrison. She used this WebQuest to teach the ICT in ELT students at the University of Warwick about WebQuests.

Moreover, Here is another example of a ready-made WebQuest that you can try. It encourages young learners to read for fun and be involved in discussions about the reading they do. There is a huge number of WebQuest tasks on various topics available at websites such as WebQuest.org and QuestGarden for free.

Why use WebQuest in Palestinian Schools? 

As mentioned earlier, the Ministry of Education in Palestine is putting a lot of efforts and resources to enhance the curriculum, especially that of the English language, through providing schools with technological tools and services. In addition, teachers are being given many training programmes in order to improve the quality of English classes through adopting more communicative approaches to language learning and teaching.

Through WebQuests, teachers will be able to achieve the two goals of using technology and of creating a communicative environment in the classroom. Dr. Bernie argues in the interview that WebQuest is based on the assumption that learning is a social activity where knowledge is primarily collected through interacting with other learners. This practice in itself promotes the communicative atmosphere in the classroom, for students will interact with each other and with the topic being discussed in a more authentic way. In addition, students are encouraged to perform higher-order thinking skills. In order to facilitate practicing the skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, WebQuests help learners to practice them in a structured way, which makes them achieve tasks which are significantly more advanced than the ones they would achieve following other traditional methods.

Moreover, it is necessary to acknowledge the role of the teacher in scaffolding the students to overcome the challenges and to achieve the desired learning outcomes. Students constantly receive feedback and assistance from the teachers while working with WebQuests in order to be able to overcome the obstacles and to remain engaged in the task.

Any Challenges?

Nonetheless, since WebQuests require students to perform higher-order thinking skills, teachers need to be careful when using this tool, for students may easily get overwhelmed. If the students are asked to perform tasks which involve the skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation without receiving the appropriate scaffolding from their teachers, they will most likely feel that they are incompetent and will, therefore, get disappointed. As a result, the teacher needs to be aware of the fact that he/she will need to assist the students all through the task and to take into consideration the different cognitive abilities of the students. working with WebQuests demands from the students not only being good at the language but also having developed thinking abilities, which not necessarily all students possess equally. Therefore, the level of scaffolding that the teacher offers to students might vary, yet the teacher needs to be very conscious that he/she should not make the students feel that he/she is offering more help to ones more than the others, for this issue is quite of a sensitive nature.

All in all, WebQuests are great tools for language classes, for they involve developing students' language as well as cognitive skills. However, the fact that students work more independently and interdependently demands special attention from the teacher, for he/she should make the right decisions at the right time for the right student.