Learning Chocolate

http://www.learningchocolate.com/

What is Learning Chocolate? What does it do?

Learning Chocolate is a website designed for vocabulary learning. It functions as a picture dictionary, allowing learners to learn English words with an interface of five languages. The illustrative pictures of words are attractive and, what is more, learners can listen to the pronunciation of each word by simply clicking the cone icon below it.

Why is Learning Chocolate relevant to language learning?

Learning Chocolate is relevant to language learning as it provides a much more fun way for students to memorise vocabulary. Words are grouped into different categories, and therefore, students can learn and memorise words systematically instead of randomly.  

Another compelling reason why Learning Chocolate is good for language learning is that it provides a lot of interactive quizzes, which helps students learn autonomously.

How can we use Learning Chocolate to foster language learning in class or outside class?

Learning Chocolate is particularly suitable for teachers to use to encourage autonomous learning as they can deploy this website as a supplementary teaching material outside class. If students learn some new words about animals in class, teachers can encourage them to know and memorise some more words about animals outside class. Students can listen to the sound file and do the quizzes as many times as they want without fearing being heard or laughed at by others, which fosters their confidence in English learning.

What are the limitations with the use of Learning Chocolate?

 1. Learning Chocolate focuses on American English instead of British English in terms of pronunciation, spelling and some language usage. For example, 'bonnet' is the British way to refer to the metal part over the front of a vehicle while 'hood' is the American way. 

2. Learning Chocolate provides an interface of five languages (English, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Japanese and Spanish), however, it does not provide the corresponding meaning of each word in those five languages mentioned above.

Wordle

http://www.wordle.net/

What is Wordle? What does it do?

Wordle is a website made by an IBM software engineer, Jonathan Feinberg. Users either type or copy-and-paste text into the system, which then creates a corresponding 'word cloud' from it. Words that appear more frequently are made larger than others and users can play with the clouds using a variety of colour schemes, layouts and fonts. Wordle is a free tool and the pictures users create with Wordle are theirs to keep. Users can print them out or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with the public.

Why is Wordle relevant to language learning?

Wordle is relevant to language learning because it is visually attractive and thus can boost students' motivation. It can, moreover, show word frequency and highlight the key words of the texts given.

How can we use Wordle to foster language learning in class or outside class?

In class

Wordle is a great tool for teachers to use to engage students in pre-reading activities.

1. Teachers can show students a Wordle created from a text and ask students to guess what the text is about. For example, if I want to use Wordle to teach an English song, I will first show the Wordle I have made from the lyrics of a song and ask students to discuss what they think the lyrics are about.

2. Teachers can then ask students to find words they already know in the Wordle given and have them read those words out loud for practice.

3. Following that, students could be asked to find 10 words they don't know in the Wordle (or those they are least familiar with) and make a list of them.  

4. Before the class is dismissed, students could be set homework, making 10 sentences based on the list of 10 words.

Outside class

Teachers can ask students to go home, find texts that interest them, make their own Wordles, and then write 10 sentences, each containing a word they previously didn't know. By doing so, teachers encourage students' autonomous learning.

What are the limitations with the use of Wordle?

1. A Wordle file cannot be saved in a JPEG or PDF format directly from the Wordle website. You have to use other tools or apps to do that.

2. Despite the fact that Wordle makes gorgeous word clouds and can really draw students' attention in the beginning, they might not find Wordle interesting any more if teachers keep using it in class.

3. If the text is too long, the Worldle created might seem a bit disordered and cluttered.