On the surface of it Just-the-Word looks just like any other online dictionary or thesaurus, but start using it and you will soon find that it's much more.
If you type in a word, you can ask not only for alternatives just like any other thesaurus, but also word combinations for use with your key word.
The word combinations option produces a great list of collocations for the word, and what's better, if you click on the collocates, you get the kind of list that a concordancer will produce, with the expressions highlighted in context.
That's great, but there is still more, because if you click on a small button that says 'View in Wordle' the site will link through automatically to Wordle and create a word cloud of the most frequent collocations.
All of this is great, but there could be even more to come. There is also a button to select for 'Learner errors'. I haven't been able to get this to work yet, but to be able to search common learner errors really would be a very useful addition to such a site.
There are lots of ways we can use this site with EFL and ESL students.
Related links:
Best
Nik Peachey
If you type in a word, you can ask not only for alternatives just like any other thesaurus, but also word combinations for use with your key word.
The word combinations option produces a great list of collocations for the word, and what's better, if you click on the collocates, you get the kind of list that a concordancer will produce, with the expressions highlighted in context.
That's great, but there is still more, because if you click on a small button that says 'View in Wordle' the site will link through automatically to Wordle and create a word cloud of the most frequent collocations.
All of this is great, but there could be even more to come. There is also a button to select for 'Learner errors'. I haven't been able to get this to work yet, but to be able to search common learner errors really would be a very useful addition to such a site.
- We can create gapped sentences using the contextualised results from the concordancer, then create a Wordle that students can try to select the answers from.
- We can create collocation Wordles and get students to try to make sentences with the combinations.
- We can get students to use it as a tool to research words and collocations.
- We can get students to check the collocations in their own writing to see if they are correct.
- We can get students to research the context in which different collocations would be used.
Related links:
- Explore Lexical Relationships
- Animating vocabulary
- A River of Images
- Picture phrases
- Learn Some Cliches
- Using Word Clouds to Remember Words
- Improve Your Vocabulary and Make Friends
- A Picture's worth
- Personalised flashcards
- Exploiting Image Sequences
Best
Nik Peachey
3 comments:
Thanks, Nik - this is another excellent recommendation! - There are a few sentences on the "learner errors" in the help section: http://www.just-the-word.com/help.html
Looks great but I can't get the wordle to work.
It can be a bit temperamental. Also, make sure the Java script you need for Wordle is installed.
Best
Nik
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