Fantastic web app to use for ESL classes because it is so much more than a traditional dictionary...
"What is Wordnik?
Wordnik wants to be a place for all the words, and everything known about them.
Traditional dictionaries make you wait until they've found what they consider to be "enough" information about a word before they will show it to you. Wordnik knows you don't want to wait-if you're interested in a word, we're interested too!
Our goal is to show you as much information as possible, just as fast as we can find it, for every word in English, and to give you a place where you can make your own opinions about words known.
By "information," we don't just mean traditional definitions (although we have plenty of those)! This information could be:
* An example sentence-even if we've only found one sentence for a word, we'll show it to you. (And we'll show you where the sentence came from, too!
* Related words: not just synonyms and antonyms, but words that are used in the same contexts. (For instance, cheeseburger, milkshake, and doughnut are not synonyms, but they show up in the same kinds of sentences.)
* Images tagged by our friends at Flickr: want to know what a "pout" looks like? We'll show you.
* Statistics: how rare is "tintinnabulation"? Well, we think you'll see it only about once a year. "Smile"? You might see that word many times, every day.
* An audio pronunciation-and you can record your own!
* Something YOU tell us! Use the "Contribute" links to tell us something-anything-about a word.
This site is designed especially with the young learner in mind with its age-appropriate content and emphasis on visual and auditory learning.
Glossopedia is the kind of site that you can leave open for students to explore and find a fast fact of the day, find their favorite image, or video
Glossopedia Categories
Geography and Places
Nature and the Environment
Technology
Animals
Earth and Space
People and Cultures
Human Body
Chemistry
Natural Forces
This site is simple and visually pleasing. The font size is great for young learners. Words are hyperlinked to an audio pronunciation that is a real person, speaking really slowly at first then more quickly, and finally the written meaning of the word. Images and photos have a print button prominently displayed.
It is great that English is spoken by so many people around the world, but this can make it very difficult to understand, because there are such a range of different accents. In today's activity we use a website called The Speech Accent Archive to listen to different accents and compare them.