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Wordle isn't necessarily ESL focused, but it does do fun things with language. Teachers can use this application to create vocabulary word splashes that are visually appealing to students, or teachers can let students play with their own words. For example, students can input an essay and world will pick out the most frequent words and put them into a cool design. It's a simple and easy way to manipulate language.

Jena, I'm glad you posted this. I think that this has some great potential for introducing vocabulary in the pre- or -post phases of a lesson for different skills or content classes. I like that you can choose different fonts, # of words that can be displayed and the direction of displayed words. You can also embed this into blogs and wikis. For a good blog post on using word clouds in the classroom, you might want to check out Nic Peachey's post on this subject: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/09/using-word-clouds-in-efl-esl.html As an aside, in my opinion this guy is perhaps one of the most active technology/CALL ESL people on the web. I get a lot of great ideas from reading his blog posts and other resources.

This is very interesting.. It can be used by teachers of vocabulary and writing.. I like the fact that it can be used ina number of ways. Thanks Jena

The MYWordBook app is a product of the British Council and Cambridge University Press. The app functions as a vocabulary notebook, allowing you to input words, translations, pictures, notes, definitions and example sentences. The app is available for use with Iphone, iPad, Android, and Blackberry. While the app is free, you must pay for the word packs that come with it. A problem with these word sets is that they don't seem to be in any order of frequency or word list. There is the option to create your own word list however.

The list contains 570 word families which were selected according to principles. The list does not include words that are in the most frequent 2000 words of English. The AWL was primarily made so that it could be used by teachers as part of a programme preparing learners for tertiary level study or used by students working alone to learn the words most needed to study at tertiary institutions. The Academic Word List replaces the University Word List.

Draw something is another game that is kinda like words with friends. One person draws a picture and sends it to their friend who then has to guess what the word is. The game gives you multiple letters to choose from, that form the word with some false letters in there too, so its not just completely random guessing which helps considerably. This game has the same limitations that Words with Friends has although I believe that it can be used with intermediate levels of learners because the letters to the words are provided when guessing and also there are different levels of words one can choose to draw.

Words With Friends is a game that is an online (unofficial) version of Scrabble. Players create words using the tiles they have, and the goal is to play words with high point values strategically in order to obtain more points than the opponent. In a language classroom setting, this game seems most appropriate for high-intermediate to advanced learners, as it definitely helps if players have strong vocabularies. With that in mind, the game can be useful as a vocabulary builder, though it can take some patience on the part of the student because there is no built in dictionary. Another limitation is that the game is currently limited to smart phones and Facebook, so some students may need to sign up for the latter or work in pairs in order for any Words With Friends activity to work.

Eyercize has significant potential in high-intermediate and high level language learning classrooms. The premise is fairly simple. The site allows users to paste text into a text box. From there, the users can learn to read faster in that the site will sequentially highlight groups of words at a time. The site allows the user to adjust how many words are highlighted and at what speed the highlighting occurs. Teaching language learners and readers of all types to read in such a matter is important in that advanced readers do not read one letter or word at a time, for the most part. Advanced readers take in groups of words and quickly progress through a passage. Eyercize can help learners learn this ability.

This was part of a handout given at a presentation in the Electronic Village at TESOL. This application takes queries of one or more words submitted to its query box.It provides a list of patterns in which the query word is conventionally used. In the case of multi-word queries, patterns in which the query words conventionally co-occur.

This is a quirky website that I used in my high school creative writing class. I think that ESLers could use this page to talk about syllables, pronunciation, and of course rhyming. Through a simple search, students could discover a very wide variety of new words from the suggested rhymes on this site. The attention to phoneme-grapheme association (spelling vs. pronunciation) will reinforce emerging literacy skills. Overall, I just find this to be a fun site for generating ideas and word knowledge.

This site, though the interface is about as awesome as Compleat Lexical Tutor, provides a simple self-study tool for academically-oriented students. This resource is appropriate for TOEFL and IELTS preparation, as well as advanced IEP courses. The benefits of this website are the inclusion of a pronunciation and definition for each word, as well as gap-fill exercises to practice using each word in context. The major limitation of this site is that the exercises are only gap-fill.

I read about WebCorp in Dubravac's chapter 3, and it is definitely worth checking out. You search for words or phrases, and the website pulls up concordance lines (key word(s) in context) for the words as they are found on webpages. The search results also include links to these websites.

This is my favorite online dictionary for L2 purposes. It contains several translation dictionaries between English and Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, and several other languages. It also has conjugation charts (when you look up words), translations for phrases, and forums. The website also has plenty of examples. I have used this website for years when working in Spanish, and I have found the forums particularly useful when trying to translate something tricky. Also, when searching for a multi-word phrase, I recommend using quotation marks.

Some of us discussed pecha kuchu last semester in Dr. Stoller's foundations course. It's a method of presentation that literally translates to "death by power point." The idea came about because people were getting so bored at large conferences when presenters were going on and on about there research. This style of presentation allows each slide to be up for 20 seconds and the total time is 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Presenters were not allowed to go over this allotted time. Students in Dr. Stoller's class last semester were given 5 minutes to present on the research we did all semester. Personally, I found it difficult to present all the information I wanted to, but I also was surprised by how much I could actually fit into five minutes. So how does this relate to language learning/teaching? Pecha Flickr is a program that allows you to type in a tag word, like fish or dog. Then, it will pull up different pictures on Flickr that are tagged with those words for 20 seconds at a time. Students could give a mock presentation or even be writing sentences for the 20 seconds each picture is shown. This is a creative and fun way to get students to think on the spot using random pictures. Although I feel this would be a fun and creative way to get students thinking, I would be cautious using this because some of the pictures are tagged inaccurately. For example, I typed in fish as the tag and the second picture was a couple kissing. However, this might be a unique way to bring in slang and informal language. Kissing with a fish face?

VOA Special English has high-interest stories for language learners that are spoken at a slightly (sometimes more) reduced rate with clear enunciation. I've enjoyed pulling stories off of here for multi-level classes of ESL adults who want to learn more about America. A word of caution, not all stories are totally g-rated (a current story on Rihanna is not something I would use with PIE students). One advantage of VOA is that many stories have full or partial transcripts available as a resource. Many stories also have built in language activities that students can do on their own during class or as homework. While I sometimes find the reduced pace of VOA special English falling short of authentic, overall, I think this is a useful resource for teachers.

The VOA special English was widely used by Chinese English learners years ago. VOA does not only has a slow pace but also uses only "high-frequency" words. Maybe less authentic, but a good resource to start with.

Longman's online dictionary of contemporary English provides simple, understandable definitions and example sentences for ESL learners. This online resource is free and has some other nice features for students who want to dig a bit deeper or expand their vocabulary. Many entries contain a word web of sorts with related terms for students to click on and explore. Students in my class can use electronic devices for looking up words- I plan to suggest this site and provide students with the link. If you make your own glosses for reading guides, this site would also be good for grabbing some learner-friendly definitions.

I use this learners' dictionary frequently when I am trying to come up with a simplified definition for a new vocabulary word for my students. This website's definitions are almost always better and simpler than anything I can come up with. And quicker. It also includes daily words, quizzes, and activities for students.

Dipity is a tool for creating timelines. Students could create timelines and view each other's timelines, as well as practice citing sources with this software. Photos can also be view as a flipbook, list or map (if geography is important in your class). I think this tool would be great for teaching history in CBI, or for having students tell their personal story. Students could create a timeline for a loved one, or maybe follow their favorite celebrity. A word of caution: many of the users on this site have created timelines that are NOT classroom-appropriate.

Hi, unfortunately, this Google lab seems to be defunct, at least at the moment. However, it really has some great potential for ESL teaching. Essentially, the idea was for Google to go through some of its videos about politics and transcribe the text. Then, someone looking for a video with specific content, phrases, or words could search through the videos without having to rely on the way in which the video was tagged or its title. It's almost like corpus linguistics meets Youtube. You could pick a word or phrase and show a lot of clips about how "real" speakers use it.

A complete website for learning and learning about English words. You can test your vocabulary level, then work on the words at the level where you are weak. Use wordlists, online concordancer and dictionary, texts, and a database to store your work and view the work of others.

The New York Times has a blog named 'The Learning Network'. They post several activities everyday. These include cloze texts, multiple choice reading comprehension questions, puzzles and videos with discussion questions. They also have a word-of-the-day page where they post a new word everyday with its meaning and a sample sentence. I check their page from time to time to see if any of the activities would be appropriate for my students. You can also assign them as homework or students can work on them on their own.

Hi NAU CALL, I just came upon this interesting corpus-based descriptive vocabulary resource for teachers who use the CEFR. Here's the site's promo: The English Vocabulary Profile offers reliable information about which words (and importantly, which meanings of those words) and phrases are known and used by learners at each level of the Common European Framework (CEF). Cambridge University Press is making the A1-C2 English Vocabulary Profile available free of charge to teachers and educationalists around the world for the time being.