Word Clouds in Language Teaching

 

Hi, students! Welcome back to my blog where ideas float like clouds!

How have you been lately? I hope everything is okay. If you ask me, I'm actually doing better these days! I'm not exactly on cloud nine, but everything is on track.

Well, talking about clouds, do you know what word clouds are? Yes! Basically, a word cloud is a cluster of words. The words are usually within a particular category or theme, and the bigger a word's size is, the more frequently used it is. Moreover, word clouds are typically used to gather ideas on a specific topic.

Word cloud was first invented in around 1976 by Stanley Milgram. Even though it has been years and years, word cloud is still very relevant today.

"So, what's so good about it? Is it really useful?" Of course! Word clouds are very useful in some contexts. You can use word clouds to summarize and present data in research, academia, manuals, presentations, and other text types. One crucial thing about word cloud that makes it useful is that it allows readers to see which data is more frequent. Just like what I wrote previously, the bigger a word's size is, the more frequently used it is. Another thing that makes it advantageous is that it is easy and interesting to read!

In education, word clouds can also be used. Teachers may use word clouds to see the students' opinions on a topic or issue. They can do this by asking the students to fill in a questionnaire containing several questions. Then, teachers can use a word cloud to summarize the collected answers. Of course, teachers can use diagrams and statistics to summarize the data, but the students are probably more engaged when word clouds are used. Another way to do this is by directly using a word cloud generator. This way, students' answers can be transformed automatically into a word cloud. Awesome, right?

So, have you ever used one before? If so, what was the topic? Share your experience in the comment section, and I will see you guys next time!