WordShift is one of a free on line multimodal tool and very similar functions as Wordle. However, it was created to help teachers capture and display the vocabulary structure of texts, and to help create an opportunity to talk and explore the richness and wonders of language. This arranges words in more original ways than a plain text, which can be also used on gift cards, and for highlightening texts and embedding blogs.

The procedure is very simple.

 

First, prepare/copy/paste any text, and just press 'Sift' to visualize. (65k characters max) Then, the programme shows beautifully designed words in a minute.

 

If you click a specific tag in ‘Sort’, you can change the arrangement such as alphabetical or frequently used order.  Then, if you click any tag in ‘Mark’, you can highlight the words according to your purpose.  In particular, Wordshift offers us a visualization of word thesaurus relationships and Google® searches of images and videos related to the target words.

 

 

 

 

Why is it adopted for language learning?

 

Vocabulary development is a crucial part in language learning. This multimodal tool help learners increase their vocabulary, and reinforce their cognitive process by speaking in a pair or group work in order to understand the meaning of the text. The variety of selections in creation and changeable patterns arouse learners’ interests, and also, discoveries of the most frequent words enhance their motivation. Moreover, it has flexibility in the usage for language teaching due to more added functions than Wordle, and therefore, nowadays it is used for an educational purpose.  After completion of your WordShift, Jing might be convenient for capturing the graphics.

 

 

How can teachers foster this tool as a classroom activity?

-   For warming up; introduction of new vocabulary, review of words, or oral practice

-   Speaking activity; discussion about frequently/less used words, or talk about the meaning of words/images/videos

-   Writing activity; re-construction of the text

-   Reinforcement of vocabulary/grammar; classified the words by nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

-   Collaboration; art work such as poster creation

-   For handout/PowerPoint

 

Advantages:

-       Simple and interesting; it can be also used for illustrating our own blogs.

-       A variety of options for customize a text.

-   Speedy manufacturing process.

-   WordShift makes words more attractive.

-       WordShift can develop classroom activities more widely by using a word thesaurus, images and videos from Google® searches.

-        These images and videos are draggable.

-   You do not need to find a text when you demonstrate the procedure because there are sample texts shown under the box.

 

Limitations:

-    The created graphics keep on changing, and there is no device for saving.

 

-  There is no code for embedding.  Therefore, after completing your WordShift, you must copy or print it by yourself.

 

-       The stop words such as the/and/of  are not displayed in this Tag Cloud even though these are high frequency function words.