This document discusses Wordle, a free online tool that creates word cloud graphics from uploaded text. Key features for language teachers include highlighting more frequent words, excluding common words by default, customizing colors, and restricting the number of words displayed. The document provides instructions for making a Wordle and suggests possible classroom activities such as pre-teaching vocabulary, having students summarize or recreate sentences from Wordles, and identifying collocations.

1. Mcromeroriera@gmail.com
What’s in a
Wordle?

2. What’s in a Wordle? Mcromeroriera@gmail.com
What are Wordles?
www.wordle.net is a free online tool for people to create
graphics from text they upload.

3. What’s in a Wordle? Mcromeroriera@gmail.com
Interesting features for language teachers:
• More frequent words are increased in size.
• Common words (the, and, of, etc.) are excluded by default, although they can
be included if the teacher wishes so.
• The ‘randomize’ feature creates new versions of a particular text instantly,
making it easy to make a number of different wordles for a text.
• You can customize colous, for instance, if you want mostly grey with one bright
colour to highlight a certain word.
• You can restrict the number of words which can appear to 30, ensuring that all
the key words are large enough to be legible, really useful with long texts.
• You can simply print a number of versions of a text for the class or you can also
publish the graphic into a web page (click ‘publish to gallery’).
• You can also save your wordle as a pdf file.

4. What’s in a Wordle? Mcromeroriera@gmail.com
How to make a wordle?
1. Find the text you want to use, select and copy it.
2. Go to www.wordle.net
3. Click ‘Create’. Paste the text into the box which says ‘Paste in a bunch of text.’
4. Click ‘Go’.
5. If you want to customize your wordle to suit your needs, the buttons at the top
allow you to do it.
Note: You can also exclude some words by right click, such as ‘the’.

5. What’s in a Wordle? Mcromeroriera@gmail.com
Possible activities:
1. It is a quick, easy way to make short texts and word lists look funny.
2. Students could summarize the plot of a reader.
3. Ask students to recreate sentences from the wordle: Sentence pattern.
4. Provide them with wordles from a text that will be read in class or for
homework. The aim is to make the students curious about the content of a
text, so that they will read it with more concentration when it is handed out.
5. Use a wordle to pre-teach important vocabulary from a text.
6. Look at the wordle: What is the text about?
7. Collocations and phrasal verbs: Make students find the verbs which usually go
with a certain noun, since wordles allow the frequent collocates of the word
to appear around it.

6. What’s in a Wordle? Mcromeroriera@gmail.com
Useful websites with extra ideas:
• www.groups.google.com/group/wordleusers/about
• www.skillsworkshop.blogspot.com/2008/07/using-wordle-in-classroom.html
The whole point of wordle is to allow creativity and customise
it to your own context…
so plunge in and have a go!
Tilly Harrison, University of Warwick