This month, I’ve decided to share some online tools that I use and suggest ways that they can be exploited in the classroom. If they are familiar to you, perhaps you can point out other ways to use them. If they are new, give them a go and report back! If I’ve missed your favourite, please share it!
Sketch Engine
A few years ago, I did a Corpus Linguistics course for English Language Teachers run by Training Foundry and discovered Sketch Engine. At the time, the site was funded and there was access to all of its features free of charge. Now, sadly, a lot of its power is behind a paywall. However, some functionality is freely accessible and ad-supported. See here where I’ve searched for the word blog. The first tab gives the word in context, the second provides collocations, and third is a word cloud that suggests synonyms.
Now, with the word blog we don’t really find much of interest. However, if we are teaching more advanced learners, they could investigate how eat, consume, and devour are used differently. Or we could present them with the verb walk, ask students to first find a list of alternatives (e.g. march, stumble, amble, stroll) and then use SketchEngine to determine likely collocations or devise their own definitions based on the contexts offered, which could then be checked against a published dictionary.
Anki
I used this one while I was drilling myself with Spanish verbs and have recommended it to students ever since. Essentially, Anki is nothing more and nothing less than a flashcard app. What I like about it, though, is that it’s fully customisable so that students can use it with downloadable card sets (like Spanish verbs!) or make their own from this week’s lessons. As you test yourself, you tell the app whether it was easy, a bit difficult or impossible to remember and then the app will automatically adjust how often you see that vocabulary item.
Reverso
Another tool I’ve used from the beginning of my Spanish learning journey is Reverso. I knew it as a tool for checking conjugations of Spanish verbs, but then at TESOL France last November, I spoke to them in the exhibition hall and discovered the full range of features it has. The translation tool gives real-life examples and can be used with or without L1 translations of those examples, and there’s an AI-powered grammar check tool. My favourite aspect of their mobile app is the ability to add words that you’ve looked up to your personal list, at a touch. Later, you can view flashcards and play games to practise the vocabulary that you have searched for. So, it’s useful at all levels of language learning. Educators get a generous discount on premium features and there are functions — that I still need to investigate — where you can assign word lists to your groups of students (and only you need a premium account, meaning it’s free for your students).
Duplicate Word Finder
This is exactly what it sounds like. You, or your students, can paste in a text and it will highlight all of the duplicates. Used in combination with a thesaurus, this is a great tool to use to Demand High and support students in using a wider range of vocabulary.
Text Analyzer
The next step after eliminating duplicate words might be to check the level of the text. Your students have worked hard and have produced the required 140-190 words for their FCE Practice Essay. Is the language really of a B2 level though? Text Analyzer helps them check. They can paste in their text and the tool will tell them what its approximate CEFR level is (this paragraph is B2, by the way).
Translating Shakespeare
If you are working in the literature classroom with native or additional language learners of English, and Shakespeare is on your curriculum, you might find Shakespeare Translator to be a useful tool. It uses machine translation and AI to render a phrase or line of Shakespeare in modern English. The interface is clean and uncluttered and the translation works well.
A possible activity would be to give students access to the translator to help them translate a speech to modern English. Couldn’t they just copy and paste the whole thing? Possibly, but:
- There’s a history feature so that you can check what has been looked up on a given browser and so you could limit students to a certain number of search words/phrases.
- You could set up one or two devices with access to the translator and oblige students to move to use the translator with just a post-it note.
- You could ask for a modern English summary, rather than a translation of the speech.
If you’re working in a bilingual/multilingual classroom where translanguaging is a possibility, a further step would be to ask students to then translate the modern English version into their L1. It’s worth noting that translations of the plays have been made into many languages and a further task here could be to compare student translations with published translations. This should never be in order to “correct” the student translations, but instead open a discussion about the different ways to translate a line, the difficulty of translation, and how different translations stress different aspects.
What online tools do you use?
Chris Richards ELT 