Rewordify helps language learners simplify difficult vocabulary in a written text

29 Oct

Link: www.rewordify.com

Quick overview: Rewordify is a free on-line tool that simplifies difficult vocabulary in a written text. In a nutshell, Rewordify will analyze an English text (or an entire website) and then automatically highlight all the words it considers are too difficult. Rewordify can either transform the vocabulary to something more appropriate for lower level learners or highlight the difficult passages and suggest alternate definitions:reworidifyHow can this be used in the classroom: This tool could be used to help students on an individualized basis or to deconstruct a complex text with the whole class. Rewordify works on both tablets and computers. If you teach in a BYOD classroom, this is a great tool for students to have in situations where they need a little extra help to decipher a text on their own. Follow this link from the iLearn Technology blog for more ideas of how to use Rewordify in your classroom or try the live demo if you’d like to see how it works yourself. (Thanks to Tina La Rosa, Galileo Adult Centre, EMSB and also Kelly Tenkely from the iLearn blog.)

Benefits and Limitations: As with any on-line language tool, results are not always 100%. It’s a good idea for you and the students to get in the habit of analyzing each suggestion and see if it makes sense in context. That being said, one could argue that this “limitation” is actually a benefit as it will force learners re-analyze the text and vocabulary a lot more closely. Currently, Rewordify only works with English text.

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