McGill Workshop

McGill, Arts Multimedia Language Facility (AMLF) - Lab 3

Friday 14h-17h, 13 May 2005

Tom Cobb – Linguistique UQAM

Building varied, level-appropriate, resource-linked online reading activities for language learners with Compleat Lexical Tutor

A. CONTEXT:

Opportunity:

WWW is full of reading materials

WWW is full of excellent learning tools

Problem:

Reading materials are not reading activities

Reading materials often need adaptation

Tools are not linked to materials

Solution:

Find, adapt & link your own reading activities

Lextutor can reduce the labour

B. TASK SHEET (also at www.lextutor.ca/AMLF)

· Each task element has a Watch and a Do part

· Watch at table, Do at workstations

1. Make and name a folder on your desktop

2. Go to Compleat Lexical Tutor, www.lextutor.ca

3. Find a text of size and topic appropriate to some learners you know

Save to a folder on your desktop

Use mouse to copy out the part you want

This you Save As a TEXT file also in the folder

4. Run this text through VocabProfile to check its level

5. Take a Vocabulary Levels Test to understand the levels of a VP

6. Use this information to modify your text so it is feasible but challenging

… And re-save as TEXT

7. Build a resource linked reading activity

8. Build two types of cloze activity

9. Build a spelling activity

10. Enter words into a vocabulary database

And from there generate other activities…

Dictator and Group Lex are not yet fully adapted for French