Benefits of Word Clouds in Learning Spanish

While studying Spanish, it is not easy to grade the diffuculty of its parts yet vocabulary might be a bit more important issue for language immersion. Outside of school if you don't have too much interaction with the language you learn, you may need other tools to memorize the words.

There is a very useful way to study vocabulary with word clouds and it is not restricted to be a classroom activity. You can also create your own word clouds and either use them at home or share it online with friends which increase the knowledge in an entertaining method.

Word clouds are visual text forms that include single words (tags) in different font and colors so that it makes easier to perceive and get the word in memory. It is used in many fields especially in web design but also it is a perfect tool to use for learning a new language. There are several online applications or websites where you can make your own word cloud. Either plain keyword groups (Wordle) or tools that you can customize the design of your word clouds (Tagxedo) and it is also available to upload new images.

As a teacher you can prepare word clouds at the beginning of every unit about what it is going to be taught. If you are going to read a text about holidays, you can put all Spanish words related to that subject. With visualization and putting the words into categories will create a funnier style of studying and learning.

Some of the benefits of using word clouds are

• Students can work on narrowing down their ideas which helps them to gain an analytical mindset.
• The brain works in a more efficient way. Visual aid is a helpful instrument to categorize the words with their meanings.
• Teachers can ask the students to prepare a word cloud describing Spain, Latin America or an artist like Frida Kahlo or Picasso. They will search and learn new keywords.
• Improving creativity. Students can try to guess the main subject from the given keywords in conversation balloons.

We can name more other benefits and how to get the best of word clouds. It is really fun, easy and an effective way to learn Spanish vocabulary. Why don't you create a giftcard for Christmas and send your loved ones?