The frequency of the words are different in each text. a word can normally be counted as the least frequent word but in a text, which is about that or related word, can contain the word for several times. So when you put it in a word cloud, the most stressed one can be the word which is the least frequent. So frequency depends on the content of a text. Of course, the computer is better at picking out key words than us because it scans it automatically so there is no chance to skip any word. Also, the use of concordance is useful in seeing words in the context. So that students have chance to see how these words are used and can guess the meaning from the surrounding if they do not know. This gives me a different perspective on the words that I cannot get from just reading the text. For instance, in the text I choose, 'fertilise' is the key word and while I read the passage, I realized that it can be used in in different forms depending on the surrounding such as in passive form,noun form.. etc. So, by using it in several forms makes it the most frequent word in the text even if it is not at the top of the frequency list. In addition, a tool like Multi-conc helps students discover the lexico-grammar of a word that they can see in which surrounding they should use noun form, active form,verb form.. etc. I think showing the usage of the web page for 1-2 times to the students will be enough for them to learn how to use it.
http://conc.lextutor.ca/concordancers/multi/conc.pl?inputs=fertilise+egg+cell&this_corp=corpus_awl.txt&limit=20&format=want_quiz&wid=small&dico=Eng_Eng
No comments:
Post a Comment