Word Processors at Work: for teachers, for students
A. The Teacher at Work
Consider this
Making
Worksheets
Correcting
Written
Work
Course
Planning
Translating
Use tables
Track changes
Add comments
Add hyperlinks
Outline mode
Headers/Footers
Autocorrect
Insert pictures
Create macros
WP’s mail
Thesaurus
Dictionary1
Two Tables
Setting things in tables can provide excellent results once you have Tables under your control,
(and not the other way round). Be prepared for a little frustration and to read Help – it helps.
Here are two examples that use some of the repertoire of techniques.
1. AN INVISIBLE TABLE
Match the words with their definitions.
darn
mince
subjunctive
A word some people say when they are surprised; an old-fashioned
word.
An unkind way of saying that someone is stupid or foolish, especially
because they wear unstylish clothes and behave awkwardly in social
situations.
Meat which has been cut into very small pieces by being forced
through the small holes in a machine.
gosh
Mend a hole in cloth by sewing stitches across the hole and then
weaving stitches in and out of them.
nerd
A formal structure in English used with a clause expressing a wish or
suggestion.
(definitions modified from Collins Cobuild E-dict).
1
e.g. e-dictionary such as Lingea integrated with a word processor
Word Processors at Work: for teachers, for students: James Thomas 2005
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Instructions
 Make a new table with 2 columns and the number of rows you want.
 Type in the words and their definitions where you want them.
 Adjust the size of the columns by dragging the central vertical. Rest the cursor on vertical
until the two headed arrow appears
 While it is still highlighted, make the text BOLD, and right aligned, and then drag the little
triangle to the left to make the words far enough away from their definitions.
 Highlight the right column, make the text smaller and in italics.
 Highlight the whole table, then click on it with the Right Mouse Button. From the Borders and
Shading menu, choose No borders.
2. FIND SOMEBODY WHO ...
Instructions
Create a 6 x 7 table. Type in the text and then try the following:
 With the left column selected, you can drag the first vertical line to the right so that your
short text in each cell is all on one line. Make all the others the same width by selecting
them and go Table  AutoFit  Equal width.
 Text direction you can find under Format. First select the text whose direction you want to
manipulate.
 Grey shading: see Shading under Format. Be careful to choose CELLS, not the whole table.
 For the large "How often does ...", choose a large size font.
Under Table  cell alignment  centre centre.
 Select the cells where you want the Bullets and click Bullets and Numbering on the Format
Toolbar.
Word Processors at Work: for teachers, for students: James Thomas 2005
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B. The Student at Work
o
write dictations
o
write texts, long and short
o
create webpages
o
edit text
A DICTATION ACTIVITY
Procedure
The teacher dictates URLs that the students will use during the lesson. The students types
them directly into the word processor. As soon as the space bar or enter is pressed, the link
becomes active and the students can find out immediately if they have been successful.
As well, the teacher could also give out URLs on slips of paper for students to dictate to each
other.
In preparation, students will need to know the names of keyboard characters. Therefore, a
useful way to initiate this procedure is to dictate:
EDITING ACTIVITIES – MAINLY
The following activities are derived from Multimedia and the Internet by Paul Hullock and
Sharon Whittaker, a manual hitherto unpublished. Permission for reproduction has been
obtained. Some of the texts are more suited to adult learners, but can be adapted for younger
learners – the task remains essentially intact.
Activity for Trainees
In some of the activities that follow, the students work with an existing text. How would you
recommend furnishing the students with these texts that they have to work with?
1. Biography
Version A: Students are given a biography of someone and are asked to edit it so that it is
about them.
Version B: Students are given a biography which they firstly read.
Then they ask the teacher questions and find out things which are untrue and proceed to edit
the text. Or they could listen to a recording.
Note: this can be applied to texts other than biographies. For example, students could look at a
picture, or to listen to a narrative, and compare it with a written description of it.
Word Processors at Work: for teachers, for students: James Thomas 2005
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2. A Nice Story
Replace the bland adjectives in a text with more interesting dramatic ones.
Once upon a time there was a nice boy who lived in a nice house in a nice town. He looked
nice. He felt rather sad and so he decided to go for a nice walk in the nice forest. Soon the
weather became bad and he felt quite sad. He was feeling frightened when he suddenly heard a
loud noise and he turned round to see a nice girl from his nice school. She really was very nice
and had nice eyes and nice hair and a nice personality. They had a nice conversation and he
ended up inviting her to a nice restaurant on a date, which she thought was nice.
Activity for Trainees: rewrite this text to be more suitable for your students.
Synonyms: using a thesaurus
1. this activity can often be performed with the word processor’s built-in thesaurus (Shift F7
when a word is selected), depending on the nature of the bland word.
2. there are several online thesauruses available.
Collocations: Using Bonito II to derive collocations
To find the adjectives which precede boy, enter it into Lemma. Under left context, choose
adjective, Tokens 1. To turn this into a list, click on Frequency, then First level, 1L.
Activity for Trainees: do you have a preference for synonyms over collocations in this situation?
3. Cumulative Story
Students are given the beginning of a story to continue, but after a few minutes have to move to
another computer and continue the story there. An alternative to moving may be to use the word
processor’s “online collaboration”.
Activity for Trainees: write a suitable opening for your students – about 30 words.
4. Punctuation
dear mr brown im writing to you to let you know that ill be away from school until next
Monday im sorry I couldnt let you know in person but your secretary told me you were
busy and I didnt want to disturb you the reason for my absence is that my uncle from the
united states is paying us an unexpected visit and as am the only one in the family who
speaks english im going to look after him if I had known sooner I would have told you but
as I said the visit is unexpected yours sincerely peter magnusson
Activity for Trainees: adapt this text to suit your students
Word Processors at Work: for teachers, for students: James Thomas 2005
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5. Change the gender of a character and make all the changes that this
necessitates.
Change the beginning of this story to, ‘All day long, John had been looking forward to his
date....’ and then continue the story making any other changes you think necessary. Then finish
the story.
All day long, Jane had been looking forward to her date with William. She had met him
for the first time only a couple of weeks ago but already she was sure he was the man
she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. He was tall and dark, with wide shoulders
and a lock of hair that flopped over one eye, and his voice was deep and sexy. He
seemed really interested in everything she had to say. She could already imagine
walking down the aisle with him as the organ played, ‘Here comes the bride...’
At lunchtime she left the office and dashed out to the shops where she bought a new
blouse, a black dress and a pair of shoes. She left the office at five and waited
impatiently for the bus to take her home. There she had a long, luxurious bath and then
carefully put on her makeup and new clothes. She felt really satisfied with the way she
looked.
William had arranged to meet her in a West End pub, where they would have a drink
before going on to one of London's best restaurant. Jane walked into the pub and could
feel every man’s eyes on her. Every man that is except for William. She must be early
she thought or maybe he’d been delayed. She ordered an orange juice and sat in a
corner near the door. Time passed and her heart sank. She went to find a phone and
dialled his number but only got the message, ‘The number you have dialled has not
been recognised...’
‘Swine’ she muttered and....
6. Story Expansion
A creative writing activity where students develop a story from given sentences and prompts.
Complete this story by following the instructions.
Billy’s Cat
Once upon a time there was a man called Billy who had a pet cat.
(Describe the cat)
For a long time, the cat had been his best friend
(Why did he like the cat so much? What sort of things did they do together?)
But then one day all this changed.
(Why did he begin to hate his cat?)
So Billy decided to kill his cat.
(How did he do it?)
Then he got rid of the body
(How?)
But the following night....
(Finish the story)
Word Processors at Work: for teachers, for students: James Thomas 2005
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7. Repetition and Text Development
A text based activity that requires the learner to make changes to the text to avoid unnecessary
repetition.
Below is an outline of a story. Can you remove the repetition so as to make it easier to read?
A Londoner was in his house in a village in 1964. Inside the house the Londoner began
to feel unhappy and so the Londoner went to find a local bar to get a pint of beer. The
Londoner bought a pint of beer. The beer tasted good. At the local bar the Londoner
found a very nice local woman. The local woman was also drinking a glass of beer. The
Londoner thought: “ I would like to talk to that local woman”, so the Londoner talked to
the local woman and found out that her name was Susan. After a while the Londoner
began to talk to the local woman, the Londoner started to feel happy. The Londoner
decided to ask the local woman out on a date. The local woman turned down the
Londoner. The Londoner went back to his house in the village. The Londoner felt
unhappy.
8. Arranging paragraphs and working with linking words.
Study this report. It contains:
a)
One main title
b)
Four sub-titles / main sections
c)
The section entitled: ‘Results and Analysis’ is divided into three paragraphs.
Below you can read the report but none of the sections have been divided up. Read the report
and decide where the titles, sections and paragraphs are. Use the mouse to divide the text up.
A Survey into the culinary tastes of the people of Norwich. Introduction.
Having been in the UK for nearly two months, our group was curious to find out more about
British attitudes to food and so we decided to ask members of public in Norwich some questions
relating to this topic. This report is divided into a number of sections and each section relates to
each question asked. Before analysing the questions, we will firstly give a brief overview of our
survey. Description of the Investigation. For this survey we created a questionnaire and went
into the streets of Norwich to interview eight respondents. The questionnaire comprised eight
questions and a copy of the full questionnaire is attached in Appendix One. Results and
Analysis. Firstly, we questioned people about what they kind of food they liked and also their
reasons. We gave the interviewees a list of different foods and asked them to say which they
preferred. Nearly all of the people surveyed, approximately 75%, said that they did not like
fish’n’chips, saying that it was rather unhealthy. On the contrary, three out of every four
people interviewed said they liked salad with tomatoes and olive oil. This, we found, rather
surprising as we had been led to believe the fish’n’chips was one of the Britain’s traditionally
foods. The response may be due to the fact that British people, like people all over the world,
are becoming more health conscious. On the other hand, another reason may be that
European tastes are influencing the British diet and so fish’n’chips is becoming less popular.
There was one small group, those over sixty years old, who said that they liked fish’n’chips.
This is probably because they were brought up during a time when such food was very
popular. It is rather difficult for the habits of older people to change. Our second question
related to the times of day when people eat. As far as breakfast is concerned, most eat
between seven and eight in the morning. This is similar to breakfast time in our own countries. It
probably reflects the fact that we follow similar patterns in our working days. Conclusion. In
conclusion there seems to be a trend towards British eating habits becoming more multinational. People eat out more and enjoy different kinds of food from all over the world. In
Word Processors at Work: for teachers, for students: James Thomas 2005
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addition they are becoming more aware of their own diets. This is probably mirrored in most
populations the developed world.
Now look at the words and phrases in bold from the text above. Decide into which of the
following section they should go. Type them in / copy and paste them in.
Listing different
sections.
Talking about
numbers
Comparison and
contrast
Stating opinion
Interpreting the
results
Identifying patterns
Adding extra
information
Introducing a
conclusion
Now look at the groups of words and expression below. Drag them into the correct box above:
On the other hand
However
whereas
compared with X who thought that...
We firstly.
Firstly we
Our second question related to...
The third question was concerned with...
As far as breakfast is concerned...
approximately sixty per cent
about two thirds
two out of every three people interviewed
The majority
Most
about ...
We felt this was rather...
In our opinion, we thought that this was...
moreover
furthermore
To sum up
To summarise
One reason for this may be
This may be due to the fact that
Another reason may be ...
This is probably because...
It probably reflects the fact that...
there seems to be a trend ...
there appears to be a tendency
9. Webquests
One of the products of a webquest may be a wordprocessed document, using pictures,
hyperlinks, tables, flashing lettering, word art, etc. And this might also be saved as a webpage
and uploaded to a server for public access.
Word Processors at Work: for teachers, for students: James Thomas 2005
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Writing Strategies
The following section comes from North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Although it is
not written from an ICT point of view, it contains many activity types that can be carried out on
the computer.
Research confirms that writing strategies such as planning, organizing, and revising carry over
from first to second language (Zamel, 1983; Jones and Tetroe, 1987; Eisterhold, 1990;
Friedlander, 1990). It follows that second language teachers can help students identify and
implement successful strategies for writing in the second language. The following strategies can
be targeted for use with and by writers of a second language:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
Brainstorming or completing knowledge charts to activate schemata or prior knowledge.
Using a graphic organizer as the basis for collecting information for written compositions
and oral speeches.
Completing outlines.
Webbing to facilitate the organization of information and/or knowledge.
Helping students become involved in simple description with visuals, paragraph
completion, cloze passages, sentence builders, dictations, filling in forms, cinquain poetry,
dialogue completion.
Stressing tasks that involve repetition of familiar elements, with small variations.
Practicing dictations with learned material.
Stressing tasks with real-life functions e.g., shopping lists, calendar notations, filling out
forms.
Note taking, writing down key words and concepts in abbreviated form.
Completing graphic fill-ins, slash sentences, telegraphic clues, sentence combining.
Elaborating, relating new information to prior knowledge, or making meaningful personal
associations to the new information.
Guiding descriptions and narrations, compositions based on interviews.
Writing entries in dialogue journals, daily journals, compositions
Stressing tasks for real life communications e.g., messages, notes, daily journal.
Involving students in compositions (guided and free) and rewrites, as well as peer editing.
Engaging in self monitoring while writing is taking place.
Classifying words, terminology, or concepts according to their attributes.
sing reference materials such as dictionaries, encyclopaedias, or textbooks.
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