Random Sentence Generator using Excel: Take 2

In a previous post I presented and discussed a way to use excel to generate random sets of vocabulary words for students to use to create their own sentences. In this post I am presenting and discussing a new way to use Excel to actually create the sentences for the students, who then have to interpret / translate them. The benefit to this approach is that the students are being provided with input rather than being forced to produce output. Research has shown that, while output is very helpful for language acquisition, only input is necessary for language acquisition.

In this template you will find three sheets.

Let's discuss the third sheet first. In this sheet you will enter in your lists of sentence fragments. So, in the first column you put the first part of the sentence (say the main verb and subject), in the third column you put the second part of the sentence (say the direct object), and in the fifth column you put the third part of the sentence (say the adverb(ial phrase)). The second, fourth, and sixth columns are for you to put in the corresponding translations if you're going to do a matching activity. And that's all you have to do!


Now you simply go to the first sheet to see your magnificent, randomly generated sentences!










And you go to the second sheet to see randomly generated sentences that your students can match up with their provided, randomly arranged, translations!







Now, to keep you from accidentally changing the code used in the template, all the cells except the ones where you enter your words are locked. However, if you're feeling brave and want to look at what's going on behind the scenes, then feel free to use the password (which is "password") to unlock the sheets and mess around.