High School - 28 - Word Games

[jellomando]

I'm not even going to use a fancy title to make this sound impressive.  It's a collection of word games, increasing in complexity as you progress through the lesson.

Word Games:

• Native Speaker introduces the concept of Word Games. 5 minutes.
• Native Speaker introduces Pictionary.  5 minutes.
• Students perform Pictionary with Native Speaker.  10 minutes.
• Native Speaker introduces Outburst.  5 minutes.
• Students perform Outburst with Native Speaker.  10 minutes.
• Native Speaker introduces Boggle.  5 minutes.
• Students perform Boggle worksheet.  10 minutes.

Notes:

• This lesson is really a survey of vocabulary games and they're perfect for lesson terminations games.  Wrapping them up in  a lesson is the same as wrapping south park up in a lesson.
• The students loved Pictionary so much that it can easily turn into the main lesson.  I limited the 6 groups to 3 rounds, with each rounds word being pulled from a more difficult word pool.  For example, a first round word would be some easy object (e.g. cat, dog, gun).  The second round would be a more complicated drawing, but still an object (teacher, policeman, husband).  The last round would be some abstract thing (e.g. happy, sad, and strong).  The first two rounds are fairly easy to understand but the last round switched the thinking tracks just a little bit.
• The resource sheet for Pictionary features words that have been approved by a Grade 2 high English school teacher.  But even then I had students stare at me in various stupefied states and I couldn't tell if they didn't know the word or didn't know how to draw the word.  Regardless I found words for all of the students to draw.  If I really cared about this game I would have had Korean translation included in the sheet
• Once the students realized that Outburst was really Star Golden Bell's Speed English, they started loving this game enough that it turned into the second half of the lesson.  I gave the 6 groups 2 rounds each and then we switched to Teacher English, where they have to make me guess the secret word.
  Most of the classes loved Pictionary and Outburst so much that we ran out of time and never got to Boggle or Scrabble even though I have a feeling that both games are more geared towards more advanced students.
• You can choose to use the physical Scrabble game or you can use a Scrabble video game with a ‘hot-seat’ option that allows multiple players on the same computer.

The Boggle sheets are from Online Boggle and solved by the Boggle Solver.

Scrabble is easy to find online but most of the games that are there only have network play.  For a hot-seat based game you should buy Scrabble Complete

More information about my lessons can be found here.

[nginsburg]

my kids loved boggle! I ended up just making new boggle boards and we played for the entire hour!

[chelseapatrick]

Sounds great Will try this in my next lesson Thanks !!

[stoon]

My students like doing Class vs Teacher boggle. Will introduce the game and get them to play against each other solo or in groups first.  Then draw a grid on the board and let them choose letters, or generate a random grid onlin (google free online boggle).  Copy down the grid onto a sheet of paper and go and sit where you can't see the board/face away from it. The students have to work together as a class, writing words up on the board and compete against you.  They should really get into it and they'll be really impressed when you write your list up afterwards and pull out some random words they've never heard before.  Not reccomended for teachers with a limited vocabulary/who are bad at boggle, personally I wouldn't be doing it if I wasn't pretty much guaranteed to win.
(letting them choose letters just makes sure they know you're not cheating and makes them think they're in with a shot)