Language Learning Fun

Over the years, I've tried many methods to increase the effectiveness of language learning among my students. After many frustrated attempts, I think I've finally hit jackpot! It's a language game called Word Target, which I adapted to suit the needs of my students. I'll try to explain it briefly here.

To start the game off, I draw a 3x3 grid on the board, with a letter in each grid. Students are required to use only the nine letters given to form any English word that they may know, and write it down on the board. The minimum length of a word is 3 letters, and the longest is, of course, 9 letters, provided that those 9 letters given can be rearranged into a word. To make the game more challenging, each letter in the grid can only be used once in the same word. Points are awarded for each word, with the shortest word (3 letters) earning 1 point, 4-letter words earning 2 points, etc. I also award bonus points if students can find the bonus word, which is the word that I had in mind when I created this grid.

Students are divided into groups and each group takes turn to write down a word. The game can be boring if prolonged, so I normally allow around 15 to 20 minutes of this game, depending on the level of student enthusiasm. After that, a class discussion follows where the meaning of difficult words on the board are explained. To make learning more meaningful, I allow my students to tell me which words they want me to explain, letting them take responsibility of their own learning. They are used to being passive learners, so I hope that through this exercise, they will experience the self-confidence and satisfaction which come from active participation.

After making sure that students understand the words, I proceed to the next round of the game, which is sentence construction. Students can use any word on the board to form a sentence (a minimum of 4 words) and a maximum of 5 points will be given if the sentence is correct. For each grammar mistake, 1 point is deducted. To add to the excitement of the game, any student from any group who thinks of a sentence can come to the board, so 2 or 3 students from the same group can come up one after the other. This motivates all students to think fast, or risk losing to other groups. Also, I make sure that only one student comes to the board at one time, so that the game doesn't get chaotic and students don't end up grabbing the marker pen from each other in their excitement.

One small reminder: with all the excitement to get ahead of each other, students tend to get rowdy, so I maintain order by deducting 5 points from groups that do not follow instructions or are too noisy. Got to spare a thought for the class next door... and those in the next block!

I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of my classes enjoyed this game, from the weakest class to the smartest one. They were equally interested in the game and couldn't get enough of it. The difference is only in the words they come up with, even with the same set of letters used. The smarter ones obviously had a bigger repertoire of vocabulary words. The only class who did not really enjoy the game was one of the smarter classes. Although, when I asked them to play it individually, they were so engrossed in it that they did not stop writing even when I asked them to. Well, seems like they are just too lazy to walk up to the board!

Needless to say, this game will remain as a permanent part of my lessons next year. It would be interesting to see if there's any improvement in my students' language mastery after one year of doing this. At last, one step forward... I just hope it's a big one!