Materials: white board and markers
Description: One person thinks of a word or phrase and writes the spaces on the board – one for each letter. They also draw the stand for a hangman’s noose. The class must raise their hands and take turns guessing a letter. For younger classes, it helps to write the alphabet on the board first, and erase letters as they guess. If the letter is in the word, write it over its correct space. If it is not in the word, write it off to the side (so it doesn’t get guessed again) and add to the hangman stand – first a rope, then a head, body, arms, legs, and if you’re feeling generous, eyes, nose, mouth, hair….whatever. The game is over when the word is filled in or guessed, or if the hangman is complete.
This is a good game for extra time at the end of class, and students love taking a turn at the board. A helpful tip: it helps most students at the board to write the word out in a notebook with the teacher, so they can be sure of the spelling and number of spaces. It’s also fun to do phrases, such as “Have a nice weekend,” or “Your homework is exercise one on page forty-three.” They take longer to fill in, but the class loves figuring them out. I’ve even used it as discipline once – I wrote “Misho is playing with his cell phone again,” and once they figured it out, Misho immediately put the phone away.
-Abeth S.
Filed under: Level: Multi-level, Skills: Vocabulary
