vocabulary

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Home : 2004 : December : 5

vocabulary
By gina

I sometimes use a game called "RIVIT". I think it is appropriately named because it really catches the students' attention, as they find it adictive and RIVITING! (lol) Anyway, it is kind of like HANGMAN. I'll use a very
easy word for an example. Make a line on the board for each letter in a word (easy would look like this _ _ _ _ ). Put the first letter on the line
(e _ _ _ ) and let them guess the word (they guess as a group, calling out their ideas). To avoid too much noise, I allow them only one guess each per letter - some were just calling out the same guess over and over and over until I

went nuts! If no one gets the word in a few seconds, add the second letter (ea _ _ ) and let them guess again. Usually someone in the class will get the word before you get to the last letter. The kids really like the challenge, as I give them 1 point each time a student gets a word, but I take 1 point for me if I have to put the last letter down. They work very hard to make sure I don't get very many points. Then we discuss the word, meaning, etc. and I usually have one or two give a sentence using it. Because they are actively engaged, the words seem to "stick" a bit longer than if they were doing matching or cloze on a worksheet, although there is a lot of value in those activities, too. It just seems that making a game of it sometimes is a good choice. Hope it works as well for you as it does for me.