"Words in a word" games

[anna3101]

Making smaller words, usually nouns in singular, by combining letters from one long word - do you know this game? I remember we played it at school and then even at the university. Do you think it could be useful for language learning purposes?

Also, many coursebooks have "find a word" games, where you have a number of scrambled letters and are supposed to identify and cross out words. I've always wondered if this is actually helpful in any way...

What do you think?

[pesic87]

Yes, I remember while I was teaching English to 10 to 15 year old pupils in school, including some private tutoring at home, I used to play these sort of games a lot. Usually what I would do was distribute some flash cards with a long word written on them, after I had made groups of four pupils, directing them toward the rules of the game. I would tell them that they would have some time to work as a group and write as many singular nouns as possible from that one word. It was a fun game, and I made it a kind of a competition game, where afterwards we would be writing all the possible words that each group came up with, on the blackboard. In the end we picked a winner.

The kids loved it and yes it is a very interesting and educative game, and it helped kids with many things, including what it was like working as a team, thinking about the vocabulary they have acquired so far, implementing some of the words they have already known and trying to play with letters, finding as many words as possible.

[anna3101]

Thanks for sharing, pesic87! I'm really glad that these games are useful because I really love them myself but I was starting to wonder if there's any benefit in playing them in a foreign language. When you put it that way, I guess repeating the words you already know is actually useful.

[takibari]

I think any game that can help increase familiarity to words is helpful resource. The game as you described allows the learners to review on the words that they have previously learned. Additionally, it's like an 'informal' test on whether the students have built on their vocabulary bank. This game challenges them to recall the words they already know and what's more they're doing it in a fun atmosphere.

[pesic87]

Thanks for sharing, pesic87! I'm really glad that these games are useful because I really love them myself but I was starting to wonder if there's any benefit in playing them in a foreign language. When you put it that way, I guess repeating the words you already know is actually useful.

Yes @anna3101 repetition is very useful especially if you teach a foreign language to kids in primary school. We have the saying in my country that 'repetition is a mother of all the knowledge in the world'' or in latin ''Repetitio mater studiorum est''.