teflgeek

Quite a nice vocabulary revision activity, this is something I tried with an intermediate kids class the other day.

Kids in particular, often persist in using L1 pronunciation to spell words in English and this is quite a good way of reorienting them towards English alphabet norms, as well as being a focusing task, helping build bottom up listening skills and reviewing vocabulary items.

It is, of course, remarkably simple and as such I very much doubt if it’s original, but if it was shown to me in the past I forget by who or when or where.  (If it was you, let me know!!!).

Essentially, you choose your list of vocabulary items, which in my case were:  BABY, CHILD, TEENAGER, STUDENT, ADULT, PARENT.

Then you write them as anagrams:  ABBY, DILCH, NAGRETEE, DENTTUS, TAULD, TRAPNE.

I didn’t tell my students they were getting anagrams, I just told them to write down the words I would spell for them.  Which they did amongst much consternation….   😉

Then I asked them how many of the words they knew and I pointed out that ABBY could be rearranged to BABY.  And I let them get on with sorting the others out.

It occurs to me now that this makes quite a nice warmer activity, and I suspect it might be a nice way to introduce / pre-teach vocabulary before a reading task or some such.  Though obviously if the students don’t know the target language, it does make rearranging the anagrams effectively impossible.  Which might slow down some of the faster finishers….!