TEFL Resources and Lesson Ideas

Suggested levels: beginner to advanced.

Aims: to revise vocabulary and the spelling of newly-acquired words.

Materials: a word search grid on a familiar coursebook theme for each pair of students (a crime one is here); a blank word search grid (here).

Preparation: photocopies of the two grids.

This is a good vocabulary revision exercise, wherein students focus on word recognition and spelling.

I usually start by pairing the students, eliciting “vertical,” “horizontal” and “diagonal,” “forwards” and “backwards,” and giving them an existing word search grid, then set a strict time limit (e.g., five minutes) to find as many words as possible.

I then give the students a blank, 13 x 13 square wordsearch grid and set the homework: find ten words from the coursebook unit last studied, and make their own word search grid using those ten words. I usually say that words can be written horizontally, vertically or diagonally, and forwards or backwards, to make the grid more challenging.

The next day, students can either complete one another’s grids if they’ve all done the homework, or (more likely) work in teams, using another team’s grid, in a race to try and find all the words. Before beginning this activity, I often draw a whale or other animal in a corner of the board, which the winning team gets to name, and which stays on the board for the rest of the day.