I love to have fun with my students. I dislike hangman because it doesn't reinforce anything, except, perhaps "when you don't first succeed try, try, try, try, try again." There are twenty-six letters in the alphabet, six of which or vowels (sometimes "y".) However, most ESL, TEOSAL (insert your favorite acronym here) students don't know the difference between consonants and vowels. The key issue here is, to play hangman well, students need to know that words have to have vowels and consonants, and understand things like "q" and "u" go together and that slyprwtx can never be a word. However, even with translation, teaching these things... seen my gray hairs. Yeah, exactly. I feel very strongly that, while students may have fun guessing every letter in the alphabet to spell "queen" that, unless they are still learning the names of the letters, there is little educational value. Kids can and do have fun with games that reinforce skills and teaching is what teachers do. So unless the students understand enough English to make educated guesses, hangman has no place in the (insert your favorite acronym here) classroom.
0 Comments
|
Donate
Archives
March 2016
Categories
All
|