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Reposting
Vocabulary review - Word grids

I tell pairs of students to draw one grid of twenty small squares. Then they need to look through their vocabulary notebooks together and fill the squares with twenty useful words or phrases we have learned recently. I ask them to include a mix of "difficult" and "easy" words. They are not allowed to choose any words that they don't remember the meaning of so I encourage them to double-check before writing them in the boxes.

Once they've finished, different pairs swap papers and must take turns using the words in a sentence, orally. Student A and Student B compete to use the most boxes. Each box (word) that they use counts as 1 point. If they manage to use 2 boxes, that's 2 points.

When students ask me for the meaning of the word, I refer them back to their "teachers" i.e. the original pair who designed their grid. Only if they can't explain it do I step in and help. My role is to monitor, listening for errors in meaning or pronunciation to be reviewed on the board afterwards. It's a really easy, student-centred activity which involves zero prep and recycles vocabulary well.

Variations:
1. SS could be asked to identify the word class in each box as they go.
2. SS mark the word stress.
3. SS need to think of another word in the word family e.g. noun to adjective etc.
4. In bigger classes, SS could write down the sentences they are not so sure of so that the teacher can collect and check these at the end.
5. The student with the best sentence gets a prize!

p.s. Apologies for the bad photo!