Mastermind variation, with words
Reveal the picture by finding the word
Fill in the blanks to create words as fast as you can
Find the word in the telephone pad
Find the word in the blackberry pad
Discover the hidden word before it’s too late
Yes, the computer cheats…but how?
Create words on the letter wheels
Illuminate the hidden word by clicking in the right places
Place the words onto the crossword grid
Find the hidden word by connecting letters in the grid.
Unscramble multiple words
Find the hidden word in the grid
Find the word that isn’t really a word.
Our own variation on a traditional word search
Try our online language quizzes.
Our Games at Portland Proof
Find and fix the mistake in the sentence.
Select the correct word to complete the sentence
Make words by filling in letters
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The following list is yet another excellent resources for ESL/EFL teachers that will surely increase student engagement in the class. I am talking about easy-to-use, free word games generator online where teachers can easily create vocabulary games for review or warm up activities. I chose these websites because they focus only on one or two games thus they are specialized, very user-friendly and so convenient to use that you will be done making your games in seconds!
If you are not familiar with these warm up games, you may check out this post.
Free Word Games Generator
Spelling City
VocabularySpellingCity is an award-winning educational website focusing on spelling and vocabulary used by millions of teachers and parents worldwide. You can quickly start by creating your own word list and then choose an activity type for your students to play such as Spelling, Writing, Phonics, Vocabulary and more.
FlipQuiz
Are you familiar with Jeopardy? FlipQuiz is another free word games maker that does just that! It provides educators with a quick way to create your own game show-style boards for test reviews in the classroom. Traditionally, these are created tediously, using poster board, chalkboards, PowerPoint or dry-erase markers on overhead slides. The review questions themselves are usually written on a separate sheet of paper.
With FlipQuiz, questions are displayed on-screen and boards are saved for later use. Combined with a beautiful board, students are more likely to be interested and stay engaged with the test review process.
Puzzle Makers
There are many types of vocabulary puzzles for all ages including adults! I like the fact that I can have a number of different unique vocabulary puzzles created to printout on the same topic. So when we are studying a topic in English, say “Family and Friends”, I can print out six different sets then split the class into six groups and give them each a unique puzzle to solve.
Riddles
Riddle is an activity in which you must find out a word according to some given clues. Educaplay Riddles are quick games that can help the player review concepts through definitions, sounds and images. You can easily create your own riddle game when you register for a free account!
ALSO READ: Activities to End a Lesson
Brain Boosters
I love giving my kids brain booster activities! Discovery Education offers a wide selection of brain boosters that are fun and challenging! You can choose from different categories such as Logic, Reasoning, Word and Letter Play, and more! If your lesson finishes earlier than planned, you can easily go to the website and read out some brain boosters to your students!
Or you can simply download this ready-to-play Brain Teasers I made using PowerPoint.
Connect Fours
This fun and free word games generator is from my favorite ClassTools website! Students are shown 16 words. They need to group them into 4 rows of 4 connected items. This game is great for reviewing categories and making inference.
Bingo Baker
Bingo Baker makes it easy to create bingo cards. You can generate hundreds of random cards and print them using the printer-friendly PDF (with no ads or watermarks). You can also save paper (and waste electricity instead) by playing your bingo game online (it works on the iPad).
Instructions: Just type your words into the grid on the left. You can give your game a title and can change the BINGO column headings too.
Then click the Generate button and you are good to go!
HANGMAN.NO
The best site to create and play the classic letter guessing game hangman. Challenge your kids to guess as many secret words as they can before the time runs out. My students love the cool tune and slick animation!
THE WORD SEARCH
Let your students find hidden words in a grid of jumbled letters using this simple to use Word Search maker. You can create your very own or use their 100% free online collection of word search puzzles.
TABOO GAME
This website lets you create your own taboo cards by entering the word to be guessed in the top field and the taboo words in the bottom fields.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Classroom Speaking Activities for Any Language Class
JEOPARDY LABS
This lets teachers create their own online games of Jeopardy by using their simple online editor. No powerpoint and no registration is required, and each game has its own unique url address so this really stands out for me.
If you prefer doing it offline, then check out my ELA Jeopardy Game!
WORD SCRAMBLE
Make your own set of jumbled words using this cool word scrambler. It allows you to give hints and the game comes with a timer.
MATCH THE MEMORY
Help your students improve not only their English but also their concentration skills with this powerful memory matching game creator! Make your own custom memory game using pictures, words, videos and more!
WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE
Create a fun, free review game in the style of Who Wants to be a Millionaire with up to 15 questions and whatever values you choose for each round. The graphics and sounds used in this game are similar to that of the television show making this review game more exciting!
WORD GENERATOR
I love this super convenient tool that generates words for your guessing game. All you need to do is choose the kind of guessing game you want to play, the category and level of difficulty and you are good to go – the word generator will give you a game word from the list and you can play!
QUIZLET LIVE
Quizlet Live is an online classroom vocabulary game tool where teams of three or four students work together to be first to match vocabulary terms with their correct definitions. It is free and easy to use, allowing teachers to create customized flash cards with text, images and audio. Similar to Quizlet Live is the interactive game maker Kahoot.
Not tech savvy? Try: ESL Warm Up Games with Free PowerPoint Downloads
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Word formation is probably the easiest part of Cambridge exams to gamify (from the root word GAME of course). Use any of these word formation games as a quick intro or filler for your classes. Most of them require little to no preparation so you can keep them in your bag of TEFL tricks for a rainy day.
Word Formation Flash Cards
Whenever I do a word formation activity in class or review a practice exam, I add cards to my Quizlet sets. These flash cards can be shared with your students or used in class for revision.
Here are the links to my Quizlet sets. Feel free to use them or copy them.
First (FCE) Word Formation Flash Cards – Quizlet
Advanced (CAE) Word Formation Flash Cards – Quizlet
Quizlet lets you print out the cards too and then you can use them for a variety of different word formation games. Here are a few that I recommend.
Taboo
Split your class into teams of 2-3 and have them sit in a circle. Students have 30 seconds to describe as many words with their affixes (e.g. happiness) as possible to their partner(s) . They are not allowed to use any of the forms of the word in their description. If they use any, the other teams can buzz them and their turn ends.
Climb the ladder
Students line up 5-10 cards in a vertical line on their desk. They have to name all the possible forms for the root word. If they are correct, they climb the ladder to the next card. If they are wrong they fall all the way down the ladder and have to start over from the first card. This forces students to see multiple forms over and over again which helps retention.
Pelmanism
Students lay out 12-20 cards in a square on their desks with the root word facing up. They turn over one card to see its affixes. They then have to choose another card which shares one of the same affixes.
If they are correct, they keep the cards as points. If they are wrong, they turn them back over in the same place and play passes to the next student. This can be good to use with words that your students might not know yet as it teaches them the affixes also.
Do you have any other games you like to play with flash cards to practise word formation? Let us know in the comments!
Word formation board games can be found all over the internet, including on this website. Here are the links to my word formation board games which include a make-your-own version.
First (FCE) Word Formation Board Game
Advanced (CAE) Word Formation Board Game
Word Formation Dice Race
This is a good one for those of you who like zero planning minimal materials activities. Put a 2×3 grid on the board with the numbers 1-6 in each box. Then add a root word to each box and at least 6 more outside the grid.
Students or pairs take turns to roll a dice and they have 30 seconds to think of as many words with that root as possible. They get one point for each correct word. Then the team with the most points in that round gets to replace the used root word with another one from outside the grid. Rinse and repeat.
It’s amazing how much students love rolling dice!
Word Formation Tennis
If anything is more fun than dice, it’s throwing a ball around the classroom.
For this word formation game, get your students into two teams and have them stand on opposite sides of the classroom. You give them either a root word or a suffix and they have to name a word and pass the ball to the other team.
No repeats, no invented words and a 3 second time limit to keep the game moving fast. Scoring goes like tennis, so 15-30-40-(Advantage)-Game.
Word Formation Board Race
A TEFL classic, the board race can be well adapted into a word formation game.
Split your class into two or three teams and get them to line up in single file in front of the board. Draw a line down the middle of the board and give each team a marker. For each round, put either a root word or affix at the top of the board and the students take turns to write as many words as possible in the form of a relay race. Give a time limit of 1 minute to increase the pressure.
Teams get a point for each word. Any misspelled or illegible words don’t count.
Word Formation Stop the Bus
Another adaptable TEFL classic. Stop the Bus require a pen and paper. Students work either individually or in pairs.
Normally Stop the Bus is played with categories, but for this version instead of writing categories in the columns at the top, write a suffix (prefixes won’t work here). Students then work as fast as they can to think of a word with that suffix that starts with the letter you provide. The first team to complete all the columns shouts STOP THE BUS and everyone stops.
Score 10 points for an original word and 5 points if its repeated by another team. No points for incorrect spelling!
Fun classroom activities for prefixes and suffixes, especially useful for FCE, CAE and other exam classes.
Word formation is the addition of affixes like -ly and semi- to make longer words and different kinds of speech. Although it is often included in EFL exams and higher-level textbooks, it still probably gets just a few percent of the attention of lists of similar vocabulary, let alone tenses. Perhaps one reason for that is the lack of fun things you can do with it, something that this article seeks to start redressing.
Word formation brainstorming races
Give students a couple of minutes to brainstorm words with a single affix, e.g. il- or –ity. If it isn’t a prefix, you could also give them an additional two minutes with a (paper) dictionary to try to add to their answers. Then give them a big list of such words to compare their answers to (something which you can easily make by searching the internet for lists of words “beginning with…” or “ending with…” then editing the lists down). If there are patterns in those words (e.g. im- usually being with words beginning in P or M), see if they can work them out for themselves, perhaps with some good examples highlighted to help them.
There are also ways of making this more competitive, e.g. as Board Race or with different groups brainstorming different things and correcting each other (losing points if their corrections didn’t turn out to be correct).
Word formation list dictation
This is kind of the opposite of the game above. Read out a list of words which have something in common, e.g. words which take –en to make verbs (broad, wide, length, etc). Students listen to the list until they work out the missing affix, with five points for a correct guess, minus one point for a guess which isn’t true about those words, and no points for a guess which is also true but isn’t what the teacher is thinking of. They can then do the same thing with a version of the worksheet that the teacher is reading from with the answers taken out, check their answers, and test each other in groups. They could also use dictionaries or the internet to make similar lists to test other groups with.
A variation is to read a list of words that already have affixes on them in which all the affixes have the same meaning, e.g. –ship for relationships, asking students to guess the meaning of the affix for that list of words.
Word formation snap/pelmanism
This is a livelier game for practising several similar ways of forming words, e.g. un-, il-, ir- and im- for opposites or –ment, -ness and –ity for nouns. Prepare a pack of cards without those affixes. With the usual rules of Snap or Pelmanism, students have to try to get cards by finding pairs which match by the affix that could be added to them.
Word formation sentence halves matching pairwork
Find or create some sentences that include the affixes that you are practising. Split the sentences at the affix, e.g. “A sense of wonder” “ment is essential in a great artist”. As in this example, the sentence halves should be matchable by both the affix and the meaning. Give the sentences halves to different students and ask them to match them without showing them to each other (i.e. just speaking and listening). They should try to do so just with the split words first, then use the whole sentence to check their answers. There are several ways of organising this. The easiest is to give pairs of students Student A and Student B worksheets with the sentence halves in mixed up order, asking them to match sentence starter 1 with sentence ending J etc. It can also be organised as a mingling activity with single cut up sentence halves, with students coming up to the teacher for more when they think they have found matches.
Word formation jigsaw text
This is like an extended version of the task above. Cut up a whole text before suffixes and after prefixes, e.g. “The plan was completely il” “conceived and badly planned but somehow the original” “ity of how it was carried out made some kind of crazy sense and…” Students work together to put the text back together from logical and word formation clues. It might also be possible to design this as an oral task.
Word formation Call My Bluff
Students find examples of real word formation in a dictionary and make up two or three wrong alternatives, e.g. “punishment”, “punishness” and “punishation”. They read them out to another group, seeing if they can fool them about which one is the real one.
Something similar can also be done with written exercises such as FCE Use of English word formation ones. Students fill the gaps with a mix of the real and wrong answers and other groups see if they can spot which is which.
Word formation sentence transformations
The keyword sentence transformation exercises in FCE Use of English can also be used for word formation, e.g. by giving them “I was happily playing in the sandpit when the snake appeared – happy” for them to make “Playing in the sandpit was making me happy when the snake appeared”. Games with this include memory games like Grammar Reversi and challenging them to use as many different forms of the underlined word as they can to express exactly the same meaning as the original sentence.
You found our list of fun and simple vocabulary games for adults.
Vocabulary games are activities that include language and wordplay. Example games include Word Association and Hang Man. Players can enjoy vocabulary games in person or online. The purpose of these games is to strengthen vocabulary skills. These games are also known as “vocab games”, “letter games” and “vocabulary building games.”
These games make great online classroom activities and communication games, and can be used as online fun activities for employees.
This list includes:
- vocabulary games for adults
- simple vocabulary word games for adults
- fun online vocabulary games and activities
- English vocabulary games
- vocabulary games in English
- games to improve vocabulary
- vocabulary building activities
- vocab review games
- vocabulary games for students
Get ready to play!
List of vocabulary games
From Pictionary to word scrambles to synonym memory, here is a list of fun word games to play in classrooms, at parties, or during meetings.
1. Vocabulary Pictionary
Pictionary is a game of charades where players draw words instead of acting them out.
To play:
- Split the group into teams.
- Each round, assign one team member to draw.
- Give the drawing team member a word.
- Allow up to sixty seconds for teammates to guess.
- If the team guesses correctly, then assign one point.
You can give other teams the opportunity to steal, or move onto the next team’s turn. The game is a great way to practice new vocabulary, as players connect the word with an image. Pictionary is a fun game for virtual parties or in-person affairs.
To play Pictionary online, draw on the whiteboard app feature on your online meeting software.
2. Word Association
Word Association is one of the best vocabulary games for kids and classrooms since playing does not require a large vocabulary. The rules are simple and easy to understand. Typically, the game involves two players.
To play:
- Player one says a word.
- Player two responds with the first word that comes to mind.
- Player one either chooses a new word or responds to player two’s word.
- The game continues until one player repeats a word or pauses too long.
The rapid pace of the game generates excitement and occasionally results in funny answers.
If a student makes a mistake, then the teacher can pause the game and ask the student to explain or find a more fitting word. Ideally, gamemasters should allow players a few extra seconds to respond. Players should never feel embarrassed. There are no wrong answers in word association, but the game can serve as a learning opportunity to find better words.
If playing via Zoom, then player one or the teacher speaks a word, and other students answer in the chat. The class counts up matching answers and discusses different responses, guessing the reasoning behind each answer.
3. Vocabulary Hangman
Hangman is a classic chalkboard word game that translates easily to online play, thanks to digital whiteboards.
To play:
- Assign a player a word.
- The player draws a series of blanks corresponding to the number of letters in the word.
- Other players guess letters.
- If the letter is in the word, then the “executioner” fills in the blank. If not, then the executioner draws one portion of the gallows.
- The game ends when players guess the word, or when the picture is complete.
The best words to use for hangman contain less-used letters like z, x, and q. Examples of hard hangman words include zigzagging, razzmatazz, and quadrants.
4. Word search
Word searches are common classroom vocabulary games. These activities work well for handouts, and you can play during video calls by using the whiteboard feature and enabling annotation.
We made a sample word search you can use.
To make the game more competitive and exciting, turn the challenge into a race and award prizes to the first players to complete the puzzles.
5. Crossword
Crossword puzzles consist of a series of interconnecting boxes, each of which starts blank but contains one letter by the end of the game. Under the puzzle are two lists of clues, across and down respectively. Solvers need to consider the meaning of words, number of letters, and surrounding words, making the game strategic as well as literary.
Here is an example of a crossword puzzle you can use with your class or team.
Here is the answer key.
Crosswords are great word games for any age or skill level because puzzle makers can adjust the difficulty to suit players. To make your own crossword puzzle, use an online crossword creator.
6. Word Scramble
Word scrambles make great games for English class, and adults enjoy these language brain teasers as well. Simply mix up the order of the letters and ask players to unscramble and identify the original words.
Here is a sample to start with.
And here is the answer key.
To make your own word scrambles, use an online letter randomizer.
7. Scrabble
Scrabble is one of the most popular word games for adults or children. Players must use letter tiles to assemble words on the game board.
To play:
- Each player draws seven letter tiles.
- During turns, players can play tiles or exchange them for new letters.
- Players build words on the board, with each new word connecting to an existing word.
- Tiles have a point value assigned depending on the challenge of the letter. When a player makes a word, tally the letter and add the score to the point board.
More challenging letters have higher point values. For example, E is one point, while Z is ten. To find the point values for each tile and read more gameplay tips, check out this guide from Hasbro.
To coordinate the game for language lessons, assign higher scores for vocabulary words, and ask players to use the words in a sentence for extra points.
Scrabble is easy to play online, too, making it one of the best online vocabulary games. To play virtually, simply find a multiplayer online version of the game, such as Words With Friends.
8. Scattergories
Scattergories is one of the most fun and simple word games for adults. The game challenges players to think up words all starting with the same letter.
To play:
- One player rolls a letter die or uses a letter generator to pick the first letter.
- The timekeeper puts 60 seconds on the clock.
- Players write down one answer per category starting with the letter.
- When time runs out, players read the answers.
- Players receive a point for every answer.
Alliterative phrases count for double or triple points. If two players have the same answer, then they must cross it out and neither receives points. Of course, a player will not receive points for blank answers either. At the end of each round, the player with the most points wins.
Here is a list of sample Scattergories categories:
- A boy’s name, girl’s name, or gender neutral name
- Capital cities
- Four letter words
- Types of drinks
- Holidays
- Careers or professions
- Cartoon characters
- Websites
- Desserts
You could create more inventive categories for the game, or challenge players to make up prompts.
To play virtually, use the chat, screen-share, whiteboard functions in your virtual meeting platform. You can also share a Google Doc or Form, or join a multiplayer online Scattergories game together.
9. Tree or Bob Ross
Tree or Bob Ross is a fun video conference game that challenges players to guess a word by asking questions.
The player who conjures the word is The Post. The Post answers This or That questions whose answers help players narrow down the word.
The first question of the game is usually “is it more like a tree, or more like Bob Ross?” and The Post must answer accordingly. For instance, a rose is probably more like a tree, but Pinnochio presents an interesting challenge.
Each turn, the guesser adds a new word. For example, the second question might be, “is it more like a tree or a fern?” The game continues until players guess correctly. For more excitement, introduce a time limit, or award more points if players guess the word during earlier rounds.
10. Vocabulary Pyramid
Pyramid challenges players to guess words from context clues. The pyramid is a collection of six words, arranged with three on the bottom, two in the middle, and one at the top. To win, teams must guess all words within the pyramid in the allotted time.
To play:
- Divide the group into teams.
- Give one player on each team the pyramid.
- The pyramid holder must give hints to teammates describing each word without using the actual name of the item.
- When players guess correctly, the pyramid master can move to the next word. Or, players can say “pass,” and return to the word later.
- Teams receive a point for every correct guess.
When determining the time limit, consider the age of your players and the difficulty of the words. In general, 30 seconds per word, or three minutes total, is a good place to start, but add or take away time to increase or decrease the challenge.
11. Invisible Bridge
Invisible Bridge is similar to six degrees of Kevin Bacon. In both games, you must figure out a way to connect two seemingly distant concepts. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon uses actors, while Invisible Bridge uses words.
To play:
- A player suggests two unrelated words.
- Player one gives a number of planks. This is how many steps other players must use to relate the two words.
- The other players think up words that share similar traits, synonyms, or connector words to move from one term to another.
An example round might look as follows:
Tiger, Astronaut, eight planks
Tiger – Balm – Lip – Service – Customer – Happy – Pills – Capsules – Space – Astronaut
Meanwhile, Tiger, Astronaut, two planks might look like this:
Tiger – meat eater – meteor – Astronaut
One fun aspect about this game is there can be more than one correct answer, and opposing teams can dispute far-reaches. Invisible bridge encourages players to think about the nature of language and the relationship between words.
12. Poetry Improv
Poetry Improv is an exercise that challenges participants to craft verses on the spot.
To play:
- Pick a poetry style, such as sonnet, haiku, acrostic, limerick, or free verse.
- Give participants vocabulary words to use within the poem.
- Allow five or ten minutes for groups or individuals to complete the verses. If playing online via meeting software, then send groups to breakout rooms to work.
- Ask poets to share the masterpieces aloud.
For extra fun, turn other players into judges by asking them to rate the poems by holding up scorecards. To make the game more fast-paced, ask players to finish each others’ phrases on the spot for a true poetic improv.
13. Synonym Memory
The rules of Memory are easy: flip over two cards at a time and look for matching pictures or words. When players find pairs, they take the cards off the board. The player with the most pairs of cards at the end of the game wins.
Synonym Memory puts a challenging spin on the simple game. Instead of hunting for exact matches, players pair up words with synonyms.
Here are some sample matches:
- enticing/tempting
- assume/suppose
- patience/restraint
- revoke/rescind
- impact/collision
The game encourages players to think in different ways, as participants will need to remember the location of the cards as well as consider meanings of words.
To play online, make your own virtual synonym memory game with an online tool and share screens to play, with one player flipping over the cards at other players’ request.
List of words to use for vocabulary games
Here is a list of great words to use in word games:
- serendipity
- fortitude
- akimbo
- sumptuous
- ineffable
- zephyr
- incorrigible
- medallion
- mauve
- bombast
- denouement
- contemporary
- gossamer
- inane
- hippodrome
- concession
- ideology
- quintessential
- prescient
- regurgitate
- gnash
- cataclysmic
- knell
For further inspiration, use a random word generator or consult online lists of difficult or intersecting words.
Conclusion
Vocabulary games and activities test and strengthen players’ communication skills. These word games minimize frustration by disguising language lessons in the form of an exciting challenge. Not to mention, simple word games are fun for adults and kids alike, and make great icebreaker activities during meetings. Most games only require words and a way to share them, so playing word games online via Zoom or similar platforms is easy.
For even more smart fun, check out our posts on problem solving games, question games and team building brain teasers.
FAQ: Vocabulary Games
Here are answers to common questions about vocabulary games and activities.
What are vocabulary games?
Vocabulary games are word and language games you can play with students, coworkers, or family and friends. These games challenge players to hunt for words or definitions, brainstorm terms, deduce phrases based on clues, or create words under certain conditions. Language games are a great way to teach new vocabulary and help students practice recognizing and using new words. These activities are also known as “vocabulary building games” and “vocab games”, and are similar to “word games” and “letter games”.
What are some fun word games for groups?
Some fun word games for groups include Pictionary, Tree or Bob Ross, and word scrambles.
What are some online vocabulary games?
By using virtual meeting software like Zoom, you can play any word game online. Some good virtual vocabulary games include Scrabble, Scattergories, and online crossword puzzles.
What are good ESL word games?
The best ESL word games are easy to understand and play yet expand the vocabularies of participants. Good ESL word games include word association, word searches, and hangman.
What are fun ways to teach vocabulary?
Word games are one of the most fun and easy ways to teach vocabulary. While some kids get frustrated with straightforward reading or language exercises, word games disguise vocabulary lessons as a fun challenge. Plus, playing language games together is a great teamwork exercise.
Word formation is of crucial importance in language learning. It gives a chance to enrich the vocabulary with the help of already-known roots and words. In this article, we will discuss affixation (adding suffixes and prefixes to the root) as a great word formation tool.
1. It is important for learners to know how to form nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. If the teacher intends to devote the lesson to noun formation suffixes, he/she may prepare a poster activity with a chart of different noun formation suffixes.
Learners are given a pack of verbs and they need to classify these verbs according to the appropriate noun formation suffIx (e.g. move, friend, revise, appear). This is a very useful activity since the learners work in groups and they come up with the forms rather than being provided with them. See an example of the chart below.
The same activity can be applied while teaching adjective or verb formation suffixes or prefixes.
2. A maze, aimed at recapping suffixes and prefixes, is a great revision activity of word formation. Students try to exit the maze looking for words which follow the same word formation rules. The task might be the following:
- find the right path choosing adjectives whose opposites start with the prefix in-.
- find adjectives which form nouns by adding ance/ ity, etc
- find the words with the correct word formation.
Students are timed and it adds extra competition spirit into the activity.
See an example of the maze activity here.
3. 3. The teacher prepares two sets of word card: prefixes/suffixes and words that fit the chosen prefixes/suffixes to create new words. Students select one card from the Words pile and try to match it with the appropriate prefix /suffix to make a new word, note the new word down, put the Words card aside, and continue until they have no Words cards left. They can play individually/in pairs, in groups, against the clock or against each other to make as many correct words as possible.
The example provided here is targeted at revising noun suffixes -ment, -tion, and -sion.
Parts of Speech Bingo is an old but a tried-and-tested way of not only teaching but also revising word formation. Teacher selects words he/she intends the students to revise and prepares bingo cards. The game can be played either in this way when learners call out names of parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb), students cross out one word at a time (even if they have several nouns on their bingo card) or read out a sentence with a gap. Students who have the fitting word say it out loud and cross it out.
5. Students stand/sit in a circle, you (or any other student) select a category (word building suffix or prefix), students pass the ball around saying the words without repeating them and you monitor whether they are correct. The first person to say the wrong word/not say anything at all is eliminated (leaves the circle). The game goes on until there are two players left. Change suffixes/prefixes for each new round. It is a super engaging game and helps the learners dig deep to find a word which fits the category.
All these games are nice tools to help learners memorize word formation affixes. In order to reinforce the material, learners may be asked to come up with sentences where they need to use some of the given words, make up stories, ask questions to their partners. In this way, the knowledge of these words seems more purposeful to them and they enjoy this great way of expanding their vocabulary.