ESL Reading Activities for Teenagers and Adults by Jackie Bolen

Author:Jackie Bolen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: esl reading, reading esl, reading, writing, and learning in esl, teaching esl reading, esl teaching reading, english reading comprehension, esl reading comprehension, esl reading activities, esl reading activity, esl reading game, esl reading games
Publisher: Jackie Bolen
Published: 2020-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

Puzzles

Skills: Reading/writing

Reading Sub-Skill: Reading for detail

Time: 10-30 minutes

Level: Beginner-intermediate

Materials Required: A puzzle

Puzzles are an excellent way to review vocabulary and I find that most students enjoy doing them, particularly teenagers. They can also work very well for “quiet” classes that don't have a lot of outgoing students in them where it's hard to do some of the more active games like charades. They help students read for detail as they have to pay close attention to exactly what the clue says in order to answer the question correctly.

It's really easy to make puzzles yourself using something like Discovery.com's Puzzlemaker (www.discoveryeducation.com/free-puzzlemaker) and it's actually the preferable option since you can include all the specific vocabulary that you'd like. I prefer to use the criss-cross option because it has the most educational benefit since it deals with meanings as well as vocabulary words.

Teaching Tips:

It's up to you whether or not to allow dictionaries or textbooks. In my experience, dictionaries don't really help that much while the course book where the words came from really does. You could also say that for the first five minutes, they must only use their brains, but they can use anything they want after that. If there is a particularly hard one that no student is able to get, I'll give the entire class a hint.

Procedure:

1. Go to Discovery.com and find the Puzzlemaker.

2. Design your puzzle (criss-cross is best!), using words and definitions. Alternatively, you could give hints about the word related to the context you'd use it in instead of the actual definition. Here are two examples:

This animal has black and white stripes (skunk).

If a _____ sprays you, you'll smell really bad (skunk).

3. Have students complete the puzzle. I usually make it a bit competitive by putting them in pairs and awarding the first couple of teams a prize of some sort.

4. It's up to you whether or not to allow dictionaries or textbooks. In my experience, dictionaries don't really help that much while the course book where the words came from really does. You could also say that for the first five minutes, they must only use their brains, but they can use anything they want after that. If there is a particularly hard one that no student is able to get, I'll give the entire class a hint.

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