Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Kaypea]

I want to try Scrabble with a group of 8 high level first year middle school students, but I suspect they aren't QUITE at the level of "just play scrabble". Or, are they...?

Does anybody have experience with playing Scrabble or activities with a Scrabble board for a group like this? I have 2 boards, so I can split them into 2 groups of 4, do a demo play, and let them fly at it...

But, by high level, I don't mean fluent/near fluent... I mean, if I ask them what they did on the weekend, they can answer correctly. I'm worried there's a chance that they will not be able to think of words... and then they will feel betrayed (again) by Kaypea Teacher who's led them to do an overly difficult "fun" activity!

Thank you to anybody who has middle school scrabble insight!

[Fishead soup]

If I played it the board would get damaged.

[kimdeal54]

I've used Scrabble a few times with high level middle school students, just like you're planning to do.

I found that it was a bit too difficult for them to just play as normal, so I put them in pairs, and gave them 15 tiles instead of the usual 7. That worked pretty well. And they loved it.

[Illysook]

I tried to play it with my sixth graders at my first job and it was a bit too much for them. Getting beyond three letter words was nearly impossible and pretty soon the game is totally locked up with no words that can be built on. I gave up on playing it the regular way, but it did spawn a few ideas that worked out okay.

One thing that I did was to make larger laminated letter squares out of construction paper assigning them points according to the scrabble game. Then we played an assortment of alphabet and word building games with the letters. One game was very much like scrabble except we didn't use a board. Kids gained points by making words with their letters but they didn't have to connect any words. Another game was to name words that began with the letters that they pulled out of the card deck. They could keep the letter if they came up with a word that hadn't been said before and there was a time limit. When the letter cards ran out, we tallied all of the points and found the winner.

I've thought that if I tried a scrabble approach again, I might order an extra set of letters and/or make some sort of cheat cards for the students. You could also give them extra points for using vocabulary words from recent lessons.

[busanliving]

I also pair them up, and give them two racks of tikes instead of one, the first time they play can be a bit tedious but they generally get into it quite soon and most of my students beg me to let them play.

[cj1976]

Upwords is a good alternative to Scrabble. It's easier to learn and play, so younger kids can pick it up quickly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upwords

[shifty]

Scrabble works surprisingly well at even low level. Korean students have quite large vocab, their difficulty is fluency. Therefore they are at their best in the game of scrabble.

Teacher just walks around and dishes out 'hints' where necessary. The other players don't object to you giving the hints, unlike other games.. Often they are too busy after their turn trying to manipulate the replacement of tiles with the more favorable ones.

Even very moderate level students are highly motivated when it comes to big score words and their young minds can pull amazing stuff out of the hat.

Sometimes you're even glad you're not in the game when their double-jointed brains produce a coup, whilst your own brow is still furrowed.

[Confused Canadian]

If you have a computer, screen and a projector, Pogo games has a free online version. ( http://word-games.pogo.com/games/scrabble?pageSection=hp_pop_4scrabble ) However, you must select "United States and Canada" in order to play (don't worry, they don't check you're IP...think it's just a legal thingy).

You can play against the computer, and it will give you more time if you need it. At the end of the game, you can see the word list for both yourself and the computer, and review words that way. If nothing else, it might be a good way for the kids to get the hang of the game before attempting to play it themselves.

[ddeubel]

I posted previously, a heckuvalot of resources about/for scrabble.
http://ddeubel.edublogs.org/2011/04/11/scrabble-reflection-and-resources/

Love the documentary/film short I've included there. It has an edge....

DD
http://eflclassroom.com

[StavvioD]

Yup, I play scrabble with my higher-level (elementary) kids often. Because I just have one board, and about 10-12 students, I give them 10 tiles for each pair/team and then draw a big 20x20 square "board" on the whiteboard and have the students come and spell their own words. This means I can have pairs or teams of three sitting at their desks instead of all crowding around a tiny board. I have a little egg-timer/alarm thing and give each team one minute to think and write their word. One minute might not seem a lot of time at first, but soon the students will get used to it and concentrate really hard.
Allo more time if your students need it...

[Kaypea]

Thanks, everyone... It actually went really well I have 2 boards, so I had 4 kids at each board, 2 teams of 2 kids each. Each kid got one of those tile holder thingies with 7 letters, so 14 letters each. They were really into it and making some good words. I let them play for a couple of minutes, then showed them how to add an "s" or "ed" or "ing" to a word and make a good word.

One girl make a 42 point word