Hi my name is Jema Perry and welcome to Mooncake where ESL teaching is made easy.
If you're new here then you need to know that I make weekly ESL teaching tip
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ESL teaching tips. Also real quick if you are new here say hi in the comments
below and let me know where in the world you are teaching. Fun games to get your
kids reading can be hard to come by, but there's one game that never fails and
that game is hangman. But, fun games need to be so much more than just fun. They
also need to have purpose. So today we're going to look at how to play hangman in
the classroom and stay tuned right at the end where I explain how to make sure
you're working on the right reading skills. So without further ado let's get
started. Now this game can be played in the
classroom or as part of your online lesson and all you're gonna need is a
whiteboard and some whiteboard markers. In this example I'll be explaining how
to work on students blending skills but if you're not sure what skills you
should be working on then make sure you check out my phonics teaching tip series
right here, where I go through all the basics. So in order to work on students
blending skills then by now they should have already learned the letter sounds.
So we're gonna start the class buying reviewing those sounds through a game. A
good example of a review game is Switch and I'll link it below so that you can
check it out. Now that we've reviewed those letter sounds we're ready to start
our game of hangman. So to get started we're gonna position the class in a
semi-circle with you the teacher in middle. Next we're going to draw a
stickman on the whiteboard behind us counting the body parts as we do, for
example one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Now obviously depending on the age of your students and the school that you're
teaching at, the traditional game of hangman might not be appropriate. So
instead of leading to a man hanging we're gonna disappear our stick man by
removing a body part every time students guess the wrong letter.
Next you gonna draw one line for every letter in the word that you'd like
students to guess. Now make sure that when you're choosing your words you
choose a word that's appropriate for the level of your students. Now what I mean
by this is if your students only reading CVC words and you give them a four
letter word to blend this is just going to be too much
and they're not gonna understand. Huh? Be sure to use words that are actual
blending words and that don't contain any silent letters in them. Also a few
other pointers would be to use the letter sounds instead of the letter
names, so we don't confuse them, and to make sure that the first few times that
you play you use some easy words so students get the hang of the game.
Next, we're gonna make the game competitive and there are two ways of
doing this. You can either split the class into two teams and give each team
a fun team name or you can have a class versus teacher competition. Teacher
versus students. I personally like to have a class versus teacher competition
because this tends to motivate and unite students in a quest to try and beat the
teacher, who you know, is always usually right. Just explain to the class that in
order to win they need to work out what the missing word is by guessing letters
one by one. However, every time they get the letter incorrectly then one body
part from that stickman will disappear. If that stickman disappears before
they're able to guess the word then the teacher is the winner. Once the rules are
clear then you can choose one student who's been listening particularly well
to choose a letter. Now before you reveal whether that letter is in the word or
not make sure you build up some suspense. Okay Jimmy, okay do you think he's right
I think Jimmy's right it's not /a/ there's no /a/. Next pick another student
and go again. Keep going until the word has been guessed all your stick man hath
disappeared. Now while playing if students have guessed a couple of sounds
correctly then you can show them how by blending these sounds together it can
give us a clue on what that word might be /b/ /a/ hmm what letter can we put
on the end there? Let's try /f/ /b/ /a/ /f/ no, well it is you think what else could we try?
And of course at the end once students have guessed the correct letter make
sure you have the whole class practicing that blending together. Are you ready let's
blend together /b/ /a/ /t/ bat. Now if you're watching this video and
you're really not clear about blending and other phonics skills that I'm
mentioning, make sure you check out the Mooncake English website linked
below where you can download your free phonics teaching guide. Now in this
example I showed how we could use this game to work on those blending skills.
But if you wanted to work on spelling or sight words then you could use the
letter names instead of the letter sounds to help students practice this.This also
works especially well for a sight word recognition and to help students
remember those pesky sight word Spelling's of course if your students
are a higher level then they can work on both spelling and blending together you
can even add in some diphthong and diagraphs into the game if your students
are ready. Just make sure that whatever skills you
work on they're appropriate for the level that you're teaching. So there you have
it, hangman and the different reading skills that we can work on whilst
playing. If you like this video go ahead and give it a thumbs up and comment with
the word helpful in the comments below if you're looking for more information
on phonics and how to teach it then make sure you check out the Mooncake English
website page where I go through things in more detail. That's it for this video
thanks so much for watching. You can find me on Facebook Instagram and Twitter or
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