ESL Teacher

One of my all time favourite games, and one that my students often ask for, is the tried and tested game of Hangman. In fact, it surprises me just how much my students like it, but I’m pleased because it’s a great way to fill in a spare fifteen minutes or so at the end of the day and it does wonders for their spelling and vocabulary.

For me, the key part of having a successful Hangman game in my ESL classroom is to hype it up a bit. I always put them in teams (two or three, depending on the number of students) and give them a minute to come up with a team name. I use these team names regularly throughout the game and keep a points tally, encouraging each team to try to win this round, and doing tricks like giving double points for the last round if it means another team has a chance to win then.

When I’m choosing my words, I start out with some of the new vocabulary we have studied in class recently. At some stage I’ll throw in a red herring to make the class laugh a bit – “chocolate” is a favourite of mine (although when my students know me too well, then it’s also too obvious!), or something about the weekend, or even a hobby of one of the students or something!

Occasionally, especially with more advanced classes, I get the students to play the role of game master. I might let each one choose a word from a list, or get them to simply choose their own, but I only do this if it’s a class which is already accustomed to my style of Hangman.

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