Scrabble: it'll have 'em begging to learn

Above: Yura and Khrystyna play Scrabble against their teacher on Monday, March 16, 2009 at Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine.
The head of our English Department recently introduced a Scrabble board to the office, spurring a fight to the death between teachers on who would get to use it first. It was so popular among students that we've already had one Scrabble tournament outside of class times, complete with prizes, scoreboards and refereeing. Scrabble, it turns out, is an excellent teaching tool.

I've discovered a couple of other good teaching tricks that have worked very well. I brought a Calvin and Hobbes book back to Ukraine with me after break, and it has been a phenomenal success with the classes. The combination of pictures, dialogue and new vocabulary lets me help them with pronunciation, but is far more interesting than reading the dialogue from the book aloud. I remember not understanding the intelligent vocabulary used in this popular comic when I was a kid, but I could understand the idea of the story from the pictures.

The last tool I've introduced is the weekly quiz and vocabulary list. Students have wanted more vocabulary for some time, and the best way to make them study is through a weekly quiz format, as far as I can see. They have responded well to the structure and their vocabulary has improved.