End Of Term Scrabble!

On Thursday 20th December 2007 one of my English classes in Hiroshima celebrated the end of the year by playing Scrabble. Scrabble is a popular board game in America, Britain and much of the English-speaking world.

Members of the English Class get stuck into Scrabble - or just get stuck?!

Two to four players score points by making words on a 15-by-15 grid. The words may be connected like a crossword, across and down the board. Each player starts with seven tiles. Each tile has a single letter on it and the players use them to make words on the board.

Players score points according to the value of the letters and where they are placed on the board.

The rules are quick and easy to learn, but learning to play well is more difficult, especially if English is not your first language, as the class members discovered!

A game in progress. Strangely, the board has been set up sideways!

We set up three games and the most experienced student and myself acted as referees while the other class members cheerfully struggled to make English words with their letter tiles and the tiles on the board...

For the first time in the whole of 2007, the whole of the class is deep in concentration!

It was hard work, but cheerfully undertaken! The verdict was that it was quite difficult to make words because you had to think about connections and the position of letters on the board, not just the letters in your hand.

However, if you keep on playing you soon get used to making connections and your vocabulary will also improve from your own efforts and by learning from other players.

You can find out more about how to play Scrabble and the history of the game at these sites:

www.mattelscrabble.com
www.hasbro.com
wikipedia.org

Play Scrabble online!

The online game is called Scrabulous. You can play free after you have registered.

Take the challenge and test your English vocabulary like never before! Go to: Scrabulous.com

Happy New Year!

David Hurley
Succeed-in-English.com