7 Word Formation Games

Alex Case

Fun classroom activities for prefixes and suffixes, especially useful for FCE, CAE and other exam classes.

Word formation is the addition of affixes like -ly and semi- to make longer words and different kinds of speech. Although it is often included in EFL exams and higher-level textbooks, it still probably gets just a few percent of the attention of lists of similar vocabulary, let alone tenses. Perhaps one reason for that is the lack of fun things you can do with it, something that this article seeks to start redressing.

Word formation brainstorming races

Give students a couple of minutes to brainstorm words with a single affix, e.g. il- or –ity. If it isn’t a prefix, you could also give them an additional two minutes with a (paper) dictionary to try to add to their answers. Then give them a big list of such words to compare their answers to (something which you can easily make by searching the internet for lists of words “beginning with…” or “ending with…” then editing the lists down). If there are patterns in those words (e.g. im- usually being with words beginning in P or M), see if they can work them out for themselves, perhaps with some good examples highlighted to help them.

There are also ways of making this more competitive, e.g. as Board Race or with different groups brainstorming different things and correcting each other (losing points if their corrections didn’t turn out to be correct).

Word formation list dictation

This is kind of the opposite of the game above. Read out a list of words which have something in common, e.g. words which take –en to make verbs (broad, wide, length, etc). Students listen to the list until they work out the missing affix, with five points for a correct guess, minus one point for a guess which isn’t true about those words, and no points for a guess which is also true but isn’t what the teacher is thinking of. They can then do the same thing with a version of the worksheet that the teacher is reading from with the answers taken out, check their answers, and test each other in groups. They could also use dictionaries or the internet to make similar lists to test other groups with.

A variation is to read a list of words that already have affixes on them in which all the affixes have the same meaning, e.g. –ship for relationships, asking students to guess the meaning of the affix for that list of words.

Word formation snap/pelmanism

This is a livelier game for practising several similar ways of forming words, e.g. un-, il-, ir- and im- for opposites or –ment, -ness and –ity for nouns. Prepare a pack of cards without those affixes. With the usual rules of Snap or Pelmanism, students have to try to get cards by finding pairs which match by the affix that could be added to them.

Word formation sentence halves matching pairwork

Find or create some sentences that include the affixes that you are practising. Split the sentences at the affix, e.g. “A sense of wonder” “ment is essential in a great artist”. As in this example, the sentence halves should be matchable by both the affix and the meaning. Give the sentences halves to different students and ask them to match them without showing them to each other (i.e. just speaking and listening). They should try to do so just with the split words first, then use the whole sentence to check their answers. There are several ways of organising this. The easiest is to give pairs of students Student A and Student B worksheets with the sentence halves in mixed up order, asking them to match sentence starter 1 with sentence ending J etc. It can also be organised as a mingling activity with single cut up sentence halves, with students coming up to the teacher for more when they think they have found matches.

Word formation jigsaw text

This is like an extended version of the task above. Cut up a whole text before suffixes and after prefixes, e.g. “The plan was completely il” “conceived and badly planned but somehow the original” “ity of how it was carried out made some kind of crazy sense and…” Students work together to put the text back together from logical and word formation clues. It might also be possible to design this as an oral task.

Word formation Call My Bluff

Students find examples of real word formation in a dictionary and make up two or three wrong alternatives, e.g. “punishment”, “punishness” and “punishation”. They read them out to another group, seeing if they can fool them about which one is the real one.

Something similar can also be done with written exercises such as FCE Use of English word formation ones. Students fill the gaps with a mix of the real and wrong answers and other groups see if they can spot which is which.

Word formation sentence transformations

The keyword sentence transformation exercises in FCE Use of English can also be used for word formation, e.g. by giving them “I was happily playing in the sandpit when the snake appeared – happy” for them to make “Playing in the sandpit was making me happy when the snake appeared”. Games with this include memory games like Grammar Reversi and challenging them to use as many different forms of the underlined word as they can to express exactly the same meaning as the original sentence.

Written by Alex Case for EnglishClub.com

Alex Case is the author of TEFLtastic and the Teaching...: Interactive Classroom Activities series of business and exam skills e-books for teachers
© EnglishClub.com

37 comments

karen says:

This article proposes different activities to form words, which are useful and practical, because they range from very practical activities to activities that are a bit more rigid.
I think they are activities that I can implement, because they can help me improve my vocabulary. I did not know many of these exercises, but they are very ingenious, I liked them.
carlos says:

In my opinion, this article expands the vocabulary with activities that are easy to understand
Tania ariza says:

This article proposes different activities to form words, which are useful and practical, because they range from very practical activities to activities that are a bit more rigid.
I think they are activities that I can implement, because they can help me improve my vocabulary. I did not know many of these exercises, but they are very ingenious, I liked them.
Tania ariza says:

Me parece muy interesante ya que a través de diferentes juegos didácticos estamos aprendiendo nuevo vocabulario teniendo otra perspectiva de enseñar y entretener al alumno para que tenga más ganas o amor por aprender otro idioma
Angie Monta says:

The article is interesting and encourages us to learn through creativity and that it is possible in different ways.
Laura Meneses says:

This article help us to improve our vocabulary in a fun way to learn.
angie vergara says:

the activities is very interesting for the learn of the students
Yasser Rodriguez says:

This article is very enriching, it allows us to know different strategies to confirm words, which allows me to nurture and improve my vocabulary
Lina Guerrero says:

This article shows and explain how using multiple words can be fun and having the results of providing new words by formating these groups of words
Angie Martínez says:

The proposal made in this article is very interesting, because it presents some ways in which the vocabulary can be expanded that are easy to put into practice
LAURA VANESSA PARRA says:

In my opinion, the activities are very interesting and didactic which allows easy understanding.
Jorge Ibáñez says:

The proposed activities are fantastic, and will certainly help us a lot in our process
Liceth Figueroa says:

these games help to understand better in a didactic way
Fabian Lasso says:

This article proposes different activities to form words, which are useful and practical, because they range from very practical activities to activities that are a bit more rigid.
I think they are activities that I can implement, because they can help me improve my vocabulary. I did not know many of these exercises, but they are very ingenious, I liked them.
Fabian Lasso says:

I find it very interesting since through different didactic games we are learning new vocabulary having another perspective of teaching and entertaining the student to have more will or love to learn another language
Danna Poveda says:

I find it very interesting since through different didactic games we are learning new vocabulary having another perspective of teaching and entertaining the student to have more will or love to learn another language
Camilo Henao says:

I think all of these are very good games so we have many options to choose and learn more
LAURA NATALIA MALAVER ORTIZ says:

THESE GAMES ARE A GOOD IDEA TO LEARN EASIER AND IN A BETTER WAY
Julian Puerta says:

The activities are very good since we can learn, study and review the topics seen in the classes.
Maira Alejandra Proaños says:

In my opinion, the activities are very interesting and didactic which allows easy understanding.
Sebastian Felipe Cortes Aldana says:

I find it very interesting, since through different didactic games you not only play but also learn new vocabulary, and the traditional way of teaching new vocabulary is left a little behind.
Laura Sofia Roa Sanchez says:

In my personal opinion it is a very interesting and enriching article, there is a lot of variety of vocabulary, it is important to know more vocabulary and how to combine them.
yudy silva says:

nice,
Camila Pulido says:

Thanks for the information, It’s very interesting because teaches us new didactic ways for we learn vocabulary and we can develop new skills as the analysis.
PAULINE ANDREA PUENTES MACIAS says:

Excelent
valentina G says:

The word formation snap is somethingfun that helps to memorize words of a form very quickly.
Alex Case says:

Photocopiable examples of some of the ideas I put in this article here: https://tefltastic.wordpress.com/worksheets/vocabulary/word-formation/
Juli Tatiana Alfonso Vargas says:

This is a good material to improve our vocabulary as a students and improve our knowledge in english words in a different way. I like it!
Alejandro Torres says:

I think all of these are very good games so we have many options to choose and learn more
FELIPE says:

NICE ACTIVITY
YIRLEY ADRIANA PINTO AGUDELO says:

Thank you for sharing this with us, because many times it is difficult to differentiate when I should use a word with a similar meaning so this can help me improve and expand my vocabulary.
Nataly Andrea Paez Velasquez says:

In my opinion, the article develops a great interest in learning in all of us as students eager to continue with our acquisition of new knowledge but also to reinforce many others.
MAYRA FERNANDA RAMIREZ FORERO says:

This article shows different word games showing that they are useful in practice, because they can be done from home. I was unaware of many of these.
Claudia Acosta says:

This article proposes different activities to form words, which are useful and practical, because they range from very practical activities to activities that are a bit more rigid.
I think they are activities that I can implement, because they can help me improve my vocabulary. I did not know many of these exercises, but they are very ingenious, I liked them.
Charles Garvins says:

Want to learn more
Shukri says:

I want leant more
Shukri says:

I want to learn more