P I Z ZA Z
People Interested in Zippy and ZAny Zcribbling

PIZZAZ has been an Online Resource since 1995 from Leslie Opp-Beckman
For Scribblers and Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)

http://www.uoregon.edu/~leslieob/pizzaz.html

Description for A-to-Z Discovery Game: This game works well in many sizes and in more than one type of media.

ESOL student level:
These activities scale well to beginner through advanced level proficiency and can be used with all ages.

For more activities:
Return to PIZZAZ!

Instructions

Students can build the game using paper as a set of open-and-shut "windows" or "doors" (squares), or it can be designed as a website with clickable squares. See example of a clickable website for the city of: Eugene, Oregon, USA.

  1. Students work individually, in pairs or in small groups and choose a central theme or topic as a focus point for their games (having students choose different topics will create more opportunities for sharing and reading afterward).

  2. The game board should have a "window" or "door" for each letter of the alphabet. Build the game so that each letter of the alphabet in the game represents something about that central theme. Put the matching answer behind each letter of the alphabet. For example, in the Eugene, Oregon, USA game, A = Arts in the Planet Eugene publication; B = Bijou Theater; C = Club Sports on the University of Oregon campus, etc..

  3. Can you guess what the answers will be?
    When the game is built, students from other pairs or groups open the paper windows or click on the letters to discover the answers. The game board may look something like the following.

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

THE

END

 

Variations

  • If you are in poetry mode, the words in each row can rhyme.
  • If you are working on a specific grammar point, you can require that the words all match in that way (e.g. all nouns, or all gerunds, or all past tense verbs, etc.).

© 2010, Leslie Opp-Beckman, Ph.D., Distance Education Coordinator and ESOL Instructor
Email: leslieob@uoregon.edu
URL: http://www.uoregon.edu/~leslieob/
5212 University of Oregon, Linguistics Department, American English Institute Eugene, Oregon 97403-5212 USA
Permission to copy and distribute for educational, non-profit use only.
This page last updated: 26 March 2010
University of Oregon