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English JET Middle School Murakami

Boggle

Ahh, this is the life.While in Shibata on Sunday, I found a game of Boggle at the Hobby Off.  I bought it in a hurry, even though it was like 11 bucks and was missing the sand timer. I brought it to the middle school for the three days I was there this week, and used it in my classes. Student response was varied, although overall I was impressed with how well they did. I of course simplified the rules, allowing them to use letters in the 4×4 grid in any combination and any number of times in a word. I also had the students choose what letters to put in the grid, which resulted in 16 of the easiest letters in our 26-letter alphabet being on the board. But, still, they had to assemble words from their own memory, and from the textbooks in front of them, which I think was good recognition practice and got their brains working. One group of girls, who otherwise didn’t have very many words (one group had 26) found “Merry Christmas,” which, as they were sad to learn, is two words.

While the lessons went well, I was more impressed with the interest that other teachers and students showed in the game while I was at my desk, walking in the halls, leaving school. In those occasions, I would try to be a good linguacultural ambassador and show them the game as it is actually played. I would have expected that students would find it too difficult and lose interest, but the opposite was true. Even on a board with three L’s, three I’s, two R’s and a Qu with no other vowels, three second grade girls gave me their undivided attention for 10 solid minutes, and I was the one who had to call it quits. Outside in the parking lot, a group of eight or nine boys stood around me as I shook the letter cubes over and over again. One boy immediately stood out, finding words before I did, including making an entire sentence: “I use rope.” Not bad for a 13-year old non-native speaker of English playing by real Boggle rules. Here’s the game board he was working with. See if you can do any better.

boggle-1.jpg

5 replies on “Boggle”

here are a few that I found—- here,goal,hero,halo,lope,use,user,wipe,wiper,wipes,spore,hop,hope,hops,gila,or,spoil,sew,lips,polo,wise,wiser,lies,sue,log,sip.

without looking at ali’s (trust me)

her pore spore use, pile, spoil, lag, silo, lip wipe, lie, pig, wipes, wiper, hop hope , lies, hopes, hoper(noun, right./ cmon!) here, herpes, HALO…awesome….hero, pie pies, piles, pi, oli(as ain olifactory…CMON)

I dunno….

that IS impressive. kudos to the thirteen-year-old-non-nativespeakerofenglishplayingbyrealbogglerules. (now gasping for air)

I was gonna make a great joke about this being the second time today I found “herpes”, but it looks like someone else already found it. But I will add “goalies” and “hoagies” and “repiles” (not a typo for “reptiles”) to the word list. I think that gives me the longest words. HAHA. Sorry, I’m competitive.

also: galore, reuse, lisp, lisper?, the singular of the words mentioned above and also the way to spell “glorious” if it is your rapper name (you’ll see it).

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