The Alphabet Game is a very useful 5 minute end-of-lesson vocabulary game or warmer.

Simply get each student (or group) to write a letter of the alphabet on each line of a blank sheet of paper. If you play this game often with the class and they’re already familiar with the letters of the alphabet you can have these sheets already photocopied.

Now decide on a subject or semantic field and have the students try to find a words in that group which begins with each letter of the alphabet.

Suppose you choose “things you can eat” then the list might begin:

• Apple
• Banana
• Cake
• Duck
• Egg

…and so on.

The winner is either the group which finds 26 items first or the group which finds the most items in the allotted time – say 5 minutes.

Use

The game is very useful to revise vocabulary in a few minutes at the end of the lesson, especially when you have the items the students must find related to the general theme of the lesson. Suppose, for example, you have been looking at giving directions in the lesson, you could have the class put together an alphabet of buildings on a city street map:

• Art Gallery
• Bank/Bus Station
• Car Park/Church/Cathedral
• Delicatessen
• E
• Fire Station
• Graveyard
• Hospital/Hotel
• I
• J
• K
• L
• Museum
• N
• O
• Post Office/Park/Pub/Police Station
• Q
• Railway Station
• Supermarket
• Town Hall
• University
• V
• Waterworks
• X
• Youth Hostel
• Zoo

Of course, you can encourage swapping so that they can move around the class and swap items to try and fill their list. Needless to say students can only speak English during the swapping. No MT allowed!