More on Vocabulary Games
by Graeme Thomson
I received an email the other day. Nothing particularly remarkable about that, of course, and a pretty thin ice on which to try and skate a Games for Educator’s column. What was strange, though, was that it wasn’t, as is more often the case, offering me the opportunity to receive 12 million United State (sic) Dollars from a Nigerian investment fund; nor was it informing me that my email address was the lucky winner of 9 trillion Euros courtesy of the Spannish (sic) state internet lottery and that, in both cases, all I had to in order to luxuriate in tax-free riches beyond the dreams of avarice was to furnish the sender with a few trifling details – such as my full name, address, date of birth, bank account and social security numbers, and mother’s maiden name.
No, what was unusual about this particular email was that it was in response to my last piece in Games for Educators,Please sir, can I have some more (words), and was of a tone and type that a less modest and retiring columnist might choose to describe as “fan mail”. The first hint of this was that it didn’t actually begin “Dear Sir, I am writing to complain…” or, more to the point, “Listen, ya big stiff…”. Instead, it was a thoughtful, considered and charming communication from Lynn Potyen, the owner of The Game Board, a fine game store located at 1832 N 8th St, Sheboygan WI 53081: Tel 920-453-4263 www.the-gameboard.com. In addition to being kind enough to say that she enjoyed my piece (Lynn obviously doesn’t get out much), she wanted to share with me a couple of suggestions for vocabulary games – suggestions that come from her experience of working closely with schools in her area.
Lynn’s recommendations are 2 games produced by McNeil Designs for Brighter Minds: You've Been Sentenced! and the Reader's Digest National Word Power Challenge™ Deck – an expansion set to the original You’ve Been Sentenced! Players have to make grammatically correct and justifiable sentences using the words dealt up from a deck of pentagon shaped words cards. Players then have to read their sentence and the justification for it aloud to the other players who then vote on whether to accept it. The Reader’s Digest expansion set, in particular, is a real vocabulary builder with its 4 categories of Word Origin, Fill-in-the Blank, Definitions and Synonyms. You can check them out on McNeil Design’s website: www.mcneilbrighterminds.com.
So why I am I telling you all this? Well, there are a number of reasons. One is that Lynn Potyen is obviously a delightful and discerning reader (remember, she said she enjoyed my article?) and The Game Board is clearly the sort of game store that cares about education and educators. Another is that Don McNeil of McNeil Designs is as nice a guy as you could hope to meet and he publishes great games (even if they do have the temerity to compete for shelf space in the stores with those published by my own company, HL Games). However, these are, if Lynn, Don and, indeed, you will forgive me, merely secondary considerations. The real purpose is to encourage other readers to write in with their thoughts, feedback and suggestions. Whether you’re an educator, parent, student, game store owner, game publisher, or just an interested and involved individual, please feel free to write in with your comments.
After all, we’re not going to build vocabulary (or anything else for that matter) without dialog.
Need I adumbrate further?
