The English Language in Educational Games

The English language, an amalgam of an incredible number of other languages, is by its nature highly adaptable. You can play some great English games with word structure format and spelling. One such example that is a fun educational game is to analyse where a word came from, and then write a sentence or paragraph with as many words from other languages as possible, and it has to make sense!

The dynamic expansion of the internet, global travel, TV and films have all conspired to extend the use of English even further and add to its international content. English is not a pure language. Words in frequent use originate from the Anglo Saxons, Italy, Spain, Germany, India, China, France, Greece as well ancient languages such as Latin. We are not alone in this activity. Some English words, or to be more precise, words used in England, have been exported and at no charge – aren’t we generous. Interestingly some words and expressions that have moved overseas have been largely abandoned in England. “The fall” used in the USA to describe the season that in the UK is referred to as autumn was in common usage in England, travelling to the States with the pilgrim fathers. The fall, as a word, is perhaps a lot more descriptive of the season. Maybe we should grab it back.

Spelling had also evolved. Colour has become color in the states, humour is humor. So here is another English game, this time an English spelling game - Deadletters: List as many words that contain letters that are not pronounced in the word. The H in ghost for example; the word could just as well be spelt as gost without any change in the sound of the word. There is a society in the UK that want all redundant letters to be removed from the English language. Should this be leters removed ? ( You can imagine the spellcheck facility on this PC has just about given up at this point. The page is a sea of red underlining ! )

Here’s another literacy game based on phonetics - Phonetricks; How is ghoti pronounced? The answer is fish. The word is formed by pronouncing the “gh” as “f” as in cough. The “o” is pronounced as “ i” as in women, and the “ti” is pronounced as “sh” as in station . How many weird words can you make up with unusual spelling from the phonetic sounds rather than the correct spelling?

The last game is similar a it also revolves around phonetics - the sound of words. Fonetix is a game where words are made up that can be easily pronounced but spelt differently from the real word? Replace existing words with a clearer amd much shorter interpretation based on the sound. This is the forte ( 4tay) of advertising agencies who use the technique it to invent similar sounding words to avoid competition and register the name as a trade mark. Weetabix and of course keen2learn, U-haul for You Haul are examples. The great thing is the adaptability of the English language. Just think of the new words or spelling being developed by a generation of children texting on mobile phones (fones) . But don’t take the games too seriously. We all have exams to pass and some of the words that can be developed don’t exist in the eyes of the examiners – yet.