Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 2; March 03

Jumbled spelling

Ages 8 and up
Level Elementary–Intermediate
Time 5–10 minutes
Focus Accuracy and fluency in spelling out loud, understanding spelling out loud
Functions Warm-up, closer

This activity (described here with a monolingual class in mind) personalizes practice in spelling names and words out loud.

Preparation

Think of a member of your family and note down this person's first name (or the equivalent) with the letters jumbled up. For example, if you are thinking of a grandmother named Lillian, you might write 'lanilil'.

Procedure

1. Tell your class that you are going to spell two names out loud and that they should write these names down.
2. On the board, write, "What was that again?" and say that if anyone wants anything spelled out again, that is what they should say.
3. Spell the jumbled name and repeat it two or three times if asked.
4. Find someone who thinks they have got the letters right and ask them to spell them out as you did. When you find someone who can do it correctly, ask a few others to repeat what s/he has said.
5. Write the first jumbled name on the board and ask one or two students to spell it out loud.
6. Ask if anyone can guess what the name is. If no one can guess, tell them. Also tell them a little about this person.
7. Repeat with the second name.
8. Form the class into pairs.
9. Ask everyone to write down three jumbled names of people in their family. Stress that they should all hide what they write from their partner.
10. Tell them to work like this—
    Student A dictates a name. B can ask for repetitions. Student A says whether B is right or not and gives B one chance to guess the name. If B is wrong or has no idea, student A says the name and then says a few things about the person. Then B dictates a name, and so on in alteration.

Variation

• Focus on surnames.
• Focus on content words of a specified minimum length (e.g., six letters). Suggest, for instance, that the words used must come from a story they've just read or from their class notes for the previous week's lessons.
• Pre-teach names of (or ways of describing) any diacritical marks that may be necessary. For example, ö can be described as an 'o' with two dots over it.

Comment

• The rationale for jumbling the letters is that in monolingual classes—especially ones whose members know each other fairly well—students may find it easy to guess spellings without actually listening attentively. If your students do not share the same mother tongue, there is no need to ask them to spell the names with the letters jumbled.
• Remind your class that an unjumbled name always begins with a capital letter.

Seth Lindstromberg