I’ve Never Seen That Word Before!

Aim:	to give students practice in guessing unknown words and increase their confidence; providing students with an effective way of dealing with words they don’t know
Target Audience:	students
Relevance to IELTS:	Academic Reading
Organisation:	students work individually on the worksheet and then check with a partner
Materials needed:	Worksheet

1. Ask students how they feel when they meet an unknown word in a test, and what they can do to work out the meaning.
   
   
2. Give out the worksheet and ask students to complete it and then check with a neighbour.
   
   
3. Go through the worksheet and discuss why students chose the answers they did.
   
   
4. Ask students to take turns to write a sentence (on the board, if possible), with one word replaced by a nonsense word.
   
   
5. The rest of the class guesses the meaning of the nonsense word. This could be done in teams and points awarded for correct (or plausible) guesses.

Notes/Variations:

• You could target more difficult words depending on the level of your students.