Hangman

Hangman is a classic ELT guessing game for two or more players often used as a warmer or cooler.

One player (the hangman) thinks of a word and the other tries to guess it by suggesting letters. The word to be guessed is represented by a row of dashes corresponding to the number of letters.

If the guessing player correctly says a letter which occurs in the word, the hangman writes it its correct position(s). If the suggested letter does not occur in the word, the hangman draws one element of the hangman diagram as a tally mark. The game is over when the guessing player completes - or guesses - the word, or when the hangman completes the diagram.

PC
A more politically correct version is to draw an apple tree with ten apples, erasing or crossing out the apples as the guesses are used up.

Teacher's tip
Students often think that longer words are harder to guess, when in actual fact English is made up of many monosyllabic words with unusual consonant clusters and vowel letter combinations. Teachers challenging their class to this activity would do well to make use of this...