My favourite English word

A fun warmer and peer teaching activity is to take a pack of post its.

Give one post it to each student in the class.  Ask them to think about their favourite English word and to write it on the post it.  Get each student to stand up and stick the post it with their word on a wall/the board.


Tell them read all the words, then to go back to their chairs.


Ask them questions to find out how much they remember:


1  What was the longest word?  (number of letters)


2  What was the shortest word?  (number of letters)


3  Which word has the most syllables?


4  Which was the most common first letter for your words?


5  Did anyone write the same word as you?


6  Do you really like any of the words (apart from your own)?


Next, in pairs or small groups, ask them to tell each other about their words - Why do you like your word?   When/where did you learn it?


When I have done this activity in class and in seminars, it's amazing how many of the words began with 'b' or 's'.  


This activity provides an ideal opportunity to discuss with students ways of remembering and noticing words.  They can hopefully use some of them for learning (and liking!) other words.

For more activities with post-its to use in the classroom, you could check out this website.




On the subject of favourite words, you could ask them to visit the post on this subject on the Macmillan Dictionary Blog and read which words other people have chosen and why.


I particularly liked these comments:  

I’ve never thought about that before but I guess it’s environment. When I was a student it was so difficult to pronounce it that when I finally learned I never forgot 
And I don’t know if it makes any sense but nowadays I’m really concerned about the environment lol

I guess it’s flip-flop, to me it sounds funny, especially when pronounced fast.

And an article about a survey carried out in 2004 by the British Council, involving 40,000 people in 102 countries, reports that the top five words were mother, passion, smile, love, eternity.


Some of my favourite English words are pernickety, cute and huge (I like short words with /ju:/, glimpse (I love the collection of consonants in this one).


What about YOU?  What's YOUR favourite English word?