Creating Word Search Puzzles with a Pedagogical Purpose

Abstract

Word search puzzles can be a fun way to add interest and variety to the regular assignments and activities in a foreign language class. These puzzles consist of a grid of letters that appear in random order, but which contain hidden words that may appear forwards, backwards, up, down, or diagonally (Figure 1). Generally, a list of the hidden words is provided and the object is to find and mark each word. Until recently, teachers wanting to use such puzzles have had to rely on puzzles included with the textbook or workbook, or undergo the timeconsuming process of either locating a puzzle elsewhere and adapting it for classroom use, or creating their own puzzle. Creating word search puzzles by hand can be a tedious process. One way is to use graph paper, which already has squares. The teacher fills in the words to be searched, with one letter per square, and then fills in the remaining squares with random letters. Finally, the teacher makes a list of all the words that are hidden in the puzzle. Fortunately, computer technology has greatly streamlined the process of making word search puzzles. One popular Internet site, >, allows the Windows or Macintosh user to create several different puzzles, including word search and word search with hidden message puzzles. The user can enter a puzzle title, control the grid size, select whether to use each letter only once or to share letters, and choose between HTML or text output. Words used in the puzzle are automatically sorted alphabetically. Although foreign characters can be used, the German 13 is not recognized as a valid letter and filler letters do not contain any umlauted characters, making any words with umlauts easy to spot. Finally, a user account can be set up for puzzles to be saved online for later use by the teacher or students. Another way that computers can be used to create word search puzzles is with Brett C. Hilbig's freeware program for Macintosh, Word Find v 1.4.1 >. Among other things, Word Find allows the user to enter a title, control the grid size, and select the hidden word direction. Foreign language users will appreciate the ability to customize the character set, which is used not only for the words, but also for the filler letters as well. Although words are not sorted automatically, a simple click of a button will perform the sort. The created puzzles can be saved as a text file or printed. Finally, the program allows teachers to save or print puzzle key with the hidden words already circled. The aforementioned programs simplify the process of creating basic word search puzzles that require students to look at a word list and find and mark those words in the puzzle (Figure 1). There may not be much pedagogical purpose in such an exercise, except to perhaps provide familiarity with a group of vocabulary words in German. Teachers should ask themselves what goals they are trying to accomplish by having their students use a word search puzzle. With minor modifications, a greater pedagogical purpose could be added to the puzzle. It is easy to modify word puzzles that have been saved as text files. A word-processing program, such as WordPerfect or Microsoft Word, can be us d to edit the puzzle. Care should be taken to ensure that a mono-spaced font, such as Courier, is used for the puzzle grid, rather than a proportionally-spaced font. Otherwise, the letters in the grid will not line up properly in straight columns. Once the puzzle is edited as needed, it can then be saved as a text file or a regular word-processing file. Among other things, word search puzzles can focus on vocabulary or grammar. The following sections provide examples of these basic vocabulary and grammar word search puzzles and a vari-