These are some tools especially for teaches (in my humble estimation) in that they (of all people) need to model such aspects of personal deportment as speaking one’s language with some clarity. These online apps (see below) can be seen as a way to do a little cleaning up around the edges, or as a means toward developing some real mastery of one’s native tongue (fewer people than you might imagine speak that well…).
8 More Word Games You Can Play To Sharpen Your Language Skills
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-word-games-play-sharpen-language-skills
Verbotomy
The How to Play section of this word game describes it simply – Verbotomy is about creating words. Everyday a definition along with a cartoon is there for you to create a ‘new’ word. That’s a ‘verboticism’. After you create your verboticism, you can vote for other authors’ words to help select the winning verboticism for the definition. It’s a simple four step process – read the definition; create a new word; save your word; and vote for your favorite word. The screenshot above shows how the daily challenges are played out.
Word Association
On first look, this game does not seem to have any practical utility you can think of, apart from jogging your grey cells. You play the game by associating a new word to the word displayed on the screen. The challenge is to not break the chain of related words for as long as possible. The statistics page reveals the strong and weak word associations as the database gets built up around the words. Try it, the game progressively gets difficult, and you will soon find yourself approaching the limits of your vocabulary.
Turn-O-Phrase
This is a game even kids can play. You are given a picture (or pictures) that stand in place of common English words, phrases, proverbs, or sayings. You have to guess what it is and enter it in the white box underneath the pictures. Solve each word puzzle and move on to the next picture in the series. As you play, you will earn points for solving each puzzle. If you get flummoxed, you can use the ‘Hint’ button to discover one of the hidden words. Of course each hint reduces the points you get when this particular puzzle is solved.
Crickler is a not so easy game that can break you out of your language lull. What can you say when the instructions are themselves in the form of a letter puzzle. Clicker News Puzzles takes it cues from news items. You have to guess the words from the clues and fill up the boxes. The game has its own ‘artificial intelligence’ which adapts to your skill level. Each Crickler also works with a handicap system – just like golf – the lower your handicap; the more difficult will be the puzzle.
Clockwords
Clockwords is Flash game that takes you into Victorian London. As a brainiac inventor you have just made a machine that runs on the power of language. Just then your lab is broken into by mechanical insects sent by a rival inventor that have come to steal your secrets! You must think and type quickly to fend off the invaders. Just type in the right words and zap the pests.
The Enigma Device
The main site WordZap is filled with word games of different types, but I think you would like to try out this classic game based on the famous coding decoding device from WWII. The Java based game displays a histogram showing letter frequencies and a scrambled humorous quotation on top. Your task is to use one-letter substitutions to unscramble the code. It hasn’t been updated for a while but is still fun to play.
