In the era of digitalization and modernization of education all around the world, teachers of foreign languages, including English, are in a constant search for new contemporary forms and kinds of tasks to use together with the direct, the communicative and/or the lexical approach for fulfilling the current needs of their students and meet the requirements of the educational system of their respective country. Although these modern computerized task examples are appealing to both teachers and their students and may be indeed useful, in order to make the lesson of the second language (L2) educational and entertaining at the same time, teachers can also implement well-known and reliable tasks into their practical lessons, for example crossword puzzles.
The use of crossword puzzles in educational purposes with the focus on the foreign languages specifically has been on the radar of practical and theoretical teachers as well as researches in the fields of linguistics, pedagogy, methodology and others [1; 2; 3], because of its relatively long history of existing in various spheres of human life [4], including this of education. In this paper the focus stays on the advantages and disadvantages of the higher mentioned form of task for practicing vocabulary within the topic of art among students, learning English as L2.
To help students with familiarization and memorization of words, word combinations and phrases, describing art, its spheres, characteristics, features, representatives and concepts in general and particularly, teachers can offer their learners to engage in completing the puzzle, provided by the former. Such an activity may involve individual work or student participation in a group discussion. The first way allows language learners to rely solely on their personal existing knowledge, concentrate more on their memory and be responsible for their choices. Besides, such kind of activity ads competiveness to the general process of vocabulary working out as students not only check their knowledge in the topic of art but also are eager to complete the task faster than their groupmates. The second form of crossword solving includes work in small groups or together where each and every student can give a suggestion, approve or disapprove a suggested option, take part in brainstorming and help individuals around them while being supported as well. Both of the ways of activity organization in class may involve the third type of complete orientation, especially in the latter one, while students think and solve the puzzle themselves, only following the general steps and requirements offered by their teacher.
Another way to conduct a lesson with the use of crossword puzzles is to assign a task for the students to create their own crosswords using active vocabulary. Engaging in such an activity, the students can even feel like detectives, implementing a deductive method to the mystery they are to create for their groupmates if they decide to begin their work with the description of the lexical item and move slowly to the broad picture of their crossword.
One of the advantages of crossword puzzles used for vocabulary learning and revision is creativeness. Suggested additionally to other traditional tasks like translation or drills, solving a lexical crossword puzzle and especially creating one is wonderful inclusion of the students’ creative thinking into the design and puzzle orientation process, its fulfillment and discussion, which leads to another benefit of this kind of task. Logical thinking is important for getting the correct answer, choosing an appropriate word or word combination to fit into the certain number of squares and coincide with the letter of other words, which are already written in the crossword.
The use of the students’ background knowledge becomes handy as well, because it allows L2 learners to come up with options for the gaps faster after reading the description or context for the alleged word or word combination and provides them with a broader choice of lexical items to think about for the correct answer. Memory also plays an important role in the crossword puzzle solving, bringing the concepts up to the surface of students’ mind and developing at the same time. Learners train their memory due to the fact that they usually cannot but get acquainted with new collocations while reading the description of the hidden lexical item and face their active vocabulary over and over again when they go through the variants for the particular question in the puzzle on a certain topic.
The most important advantage for language learning, including this of English, is the opportunity to include different parts of speech as example of single vocabulary items and word combination, which leads to a deeper dive into the topic from the students’ perspective. In this way get to know how to use the suggested vocabulary in context, which they can also see in the clue/description section the crossword. For instance, to practice and revise their vocabulary, the third-year-students of the School of Foreign Languages, Kharkiv Karazin National University were given a task to complete a puzzle on art [5], created specifically for them on platform Crossword Labs and based on their active vocabulary. It included nouns, verbs in the infinitive form, verbal nouns, and adjectives.
Fig. 1. Art Crossword Puzzle
The focus on spelling is considered to be the greatest of pros in the mentioned form of task as by the main idea of the crossword is to fill in the blanks, typing in the word or word combination letter by letter. This activity provides better memorization of the lexical items among the students working with the topic, of art in particular. Moreover, in the crossword puzzle mentioned higher, the English language learners face a compound noun and a compound adjective, which additionally brings them to the topic of the use of hyphens in compound words.
Despite the number of advantages, crosswords as a form of task for students engaged in the L2 learning may have some cons. Firstly, it involves the limited amount of macroskills engaged in the process of working on the puzzle mystery – reading with some elements of writing if the students create their own crossword, which in a modern-day reality is easily substituted with typing with preset autocorrecting systems. Secondly, this task can be useful if offered to the students as an addition to their regular activities, because it requires a certain level of knowledge in the topic and cannot be used at the beginning or in the middle of the theme. Thus, teachers are limited to use it for summarizing purposes for it to be used to advantage.
In conclusion, it is important to state that if thought out thoroughly and implemented for the revision and extra practice with active vocabulary, the crossword puzzle task is a great and relatively simple form of activity for the students who learn foreign languages, including English, to make their lessons more diverse and entertaining and turn vocabulary learning into a simpler and more creative process.
References
1. Burston J. Theoretical foundations of crossword puzzle usage in foreign language vocabulary acquisition. URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259442149_Theoretical_foundations_of_ crossword_puzzle_usage_in_foreign_language_vocabulary_acquisition (Last accessed: 24.05.2024).
2. Wefi A., Dzulfikri D., Elfiyanto, S. The Effect of Crossword Puzzles on Learners’ Vocabulary Development in EFL Context. EDUTEC: Journal of Education and Technology. 2023. № 7(1). P. 46–58. DOI: 10.29062/edu.v7i1.715.
3. Sadiyah W., Septiani W., Kareviati E. Improving English Vocabulary Mastery by Using Crossword Puzzle. PROJECT (Professional Journal of English Education). 2019. Vol. 2. № 2. P. 110–114. DOI: 10.22460/project.v2i2.p110-114.
4. The Crossword's Puzzling History by Rosemary and Richard Christophers. URL: https://www.thelightbox.org.uk/blog/the-crosswords-puzzling-history#:~:text=The%20first%20crossword%20was%20published,United%20States%20in %20the%201890's (Last accessed: 24.05.2024).
5. Words – Crossword Labs. URL: https://crosswordlabs.com/view/vocabulary-73590 (Last accessed: 24.05.2024).
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