C1 Advanced word formation board game

C1 Advanced word formation gets to be quite tricky. You might occasionally get an easy word, but you’ll also get multiple changes and uncommon vocabulary thrown at you.

Red, blue and yellow wooden playing pieces on a board game

Contents

Practising C1 word formation

You can do lessons on negative prefixes, lessons on uncommon suffixes and many other C1 Advanced word formation strategies. However, the fact remains that one of the best ways to improve this part of the exam is to go over possible word forms again and again until they start to pop up in your students’ active memories. Be careful though. This can become boring pretty fast if not done right. So, let’s make it fun by converting that repetition into a board game. Everyone loves rolling dice!

In C1 Advanced Reading and Use of English Part 3, you change a base word to fit a gap in a text. A word like bear can become bearable, unbearable or unbearably. Remembering the adjective is a start, but can you produce the negative adverb too? The game practises recalling these forms. In the exam, you’ll still need the surrounding sentence to choose the right one.

Check here for lots more word formation games.

How to play

Take turns rolling the dice and moving your counter along the board.
Land on a word and give as many different forms as you can. Score 2 points for each correct answer and lose 1 point for each incorrect answer.
Follow the instructions on the special spaces, including missed turns and extra rolls.
The first player to finish gets 10 bonus points. Add up the scores to find the winner.

Keep a dictionary handy for disputed answers. Afterwards, collect a few word families that caused problems and ask students to use the new forms in sentences.

The materials

C1 Advanced word formation board game materials

This C1 Advanced word formation board game includes words that are commonly seen in the Cambridge C1 Advanced exam. Use the Breakout English version to test your students’ ability to remember the most common word formation words, or make your own board game and challenge your students to remember the really tough ones.

EXAM PART: C1 Advanced Reading and Use of English Part 3 practice

EXAM SKILLS: Word formation

LEVEL: C1

TOPIC: Word families and word formation

TIME: 25–35 minutes

PREPARATION: One copy of the board for each group of 3-4 students. Dice. Counters. System to keep track of points.