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Q : What age-range is Hex-Lex suitable for?
A: Early Teens to adult. The current set of games include occasional references to business, geography and life-knowledge beyond a child’s range.
In the future there will be games to download for young learners, but meanwhile you could use the editing tool to input suitable games.
Q: What level of English is Hex-Lex?
A: All levels of proficiency are catered for, divided for simplicity into Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced. However, the richness of the material means that students will benefit from and enjoy games at a ‘lower’ level as much as their own level. It will just be easier to win!
Q: How is Hex-Lex different from other ELT materials?
A: Hex Lex includes areas of vocabulary and collocations that course books and other ELT materials rarely touch, as well as a few games with some old favourites.
The competitive and addictive games are a tremendously motivating factor. Students will hardly know they are learning!
Q: What are ‘collocations’?
A: They are groups of words that occur together, forming one lexical item. Here are some examples (all from Hex Lex) :
- mother in law
- make a fuss
- keep your cool
- every now and then
- on the whole
- in good taste
English is particularly rich in collocations. They can be various parts of speech – noun phrases, verb phrases, preposition phrases etc.
Q: In Hex Lex you choose between Word, Phrase and Context. What’s the difference?
A: ‘Word’ deals with one-word items – their form, meaning or use in contrast to other words. This could be in a sentence or in isolation.
‘Phrase’ deals with multi-word items and collocations in the same cases as above.
‘Context’ deals with lexical items that depend on their context within a sentence for their form or meaning. A good example would be a tag question, which takes the form of the verb depending on the verb in the previous part of the sentence:
- You can speak Japanese, can’t you?
- We haven’t seen that yet, have we?
Hex-Lex includes more subtle examples, too, where you have to understand the whole context of the sentence to decide on one of its parts. An example of these would be metaphorical uses of ordinary words.
Q: Are there long and short games?
A: Yes. Gameboards vary in size from 5x5 to 8x8 hexagons. Clearly, an 8x8 game will take longer to play – in Hex Lex the winner will have to gain a minimum of 8 hexagons to reach the other side of the board. In Trix, the number of possible trix
( groups of 3 ) will be greater, and the game will not close until no more trix can be won.
Q: Can an individual play?
A: Yes, although both games are more exciting with 2 players. Trix is probably the best game to play as an individual. The player can build up trix in both colours – perhaps against the clock.
Q: Can Hex Lex be used in class?
A: Yes, so long as everyone can see the screen. If the classroom is equipped with a projector and interactive whiteboard, all the better. Teams of players can take the role of players 1 and 2, discussing together the answers to the questions and their game strategy.
In one to one classes, the teacher could play against the student, talking through the answers as they occur.
Q: How can I use Hex Lex for other languages? Are there translations?
A: No, there are no translations. We hope that in the future there will be versions of Hex Lex to teach other languages than English, but these will contain material suitable for those languages and will not merely be translations of the English version.
In order to use other languages with the current editing tool, you can type in any language available as a font in your computer set up. For example, you could type in the foreign language words in the left hand column so that they appear on the gameboard and type their English equivalents in the right hand column to appear as matches in the list.
Q: Games are all very well for motivation, but do students really learn?
A: Yes! There are also several features of Hex Lex that ensure this. Any word or phrase on the gameboard is repeated up to three times in one game. This means that students can learn from the correct answers that they or their partner give, the answer is reinforced twice and they then use that information to their strategic advantage. In the same way, they learn from all wrong answers and do not make the same mistake again.
Because the list of ‘answers’ occurs at the side of the gameboard students will sometimes choose an answer motivated by the prompt, and at other times make their decision based on their recognition of what appears on the gameboard.
For every turn they play, the student has to scan the list of options on the right of the gameboard. They therefore rework the same input material repeatedly, which reinforces the main point of the game. They pick up cues for their next turn, as well, by elimination.
Q: Once the students have played the game they will not want to play it again.
A: Not so! Next time they play the same game the words on the gameboard will be slightly different, because each game uses a randomized selection of items. The students will remember some of them and therefore get them right, and there will be new ones to cope with. And of course they can play Hex next time if they played Trix before.
Q: Computer games are fine at the time – but there is no lasting record of the work.
A: With Hex Lex there is. When a game is won , a final screen shows the results and also all the answers. This can be printed off as a record of achievement and as a revision sheet. There will be no excuse for wrong answers next time, since all the items in the game can be printed, and studied (perhaps as homework revision) to win more easily next time.
Q: Once students have played all the games on the software there’s no more scope
A: Not with Hex Lex! The full version includes a really easy-to-use editing tool for you to write in your own games. At the press of the button this new game is fed into the software and you can play the new game as Hex Lex or as Trix.
In addition, your game of Hex Lex can grow by downloading new games from the Viva Lexico website.
If you have bought the Lite version of Hex Lex there is no tool to increase the games with your own material. However, you can still increase your games with downloads.
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