and a crossword for you...!

Waste yourself in your leisure time...!


The power of crosswords has been hardly acknowledged and practised as a tool towards building vocabulary and acculturisation of English. A crossword does not just test, or after the solution add to, your repertoire of English words. It puts it in context. The context for the word acquired is the thing that lets the learner hold on to it and put it to use. It also adds the much required baking time in which the brain prepares a slot for the word to be put in after it is acquired. Easily achieved is easily forgotten. A crossword lets the learner crave for the word for a long time while the context is rerun by the brain over and over. This gives the much required, and elusive, anchor to the word, the single most important objective of any exercise in vocabulary. There may be exercises that achieve this but the point where a crossword scores better is the cultural flavour that it adds to the context. Every clue that leads to the word tells you where the word 'can' be placed in language, and consequently social, use. I am sure the language facilitators and trainers will identify the potential of this age old tool and incorporate it in their programmes.

Don't worry. The solution follows soon...!