NGSL Wordle!

Free Wordle game for review of the New General Service List

Over the years we have tried to utilize principles of gamification to improve the learning of the essential vocabulary words from our various New General Service List Project wordlists. After seeing the amazing popularity of the Wordle game around the globe, we wondered if we might be able to create a version of the game to help students to review their knowledge of core, foundational English vocabulary in our New General Service List (NGSL).

Though the original version of Wordle uses only 5 letter words, we utilize an open-source version of this game which allows us to include 4, 5 and 6 letter words contained in the NGSL, meaning that that more than 1/2 of all NGSL words can be reviewed. There are 2809 words in the latest 1.2 version of the NGSL and the exact number of words included in our Wordle game are as follows:

496 4-letter NGSL words

467 5-letter NGSL words

470 6-letter NGSL words
1433 NGSL words

Wordle can be a challenge even for native speakers, so we have come up with a few techniques to make the game easier and more interesting for second language learners of English. 

First, use principles of cooperative learning and have students work in small groups to play the game. Encourage them to work together to make guesses and help each other before typing in their next guess. 

Second, once they have correctly guessed one or two letters in the word, have them open another browser to our interactive NGSL Learning Dictionary and use its search function to look for NGSL words that contain the letters they’ve guessed. For example, in the screenshot for this post you can see that on my second guess I found that the word had “ER” at the end and contained an “I”. By typing in “ER” into the NGSL Learning Dictionary search box and looking at the words that begin with “I”, I could quickly deduce the NGSL word must be “INNER”. Though it might seem like cheating, this is actually a great way to encourage active learning, dictionary use and critical thinking skills development.

Direct link to our free NGSL Wordle generator here.

Link to our free NGSL Learning Dictionary here.

New General Service List 1.2 introduction, downloads and resources homepage here.

Please try our free Wordle game with your students and be sure to contact us to let us know about any other good techniques you come up with for using this free resource!