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Title: Unscramble sentences
Type: Game
Target: Any vocabulary, but especially phonics related
Materials: scrambled sentences on the computer or the board
Procedure: Divide the class into teams. Put some words up for the students to see. They have to unscramble the words with their group to make a proper sentence. The first team to say the correct sentence aloud as a group gets one point. If only one person from the team says the sentence, they do not get the point.
Comments: Good for older students, but insist that the whole group says the sentence, otherwise the smart kids will do all the work and the lower level kids won’t get any benefit!
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Title: Voice disguise
Type: Concentration Game
Target: Any vocabulary
Materials: None
Procedure: Students close their eyes and one student is chosen by the teacher.
That student must say the vocabulary word out loud, but use a distorted voice so that the others don’t know who said the word. The students open their eyes and try to guess who said the word. The student who guessed correctly gets a point. The student with the most points at the end wins.
Comments: Practice distorting the voice before playing the game as this is hard for students who are not yet comfortable with the English language. It may help to have certain voices ready such as ‘robot voice’ ‘high voice’ ‘low voice’ ‘squeaky voice’ ‘fast voice’ etc.
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Title: What time is it Mr. Wolf?
Type: Active Game
Target: Time
Materials: None
Procedure: One student is the Wolf. All the rest line up far away from the Wolf.
They ask in unison “What time is it Mr. Wolf?” and the wolf answers any time.
The students then take the same number of steps towards the Wolf as the time that the Wolf said. For example, if the wolf answered “It’s 4 o’clock” students should take 4 steps toward the wolf. Once the Wolf is ready s/he can call out “Its lunchtime!” When this happens the wolf chases all the students back to the safe zone and tries to catch them. If anyone is caught they become the new wolf.
Comments:
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Title: Wheel of Fortune
Type: Game
Target: Any vocab, sentences, and conversation patterns
Materials: Wheel to spin
Procedure: Put a hangman sentence/word on the board in blanks.
Divide the class into teams and then spin the wheel. If a team says a letter that is in the puzzle, then they get the amount of money on the wheel multiplied by the number of times the letter is in the puzzle. They keep going until they either hit the bankrupt square or they guess a letter that is not in the puzzle. Keeps going until one team wants to solve the puzzle. Only the team who solved the puzzle gets to keep their money from that round. The team with the most money at the end of the game wins.
Comments:
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Title: Whispers
Type: Active game
Target: Any vocabulary
Materials: None
Procedure: Students are divided into 2 teams. Each team stands in a line. The first student from each team comes to the teacher where the teacher whispers the secret word to them. They then run to the back of their respective lines and whisper the word to the last person in line 9 they stay at the back and don’t return to the front). The last person whispers the word to the person in front of them who whispers it to the person in front of them and so on, until the word reaches the person who is now at the front of the line. That person runs to the teacher and whispers the word to the teacher. If it is correct they receive a new word and run to the back of the line and continue the whispering game. If it is wrong they must restart from the previous word. They first team to finish all the words correctly is the winner.
Comments:
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Title: Whiz Bong
Type: Active game
Target: Any Vocabulary (small amount, 2-5 words)
Materials: None
Procedure: Get the students to stand in a circle. The first person starts by asking “Will you help me?” and doing the action of putting their arm across their chest in one direction. The person on the same side as the moved their arm (i.e. they moved their left arm the person to their left is next) should answer “Sure” and move their arm in the same direction. Then it is the next person’s turn and they should start again with “Will you help me?” This continues in the same direction until somebody answers something different, like “Of course.” If someone answers something different then they should move their arm across their body in the other direction and then the person on the opposite side answers. Answering with a different sentence changes the direction of the movement. Also, If someone answers with the words “Sorry I can’t” They should put their hands on their head. Doing this mean that it continues in the same direction, BUT skips the next person in line. Do a practice with a few students and then begin the game as a whole class. If someone makes a mistake the whole class should throw their hands in the air and yell out “Oh no!” Then the game continues!
Comments: If the class is already familiar with the game, changing the key
words a few times during the game could incorporate more vocabulary.
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Title: Word chain
Type: Concentration Game
Target: Any vocabulary or sentence form
Materials: None
Procedure: The first student must say a vocabulary word or sentence such a “I played soccer.” The next student must say what the person before him did, and then something new like “He played soccer. I watched TV.” The next student must remember all those who came before “He played soccer. She watched TV.
I played computer games.” Count the number of sentences students can remember. Continue until a student makes a mistake or can’t remember. When a student makes a mistake or forgets, start again with that student and see if they can beat their last record.
Comments: This can be made more motivating by setting a limit and then rewarding all the class if they reach that goal (“If you can remember more than 10 sentences, the whole class will get a sticker.”) It can also be made into a competition by recording the top scores of all classes in a certain grade and rewarding the best class. Beware as this makes the students very competitive and they can be harsh on students who have a hard time remembering.
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Title: Word Delete
Type: Concentration game
Target: Any sentence, question, or conversation pattern
Materials: None
Procedure: One student at a time says one word from the chosen pattern. For example, if the pattern is “Will you help me?” student one says “will,” student 2 says “you,” student 3 says “help,’ and student 4 says ‘me.” The next student begins again with “will” and so on. A word is chosen to be deleted and the student whose turn it is should clap instead of saying the word. If “you” is the chosen word, the game is played like this: S1= Will, S2= clap, S3= help, S4=me, etc. If a student claps when he is not supposed, says a wrong word or says the word instead of claps he is out. The winner is the last student standing.
Comments: This can be made harder by choosing more complicated vocabulary, deleting 2 or more words at a time, or by using patterns with more than of the same word in it. Manipulating the speed of the game can make it easier or harder. Bad Fruit: A Shoppers’ Nightmare
Level: Easy to Medium
This is an oral communication activity appropriate for EFL learners in elementary/primary school. (It’s optimal for grades 3-6). This game is designed for practicing “shopping” dialogues and vocabulary.
Materials: “produce” and play money.
Object of Game: To accumulate as many products as possible.
Students are divided into clerks and shoppers.
The clerks set up “stands” to allow easy access for all shoppers (e.g. around the outsides of the room with their backs to the wall).
The shoppers are given a set amount of money* (e.g. dollars, euros, pounds, etc.) and begin at a stand where there is an open space.
Students shop, trying to accumulate as many items as possible (each item is 1 unit of currency).
Periodically, the instructor will say “stop” (a bell or other device may be needed to attract attention in some cultural and classroom contexts) and call out a name of one of the products. Students with that product must then put ALL their products in a basket at the front of the room. The remaining students continue shopping. Students who had to dump their products must begin again from scratch (with fewer units of currency).
The student with the most products at the end wins.
Students then switch roles.
*It is recommended giving students as much money as possible since students who run out can no longer participate.
Alternative play for more advanced students: Clerks set the price of items. Shoppers have the option of negotiating the price. There are two winners in this version: The shopper who accumulates the most products and the clerk who makes the most money.
69- What’s the Question?
Level: Any Level
Type of Activity: listening and speaking
Purpose: review question forms previously studied in class
Procedure:
Form two teams (three will work, but two seems to add just the right amount of competitive tension).
Explain the game, with a few examples of answers in search of questions. Ask, ‘What’s the question?’, and get students to correctly say the corresponding questions for your answer.
Have two players–one from each team–come to the front. Style it like a game show if you like, with the students standing side-by-side. If you have access to bells or buzzers, it’s even more fun.
Next, read an answer to a question and say, ‘What’s the question?’ The fastest player to respond wins a point for her/his team. New contestants come to the front for a new round.
Rationale: This game forces the students to think backwards a little, so they must provide a grammatically perfect question. All too often, they are used to answering rather than asking questions, so this is challenging and useful as review.
70- Toilet Paper Icebreaker
Level: Any Level
This activity is used as a “getting to know you”, icebreaker on the first day of class.
Teacher takes the toilet paper roll and takes several squares of toilet paper, then hands the roll of toilet paper to a student. The teacher tells the student to take some, more than three.
After everybody in the class has some paper, we count the squares we have, then we have to tell that many things about ourselves, in English.
This activity works well with substitute teachers also.
The toilet paper is such an attention getter.
Submitted by: Linda LeBlanc
71-Chain Spelling (Shiri-tori)
Level: Easy to Medium
The teacher gives a word and asks a student to spell it, and then a second student should say a word beginning with the last letter of the word given. The game continues until someone makes a mistake, that is, to pronounce the word incorrectly, misspell it or come up with a word that has been said already, then he/she is out. The last one remaining in the game is the winner.
This game can be made difficult by limiting the words to a certain category, e.g.. food, tools, or nouns, verbs, etc.
Submitted by: Huang Shufang
72-Bang Bang
Level: Easy
Divide the group into two teams. Explain that they are cowboys and they are involved in a duel. One student from each team comes to the front. Get them to pretend to draw their pistols. Say “how do you say…” and a word in their mother tongue. The first child to give the answer and then “bang bang”, pretending to shoot his opponent is the winner. He remains standing and the other one sits down. I give 1 point for the right answer and 5 extra points if they manage to “kill” 4 opponents in a row.
Editor’s Note: Instead of saying the word in the students’ mother tongue, it would be possible to use a picture or to say a definition (“What do you call the large gray animal with a long nose?”)
Submitted by: Liz
73-Battle Ships – A Vocabulary Game
Level: Easy to Medium
Preparation:
Divide the students in to groups of four or five. Then ask the student to make the name for their ships for example with the names of animals, cities, movie stars or let them find their own favourite names.
Ask them to choose the Captain and the Shooter. The captain’s duty is to memorize his ship’s name, so he can reply if somebody call his ship’s name. The shooter’s duty is to memorize the names of the ships of ‘their enemies’, so he can shoot them by calling their ship’s name.
Activity:
Arrange all the captains in a circle, the ships’ crews must line up behind their captains. The shooter is the last crew member in line.
The teacher must decide a lexical area of vocabulary, this vocabulary will be used to defend their ships from the attacks. Every students (except the shooters) must find their own words. The lexical area for example, “Four Legged Animals”. Give the students 1-2 minutes to find as many possible words as they can and memorize them.
Start the game by calling a ship’s name, for example the ship name is “THE CALIFORNIAN”. The captain of THE CALIFORNIAN must reply with a word from the lexical area given, for example he says “TIGER” followed by his crews behind him one by one, “COW”; “SHEEP” until it is the shooter turns and he calls out the name of another ship and the captain of the ship called must reply and his crews must do the same thing. No word can be repeated.
If the captain is late to reply (more than 2 seconds) or his crew can not say the words or a word repeated or the shooter shoots the wrong ship (his own ship or the ship that has already been sunk) the ship is sunk, and the crew members can join the crew of another ship.
The teacher can change the lexical area for the next round.
In the last round there will be two big groups battling to be the winner.
Submitted by: Agung Listyawan
74-Describing Appearances & Characteristics of People
Level: Easy to Medium (Low to low intermediate)
Each student is then give one sheet of paper. One student sits at the front of a room. He/she describes a person and the rest of the class draws the person being described.
It is more interesting if the person being described is known by everyone. Once the student has finished describing that person then he/she reveals who it is and each student shows his/her drawing. The laughter from this is hilarious as the impressions tend to make the character in question look funny.
It is a good idea to encourage students to ask the interviewee student questions about who they are describing.
Submitted by: Darrell
75-Sentence Race
Level: Any Level
A good game for large classes and for reviewing vocabulary lessons.
Prepare a list of review vocabulary words.
Write each word on two small pieces of paper. That means writing the word twice, once on each paper.
Organize the pieces like bundles, 2 bundles, 2 sets of identical words.
Divide the class into 2 teams. get them to make creative team names.
Distribute each list of words to both teams. every student on each team should have a paper. Both teams have the same words.
When you call a word, 2 students should stand up, one from each team. The students must then run to the blackboard and race to write a sentence using their word.
The winner is the one with a correct and clearly written sentence.
This is always a hit with kids. For more advanced students, use tougher words.
Submitted by: Thomas D. J-B
76-Paper Airplane Game
Level: Any Level
Draw a target (with points – like a dart board) on the white board or use a cardboard box in the middle of the room. Then, students make paper airplanes and launch them after they answer your question in the form of a sentence. I don’t except my beginners/low intermediate students to form complete sentence so I help them to form correct sentences. To my surprise they will repeat the sentence several times (while I’m helping them) just so they can throw their airplane. For beginner and low intermediate classes, I recommend formulating questions that lead to 1 or 2 types of answers. This allows for better memorization. For example, use CAN/WILL questions and write the beginning part of the answer on the board “I can/will…”. I recommend giving a prize to make the target points mean something, thus peaking their interest.
Submitted by: Ell Saunders
77-Pictionary (Game 1) – revamp – Charades (Game 2)
Level: Any Level
Write out series of categories like professions (doctor, bus driver, etc.), animals, foods, actions (fishing, haircut, etc.) then divide the class into groups of 2. One student draws and the other guesses. Next turn, the guesser draws and drawer guesses. This game works best with the arbitrary stop watch (30 seconds). This is designed for one lesson.
Then for another day take the same categories (or create new ones) and play the same game except students, this time, act it out (no speaking or noises).
79-What’s the Meaning?
Level: Medium to Difficult
You, the teacher, may need a dictionary do this activity.
Choose a word which is long, difficult, and unknown to the students, a good word to begin with is: warmonger.
Without using a dictionary, your students write down a definition. (They can work out the definition in groups of three). Allow them a few minutes to think and write.
Collect the definitions and read them aloud.
When you have finished reading, they will have to vote which of those is the correct one. (It doesn’t matter if none of them is the correct one)
After they have voted and none of the groups guessed the meaning you read the correct one aloud.
The idea of this game is to let students be creative and practice writing skills.
Then you can have the students to discuss their writings.
80-Catching up on your ABC’s
Level: Any Level
This game is short and simple. Write the alphabet on the board. Throw a bean bag to someone and say a word begining with the letter A. This person must catch the bean bag, say a word begining with the letter B and then throw it to another person This third person says a word begining with the leter C and so on.
Obviously the game is meant to be played fast. If played with higher level students you may not want to write the alphabet on the board. There are many ways to change the game to make it adaptable to your level of students.
Submitted by: Adam in China
81-Secret Code
Level: Any Level
I sometimes give instructions to my students written in code that they have to interpret before completing tasks. I’ve used this at various levels:
Here’s an example: to revise alphabet and simple present verbs/vocab.
Tell students the code e.g. each code letter represents the letter that comes before it in the alphabet a is b, m is n, ‘dbu’ is cat etc.
Then they decode their message and do the task:
xbml up uif cpbse – walk to the board
kvnq ufo ujnft – jump ten times
To make it more difficult, I’ve …
used more complex codes,
let them work the code out for themselves,
have not defined where words end,
have given more complicated tasks or vocabulary
or given them half an instruction which they must decode and then find the classmate with the other half of their task information.
This activity can be used to review or practise vocabulary or structure or simply be a different way to introduce the topic for the day’s class — each student gets one or two words to decode and then the class work to put all the words together.
Submitted by: Karen Mack
82-Crazy Story
Level: Any Level
This is an activity that will make your students speak in class and be creative.
Ask students to write a word on a piece of paper and tell them not to show anyone. This word should be a verb (or whatever you’d like to rewiew).
The teacher starts telling a story, then stops and chooses a student.
That student will continue the story and must use his/her word. This student then chooses the next student to continue the story.
The last student must end the story.
After the story is over, the students then try to guess what words each student has written on his/her paper. The student who guesses the most words wins the game.
Submitted by: Luciana Pinheiro
