Do you sometimes look for a game, a challenge that will inject some life into an otherwise lifeless class? Do you look for ways to energize your students and motivate their level of enthusiasm? Are you constantly looking for something different to try when laying out your long-term yearly planning?
Of course you do, all great teachers are constantly on the lookout for new and unusual ways to inject some energy into their classes. When a class is slow and boring, then students minds automatically wander away from the reality of the classroom to a place brimming with creativity, imagination, and fun.
For students to effectively learn today, they need to experience the same level of mental stimulation that they receive from video games and Smartphones. Kids today fall mentally idol if left unchallenged, and when they are put into a position of educational apathy, then they merely go through the motions when undertaking an ineffective activity that at best generates mental indifference.
If you sometimes find yourself in a position where it is hard to fire up your students level of enthusiasm, then below are 10 entertaining classroom games and challenges that are guaranteed to help you to light a fire of zealous fervor in their imaginations.
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10 ENERGETIC GAMES TO LIVEN UP ANY CLASSROOM:
ONE
- Name of Game: Words in Words
- Duration: 15-30 minutes
- Number of Students: Teams of 3-4
- English Skills: Spelling Vocabulary
- Objective: Use the letters of a long word to spell smaller words
1. Make sure each team has a dictionary
2. Write a large word or phrase on the board
3. Give teams 10 minutes to come up with as many words as possible by using the letters on the board
4. When time is up, one leader from each team will say the team’s words
5. Each word is scored as follows:
• 1-letter words = 1 point
• 2-letter words = 3 points
• 3-letter words = 5 points
• 4-letter words = 8 points
• 5-letter words = 10 points
• 6-letter words = 12 points
• 7-letter words = 15 points
• 8 or more letter words = 20 points
• Have each team submit words one at a time and write them on the board, with no duplicate words allowed
• Words that every team has are omitted and have no point value
• Simply have teams hand in word sheets and tally scores.
Use words/phrases with an ‘e’ and ‘r’ so students can make words that end in ‘er’. Do the same with ‘ing’, ‘ly’, ‘s’ and other tails. You can have each team choose a ‘secretary’ to write down the words and ‘seekers’ to look in the dictionaries.
Be sure to follow up this game by having students make sentences with some of the words (5 seems to works well) and use the words in listening exercises in future classes.
TWO
- Name of Game: Typhoon
- Duration: 15-40 minutes
- Number of Students: Groups of 3-6
- English Skills: Grammar Listening Speaking Writing
- Objective: Practice making sentences with game board grid.1. Draw a 6×6 bingo grid on the board
2. Randomly write points in the squares
3. In some squares, write ‘Typhoon’ instead of a number
4. Stick words cards on top of the squares and cover the number/typhoon
5. One team chooses a word card and must make a sentence with the word
6. If they make an incorrect sentence, move on to the next team
7. If they make a correct sentence, they get the number of points under the card
8. Typhoons allow you to erase all the points from another team
9. The team with the most points at the end wins• Play with ‘Bankrupt’ instead of ‘Typhoon’
• Use category cards instead of word cards
• Make a minimum number of words for each sentence
• Have students listen and repeat after correct sentencesKeep track of the sentences students make and use them for a follow-up activity.
THREE
- Name of Game: Telephone
- Duration: 5-30 minutes
- Number of Students: Groups of 6 or more
- English Skills: Listening Speaking Writing
- Objective: Groups should pass a message to each member of their group by whispering.1. Divide the class into groups of 6 or more, and arrange each group in a straight line or row.
2. Ask for a volunteer listener from each group. Take them outside of the classroom and give them a message (one sentence or more, depending on student level).
3. Open the door, and let the students run to the first member of their group to whisper the message.
4. Each member passes the message, by whispering, to their neighbor.
5. When the message reaches the end, the last person should run to the board and write the message that they heard.The winner could be determined in various ways: the first team to pass a legible, complete message (even if it’s wrong), the first team to finish, first team with a message closest to the original.Ask the last student to repeat the message to YOU, and write it on the board yourself. This is a good way to practice pronunciation and to determine which sounds students have trouble with.This game could take up to 5 minutes or 30, depending on how much time you have and how interested the kids are.
FOUR
- Name of Game: Write Now!
- Duration: 15-25 minutes
- Number of Students: Any
- English Skills: Spelling, writing, and Vocabulary
- Objective: Use substitution to practice vocabulary1. Break students into teams
2. Each team will select a student to be the writer
3. The teacher writes a sentence on the board with a blank in it, such as “I like _.”
4. Each team must fill in the blank with as many English words as possible in one minute
5. Have teams turn in their papers and mark the correct answers
6. Explain the incorrect ones.
7. The team with the most correct answers wins
8. Have teams change writers, write a new sentence, and play again.Make sentences structures that allow students to practice grammar structures they are learning, such as countable and uncountable nouns. Students get pretty loud shouting out answers to their writers so be sure to close the doors and windows.
FIVE
- Name of Game: Read Now!
- Duration: 15-25 minutes
- Number of Students: Any
- English Skills: Reading and writing
1 Break students into teams
2 Each team will select a student to be the writer
3 The teacher writes a sentence on the board from the book with a blank in it, such as “When he was walking _.”
4 Each team must read the activity and when they find the sentence, run to the board and write the complete sentence.
7 The team who writes the correct answer first wins
8 Have teams change writers, write a new sentence, and play again
- 6- Running Dictation
- 7- Run and Write
- 8- Minesweeper
- 9- How Many Words Do You Know?
- 10- Sentence Jumble
Originally written in 2015. Revised 2018 by:
David White
Managing Director
English For You Language Institute
Trujillo Peru
dwenglishforyou@outlook.com
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