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On this page
you will find several games, activities, and ideas that require
little or no preparation, and which can be adapted to all
levels.
Also check
out our writing page for some
activities and game-like things that involve writing.
Three
Dice
-
Say the sum of the dice and suffer the consequences! All
Levels.
Read for Speed -
Read as fast as you can - can you beat the teacher's time?
All Levels.
ESL
Categories - Similar to "Scattergories,"
students must come up with words for different categories, using
the same first letter for each word. Intermediate / Advanced.
The Question Game - You read the answer, and
students must come up with the correct question! All Levels.
Don't Say the Words!
(1) - Students must get classmates to guess a
word without saying the banned keywords! (similar to "Taboo")
All Levels.
Don't Say the Words!
(2) - Students must get classmates to guess a
word without saying the banned keywords! (similar to "Taboo")
All Levels.
Don't Say the Words!
(3) - Students must get classmates to guess a
word without saying the banned keywords! (similar to "Taboo")
Intermediate / Advanced.
I've
Never - A great game for practicing the
Present Perfect Tense. Think of things that you have never done,
but everyone else has done! Intermediate / Advanced.
The
Lying Game - Students take turns coming up
with lies about themselves, and their classmates must guess
which statements are true, and which are the lies!
Intermediate / Advanced.
Conversation Cards -
Students answer the questions on the cards, or they can take
turns saying one word each until the question is answered.
Intermediate / Advanced
Interactive Writing -
This is a great writing activity in which each student writes a
part of each story. Intermediate / Advanced
Here are some excruciatingly simple
games for very young learners:
Word Chain
(known as "the dragon's tail" in Chinese) - This is an
excruciatingly simple game that can be played in classes
that are very young or quite advanced. To play, the teacher
first says a word (such as "apple"). The next student
must then say a word that begins with the last letter of
apple, such as egg. The last letter in egg is G, so
the next student must say a word that begins with G, and so
on, and so on, and so on. A typical string of words looks
something like this:
apple -
egg - ghost - table - eat - take - eleven - night - two
You can
simply take turns, going around the room, or have them stand
in a circle and sit down if they are wrong. Also, I
sometimes have them play in two teams: I write 1 - 10 on the
board for each team, and they make a line at the back of the
room and take turns, one at a time for each team, running to
the front to write ONE WORD. The first team to finish
wins, and gets a frilly super stamp or whatever floats their
boat.
It's
important to stress, however, that they cannot repeat the
same word twice. Otherwise they may end up in one of
these ESL Cartesian loops: elephant - table - elephant -
table - elephant - table - elephant - table - elephant -
table...
To
make this game more interesting and challenging for more
advanced students: limit words to a certain category, to
force them to think and be more creative. Examples of
useful (and tested) categories include: nouns, verbs,
adjectives, English names, animals, foods, drinks, something
big, something small, something noisy, something ugly, etc.
The Alphabet Game
/ The A-Z Game - This is very similar to the
Word Chain game, above, but with a slight change, if you've
worn out the Word Chain game (as I tend to do). In this
game, students take turn saying words beginning with the
successive letters in the alphabet. So the first student
says a word that begins with A, and the second student says
a word that begins with B, the third student C, then D, E,
F, and so on. A normal string of words looks something
like this:
apple -
banana - cat - dog - elephant - find - go - house...etc.
To
make this game more interesting and challenging for more
advanced students: make them say only nouns, or verbs,
or adjectives, or plural nouns, things you can eat, or some
other category that you come up with (as with the Word Chain
game). Also, to really make them moan and whine, you can
require that, in order to get a point, they must both say a
word with the correct letter AND identify the part of speech
(noun, verb, or adjective). To make them truly explode with
exasperation, demand that they say a noun AND a verb AND an
adjective for each letter, and give them a point for each
one they can say successfully.
Around the World
- A game that instilled in me a
highly competitive nature as a child. Start with two
students, and hold up a flashcard (phonics, or whatever else
you're studying). The first one two read moves to the
next student, and the loser sits down (sorry, Loser).
The next two then compete. The goal is to move all the
way around the class, defeating all of your classmates
(hence the name). The winner gets something shiny or sweet,
or a reserve of pride.
Typhoon - This is a stickyball game that younger kids tend to enjoy a
lot. First, separate the class into two teams. Then draw a
big grid on the board (4x4 should be fine). As each student
a question (spell a word, say a sentence, answer a question,
or whatever). If they answer correctly, they can choose a
square on the board and draw a boat for their team (assign
each team a certain color boat to draw). Then do the same
for the next team, and keep going until every square on the
board has a boat in it. Then...
It's time
for the typhoon. Each team gets a certain number of
chances to throw the stickyball - this is the "typhoon."
If the stickyball hits a boat, that boat is "sunk," and you
erase it from the board. (When the student - Vicky,
for example - comes up to throw, yell, 'Oh no! Typhoon
Vicky! No school; everyone go home!' and the kids go nuts.)
So team A tries to hit all of team B's boats, and vice
versa. You can let everyone throw if you want. When
the throwing is done, count the boats; the team with the
most wins. It's not the most educational of games, but it's
a nice break from the tediousness of class, and elementary
kids like it a lot.
20
Questions - This is a standard kid's game, and you
can tweak the rules however you like. You are a person, or
perhaps a place or a thing, and the students must ask you
questions to find out who or what you are. But you can only
say the words "yes" or "no" (So the question, "What are
you?" is unacceptable, because you can not answer it with a
simple "yes" or "no"). As I usually already have my teams
divided into two teams, I simply let them take turns and I
award two points for a "yes" answer, one point for a "no"
answer, and 5 points for a correct guess.
I
Spy - I often
play this with the younger kids, although I change the name
to "I See Something..." You start by standing in the
front, choosing something in the room, and saying, "I See
Something...Red (or blue or small or round or whatever)."
The kids then take turns asking, "Is it the ____?" When one
kid guesses right, he or she can come to the front and say,
"I See Something..."
Tic Tac Toe
- An obvious game that can be used to reinforce
anything and everything. Oddly, the kids don't get too
sick of it.
Hangman
- Another obvious game that kids seem to have
a high tolerance for. I mean, "for which kids seem to
have a high tolerance."
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