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Most of these games require little more than a whiteboard/blackboard and your imagination.
Keep score by writing tally marks on the board.
1. Introduction Games
Game 1
A perfect game for the first day of school.
Break the class into 4 to 5 teams.
Recite a short story about yourself listing 15 to 20 facts about where youre from, your
hobbies, etc.
After you recite the story, ask the class questions about specifics from your story.
The team who answers the most questions correctly wins.
Game 2Tell the class a few facts about yourself.
Stuff like Name, where youre from, hobbies, birthday, expectations for the semester.
Then, give the class 10 to 15 minutes to write their own.
Collect the students papers and drop them in a hat.
Randomly draw the students fact sheets.
Ask the students to come to the front of class and read their list aloud.
This game is good for advanced students. Read the full story about it here.
2. Word Relay
Break the class into 2 teams, each team forms a line to the whiteboard.
The first student in line writes a word. The next student in line writes a word that begins
with the last letter of the previous word.
Turtle, elephant, turn, neighbor, read, draw, until every student from a particular team
has written a word.
Make the game difficult by changing the variables (4-letter words only, nouns only, 5-letter
words only, etc.)
Prepare a list of tongue twisters and print off two copies of each one. Have at least 15
tongue twisters prepared.
Cut out each tongue twister onto a slip of paper, each with 2 copies.
Break the class into 2 teams.
Have one student from each team come to the front of class.
Hand each student the same tongue twister and allow both of them to try to pronounce it
correctly.
The student with best pronunciation earns their team a point.
4. Pictionary
Prepare a list of vocabulary words that the students should be familiar with.
Break the class into 2 teams.
One student from each team comes to the front of class to draw.
Teams guess what their teammate is drawing.
Enforce a strict hand-raising rule, otherwise all hell breaks loose.
5. Sentence Showdown
The first student to write the sentence correctly earns a point for their team. Encourage
the teams to help the writers.
Harder sentences are worth more points. The team with the most points wins.
Click here to see the full article on this game.
6. Connect Four
Draw a 66 grid on the board. Over each column, write words that students typically have
difficulty with.
Right, Light, Clown, Crown, Stay, Stray, Bat, Bath, True, Through,
Spit the class into 2 teams: black circles and white circles.
Draw circles in the grid corresponding with the word the student pronounces. Often times,
youll hear light when the student wants to say right, but you must place the circle in the
column of the word that you hear.
This game forces students to pronounce problem words correctly, otherwise theyll lose.
Pick students at random to keep the class focused.
7. Telephone
8. World Traveler
Ask the class, If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
Elicit different countries from students and write them all on the board.
Once youve listed a bunch of countries on the board, break the class into 4 or 5 teams.
Have a list of historical landmarks and their corresponding countries prepared in advance
(Eiffel Tower: France, Pyramids: Egypt, Statue of Liberty: U.S.A., etc.)
Ask the class, Where can I visit the (insert landmark here)?
The team that answers the most correct questions wins.
9. Directions Game
11. Charades
Teach the class different styles and fashion for men and women.
Goatee, beard, earrings, braids, ponytail, makeup, tank-top, t-shirt, ice skates, high heels,
etc.
Each article of style and fashion that the student correctly draws earns their team a point.
Prepare to sing a song yourself or bring a music player to class. If you play guitar/enjoy
singing, this game is pure dynamite.
Break the class into 10 to 15 teams.
Print out the lyrics to the song and cut the lyrics into sections.
Pass out the jumbled lyrics to each team.
Sing/play the song for the class as many times as necessary.
The first team to list the lyrics in the correct order wins.
Demonstrate a dialogue to the class on bragging. This game is great for teaching the
present perfect verb tense.
A: Ive played football with Lionel Messi. B: So what? Ive played football with Christiano
Ronaldo. A: So what? I taught Ronaldo how to play football!
Break the class into 2 teams.
Give the teams a topic to prepare bragging rights (sports, money, celebrities, talents, etc.).
Have one student from each team come to the front of class to list their bragging rights.
Encourage outlandish ideas and exaggeration.
The student with the funniest, most creative boasts earns a point for their team.
Whichever country youre teaching ESL, find a translation of the countrys national anthem
in English.
Print enough copies of the anthem in English for the entire class.
Write the anthems difficult words on the board to prepare the students to pronounce them
correctly.
Sing the anthem in English once for the class to hear.
Break the class into 4 or 5 teams and have them rotate singing.
Reward the team that sings the anthem the best with candy or bonus points on their final
grade.
Demonstrate by writing two truths and one lie about yourself on the board.
Allow the class to guess what your lie is.
Once they grasp the concept, give them 5 to 10 minutes to write their own list of two
truths and one lie.
Students take turns presenting their list to the class for participation points.
Write the first letter to a story at the top left of the board.
Each student must contribute one word to the story, in order.
Make a zig zag pattern through the class until every student has said one word.
Write the word they say next in the story. The sentences must have correct grammar.
Example: Write The to start the story. Point to the first student in the front row. They say,
cow then the next student says, runs,
The story will end up as something ridiculous.
The cow runs fast and eats bananas while jumping over a duck in the tree. A girl eats fish
every day and she is fat. I like to play guitar with my friend and we go to the mall every
saturday.
Have the students read the story aloud once it is finished. They will all laugh because it
wont make any sense.
21. Tic-Tac-Toe
Pick two students randomly to come to the front of class and perform the dialogue.
Each student draws an emotion from a hat and must perform the dialogue with the
corresponding emotion.
Every student must perform once to earn participation points.
At the end of class, list the best actors/actresses on the board.
23. Opposites
Have a list of adjectives prepared that the class should be familiar with.
Break the class into 4 teams.
One student from each team comes to the front of class to write on the board.
Say an adjective from the list and each student must write the opposite adjective on the
board.
The fastest student (with correct spelling) earns their team a point.
Teach the students some key marketing phrases: advertisement, sale, discount, 50% off,
brand, logo, slogan, price, etc.
Prepare an example of an advertisement to show the class.
Give the students 20 minutes to design their ad.
If time permits, encourage the students to present their ad to the class.
Students who present their ad receive bonus points to their final grade.
26. Holidays
Conclusion
You might be familiar with some of these games. Others, I created myself. Ive personally tested
each one of these ESL games and theyve all earned my seal of approval. I hope this list gives
you some ideas and inspiration. Feel free to change the variables and grammar in any of the
games to suit a particular lesson. Good luck!