Games for all

INDEX

WARM-UP GAMES

To present Vocabulary

Key Hole

Learn 5 new words

Backwards and forwards

Right or Wrong? Right or Left?

Group mimes

Fruit Salad

La Chasse au Trésor

Missed One Out

True or False

Choices

Match Them Up

Flipping:

Run and touch or Flyswatters

Back writing (or Chinesse Whispers)

To practice Vocabulary

Acting

Picture Drawing

Noughts and Crosses with a twist (3 in a line)

Swap

Musical chairs

Quickpix

Mallet game

Spin the Bottle

Word Snakes

What's on my head?

Hot seat

Freeze game

Hop and say

Volleyball game

Categories

Against the clock

To create good atmosphere

Chef d’Orchestre

Puppet Conversation

Exersices

Knock-Knock or Can I come in please?

To practice Structures

Change places

Talking topics

My Answer is


Find Someone who

CLASS MANAGEMENT GAMES

Hands Up!

Silent Ball

LISTENING GAMES

Listening race (Listen, run and stick)

Rise or order the mini-storycards

Mime the story

Drawing dictations

Missed One Out


WRITING GAMES

Building bricks

Paired dictation

Running Dictation

Horse race dictation

Chain drawings

The Chat Room

In the teach

er´s shoes

STORY GAMES

One word stories

Writing consequences

Gobbledygook

Start and finish the story with

VOCABULARY GAMES

To present Vocabulary

Learn 5 New Words

Missed One Out


Flipping

True or False

Choices

Key Hole

Match Them Up

Group mimes


Fruit Salad


Syllables

Run and touch or Flyswatters game

Word Search (Prepare and do it)


To practice Vocabulary

Acting

Picture Drawing


Swap

Musical chairs

Quickpix

Mallet (mazo) game

Spin the Bottle

Word Snakes

What's on my head?

Hot seat

Freeze game

Hop and say

Volleyball game

Scrabble letters

Against the clock

Categories ................................................................................................................................

WARM-UP GAMES

To present vocabulary

Key Hole A piece of paper with a keyhole or circle cut out of it. Children see part of a picture and state which one they think it is.

Learn 5 New Words

1. Make groups of five and choose five words that are new to the students. 2. Assign a word to each student. 3. Go in order repeating the words. 4. Go until you have done 3 laps (each student will say each word three times). 5. E.G. Weather: a. Student 1 → Rainy… b. Student 2 → Rainy, cloudy… c. Student 3 → Rainy, cloudy, sunny… d. Student 4 → Rainy, cloudy, sunny, windy… e. Student 5 → Rainy, cloudy, sunny, windy, stormy… f. Student 1 again → Rainy, cloudy, sunny, windy, stormy, Rainy… 6. You’ll be surprised how well the students remember the new words!


Pupils repeat in sequence backwards or forwards as teacher goes backwards or forwar


This is a good activity for checking information for younger learners.

Line up the class in a row facing you.

Say a sentence and students have to decide if the sentence is right or wrong. For

example, ‘Today is Friday' or ‘Mateu is wearing a green jumper'.

If the sentence is right students take a big step to the right. If iwrong, they to the left.

When the students get the idea, one of them can make up the sentences.

If you like, the last person to step, of the students who step the wrong way, can be

eliminated.

Group mimes Divide the class into small groups. Give each group a word or a phrase to mime and

then shout ‘Go!’ (or put music) in whichever language you are teaching. The groups all

begin miming their word. After a few seconds, shout ‘Stop!’ (or stop the music) and

they all freeze. The other groups must guess which words / phrases were being mimed.

Fruit Salad

1. The students sit in a large circle. 2. Students are assigned an animal and its actions. Example: Crocodile: snapping hands, tiger, roar. 3. The teacher calls out two animals and those animals run around the circle doing the actions. 4. Last one back goes into the ‘zoo’ in the middle.


Send a child out of the room. Hide the item or flashcard. Child returns and class chants the word / phrase getting louder the nearer the seeker moves to the hidden object and quieter the farther away s/he is. Seeker must find it and say the word!

Missed One Out

Stick a series of pictures (flashcards) onto the board. Repeat them all one after the other very quickly but miss one or two out. Children identify which ones have been ‘forgotten’. This supports listening skills. Select a child to repeat the names in place of teacher.

True or False Teacher gives a word/phrase and shows a picture. Children say, ‘true’ if they think it is correct and ‘false’ if they think it is wrong.

Choices Teacher gives two possible words / phrases and children select the one they think is correct.

Match Them Up Children match text flashcards and pictures ones together. (find partner)

Flipping: Teacher flips card over quickly giving the class a mere glimpse of the picture.

Run and touch or Flyswatters (matamoscas) game

This game is good topractice and review any type of vocabulary. The teacher puts

flashcards in a circle on the floor or sticks them on the walls of the classroom. Then

the teacher makes a sentence using one of the words on the cards. Students have to

run to the word or card and slam it with their flyswatters. To get the necessary reward

or praise,a studenr has to hit the word with the flyswatter and repeat the sentence the

teacher used with the word or for low levels, simply repeat the word. Teachers can also

make things more challenging by describing the word on the picture. For example "It is an

animal with a long nose." Students run and slam Elephant.


This is a good activity for restless younger classes.

Put students into teams (no more than 8 or so in each team) and get each team to line

up facing the board.

The student at the front of each team needs chalk or a board pen. Show a word or a

picture to all the students who are at the back of each line. Use a word you've studied in

class, that all the students should know.

The students at the back of the line should ‘write' each letter of the word with their finger, on

the back of the student in front of them in the line. The students pass the word down the

line by doing the same and ‘writing' the letters in turn on the back of the student in front

of them.

The student at the front of the line writes the letters on the board to make the word.

The first team with the word written correctly on the board wins.

A few words of warning with this activity; it's a good idea to start with short words and short

lines of students as it can take a while to pass the letters down the line. Also if your

students aren't used to this type of ‘touchy' activity you may want to change the game to

students whispering the letters rather than writing on backs.

To practice vocabulary

Acting

1. Ask for a volunteer from the class. 2. Tell him/her a word in which he/she must act. Have the class guess. Examples: Fishing, war, fairy, queen, rock star, teacher, Wayne Rooney,

gorilla, nurse, sumo wrestler, truck driver, pirate, bear, sleepy lizard

Picture Drawing

1. Ask for a volunteer from the class. 2. Tell him/her a word in which he/she must draw. Have the class guess. a. Have a student draw with their eyes closed: Examples: The moon, football, spaghetti, yacht, hot dog, snake, a butterfly, a banana, a t-shirt, etc. b. Now with their eyes open: Examples: School, a toilet, Australia, beach, tractor, a net, an onion,

Christmas, a pen, a computer, a city.


Select nine words or phrases and list them / stick pictures in a line at the edge of the board. Letter them a – i. Teacher draws secret grid on separate piece of paper and places the letters a – i in at random. Teacher then draws a large noughts and crosses grid on whiteboard and numbers the boxes 1 – 9, A-C Divide the class into two groups – noughts and crosses. Children select a box by saying the number and says the flashcard Word.

Swap

Students sit in a circle and flashcards faced down in the middle. When teacher

says SWAP, students change seats. (have to stand up and run to another seat). The

teacher tries to find a seat also. There will be one student standing. That student will pick

up a card and use it to make a sentence.

Musical chairs

Bring some nice kids music to class. Put chairs in circle and make it short by one chair.

Put flashcards in the middle. Students listen to music and when you stop it they sit

down. The one person who remains standing says the flashcard. Game continues.

Good for young learners.

Quickpix

1. The students work in two teams. 2. In each team, each students has a unique number (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.) 3. Call a number and a letter (e.g., 4 P). The #4 student from each team will have to stand up, run to the board and draw something that starts with that letter (in the example, the number four students will stand up and draw something starting with P, like a pirate or a pencil.) 4. The rest of the team has to guess what the drawing is. 5. The first team to guess wins one point.

Mallet (mazo) game

Bring two chairs to the front or center of the class and put them back to back. Split the

class into teams. Choose or let students volunteer to come sit back to back. Tell them

what the rules are. The students will say words related to a group of words. For

example you can tell them to say animal words or words related to animals. When the

teacher raises the mallet over a student’s head s/he has to say an animal.

A word cannot be repeated in one sitting of the game.

Students cannot wait for more than 4 seconds before saying a word.

Shorten the time as you advance in the game.

Every time the above rules are violated the student gets a mallet hit on his head.

Then replace the student with another student and continue with the game.

Caution: Some kids can be delicate, even when using a soft mallet, do not hit their heads

too hard. To start the game sometimes, kids find it fun when you test the mallet by hitting

your own head hard.

Spin the Bottle

Sit Ss in a circle with a bottle in the middle. T Spins the bottle. When it stops spinning

the S it is pointing to has to answer a question. If the answer is correct then that S can

spin the bottle. This is a good class warm up activity (e.g. What did you do last weekend?

Did it rain yesterday? What did you have for breakfast this morning?).

Word Snakes

This is a simple word game to start or finish a lesson. A word snake is simply a chain of

words where the following word starts with the last letter of the previous word. Here

are a few examples.

Food

Spinach – ham – melon – nuts – sausage – egg – garlic – cheese…..

This game is harder than it looks so offer students lots of help and support, and maybe

even a dictionary.

What's on my head?

This activity is good for practising or revising vocabulary. You will need rubber bands, mini-flashcards and a timer (or a sand clock). Divide the class into groups of 4's or more and get each student to wear a band around their head. Give a bunch of cards to each group, making sure all cards are facing down. In turns, each student grabs a card and, without looking at it, places it on his/her forehead, so that the rest of the group can see it. Each member of the group takes turns to ask questions until he/she guesses what is on the card. The other members of the group should only say yes and no, or give short answers. Set a time limit per person (1-2 mins time each). Students should come up with questions like Am I a lion? - No Am I a crocodile? - No Am I an animal? – Yes

Hot seat

This is a good activity for getting for revising vocabulary.

First, split your class into different teams

Sit the students facing the board.

Then get one member from each team to come up and sit in the hot seat chair facing their

team-mates and have their back to the board.

Write a word clearly on the board.

Students in the teams to describe that word, using synonyms, antonyms, definitions etc.

to their team mate who is in the hot seat - that person can't see the word!

The student in the hot seat listens to their team mates and tries to guess the word.

The first hot seat student to say the word wins a point for their team.

Freeze game

Students sit in a circle. Put the cards face down in the middle of the circle.

Tell them they will pass the ball around the circle very quickly until you say “stop”. Warn

that no student can hold the ball for more than two seconds. As the ball is being circled

around, the teacher randomly shouts “Stop”.

The student who is holding the ball when you shout “stop” cannot pass it to the next.

S/he remains still with the ball. Ask the student to pick up a card from the pile of cards

facing down. The student reads or tells the other students what is on the card.

Depending on their English level, s/he makes a sentence or more with the word on the

card.

Variations:

Make it more competitive by giving points to any student who makes a sentence with the

card or word which is picked up.

Hop and say

The teacher brings a number of flash cards to class and lines the cards up across the

floor in a row. Two teams stand at the extremes of the row. When the teacher orders

the game to start, the first student from each team starts to jump on the first card. Every

time a student jumps on a card s/he says what is on the card-For higher levels ask them

to make a sentence with the word on the cards. Eventually s/he will meet the other team

player somewhere on the row. When the two team players meet, they have to do the old

guessing game of ROCK, PAPER & SCISSORS . The student who looses the Rock,

paper & scissors game of chance, leaves the row and goes to the back of his or her

team’s line up. Another player in his/her team restarts the game for their team. It should

be such that the next team mate in the line up should be ready to start immediately when

s/he realizes that their team player has lost the stone paper scissors guessing part. The

idea is not to let the other team player get to the end of the row. If the other team player

gets to the end of the row, his / her team wins.

Volleyball game

Pick out three captains for three teams. The captains will take turns choosing students

to join their teams until everyone is chosen.

Decide two teams to play first, the remaning team has to sit at the side of the

playground. Define a playground and use a skip rope to divide the playground into two

equal parts. Get a medium-sized balloon and blow it to almost full capacity.

The teacher is the referee.

Rules:

1- Every time a student hits the ball s/he must say a word or sentence under a chosen

category (animals) (I like…)

2- Students can only hit the ball once every time.

3: First strike of the ball must be upwards.

4- Loosing points. When a team looses a point the teacher blows his whistle, takes the

ball and restarts the game.

Loose points if the ball touch the ground. if a student hits the ball without saying a

word, If the ball doesn´t go over the skip rope before three attempts, if a team looses a

total of three points, the next team takes their place.).

Categories

1. Write five common categories of words on the board, like this: Animals Food or drink Sports Places School 2. Students work in pairs. Give one letter (for example, s.) 3. Students have to think of one word related to each category that starts with that letter (for example, snake, strawberry, swimming, Somalia, student.) 4. The first team to finish says “Stop!” and gets ten points. 5. The other teams get one point for each word they have written. Play a few times with different letters. Complete the grid with the selected letter,

Against the clock

Two teams, flashcards distributed around the class. Select a runner from the first team. Teacher calls out the vocabulary and times the child as s/he runs around collecting them. Play against second team who also has a go.

To create good atmosphere

Knock-Knock or Can I come in please?

This can be used at the beginning of each class. Teach the Ss to knock on the door

before entering the classroom. There are 2 variations for the next step: 1. When the S

knocks, T says "Who's there?". The S replies "It's (Koji)" and then the T says "Come in

(Koji)". 2. When the S knocks the T must guess who it is "Is that (Koji)?". The S replies

yes or no - if no, the T continues guessing. Having your Ss develop their own knocking

styles makes this even more fun.

Puppet Conversation

Hand puppets really liven up a classroom, especially for young learners who are shy when talking to the T. You'll probably find that some Ss prefer talking to the puppet than to you! Fun puppet characters (such as Sesame Street's Cookie Monster) that talk to Ss can produce unexpected results. I always use Cookie Monster at the beginning of my young classes. Here's what I do: 1. Cookie Monster is sleeping in a bag. Ss shout "Wake up Cookie Monster!" into the bag. Cookie Monster only wakes up when the whole class shout together into the bag. 2. Cookie Monster says hello to each S and asks them questions (their names, how they are, how old they are, etc.). Ss reply and asks Cookie the same questions. 3. Ss and Cookie Monster sing the 'Hello Song' together. 4. Cookie Monster says goodbye to each S individually and then goes back to sleep in the bag. 5. The actual lesson can now start.

Exersices

Good at the beginning of class to wake everyone up and burn off a bit of energy.

Call out commands such as: Attention, salute, march in place...stop, sit down, stand

up, walk in a circle, clap your hands...stop, run in place...stop, jumping jacks...stop, swim in

place....stop, etc. At first students will copy you.

Later they should be able to do the commands without you.

This game is also good for classroom commands and numbers. Call out instructions as

"Jump 10 times", "Turn around 4 times" etc.

Chef d’Orchestre

Send a child out of the classroom. Select a ‘leader’ from the class who will ‘conduct’ by means of operating a secret ‘sign’ such as pulling his ear or quietly tapping his thumb. The child outside returns and the teacher engages the class in vigorous repetition of a single noun/phrase until s/he sees the chef’s signal whereupon s/he moves on to the next word/phrase. The child has three goes to discover the ‘chef’.

To practice structures

Change places…

This is a great activity to practice some vocabulary/structures.

Start with students in a closed circle, with the teacher standing in the middle to begin the

game. There should always be one less chair than participants.

Depending on what you want to revise the teacher says, “Change places if …(Example)

you’re wearing trainers.” All students who are wearing trainers must stand up, and move to

another chair and the teacher should sit on one of the recently vacated seats.

The person left without a seat stays in the middle and gives the next command,

“Change places if you ……(Example) have brown eyes” and so it goes on.

It is a definitely a ‘warmer’ as opposed to a ‘cooler’ and may be better at the end of a class.

Talking topics

This simple board game provides an excellent way to give students a bit of free

speaking practice.

Print off a copy of the board and fill in the squares with questions your students

could answer. You could also add in a few ‘go back three spaces’ or ‘miss a go’

squares.

Making the game could be a class activity if you ask your students to prepare the

boards for each other in groups then they can swap boards and you’ll have a whole

class set to use.

If you don’t have dice to use, use a coin and make heads mean they move on one

space and tails they move on two. This will obviously take longer than with a dice.

If your students enjoy playing board games they could make their own in small groups.

My Answer is…

1. Write an answer on the board. E.g. No, I can’t.

3. Students ask me questions.

4. If my answer IS ‘No I can’t’ they can sit down. If not remain standing.

5. Continue until everyone sits down.

6. If there are many students, a whole row can sit down or the 4 students around them

Find Someone who…

1. Tell the students to stand up. 2. Ask them to find someone who has the same: a) Coloured socks b) Number of sisters c) Age d) Birth place e) Birthday month f) Music or sports tastes g) Can do a trick like you h) Shoe size i) Likes an animal j) Coloured hair k) Favourite food l) Drinks yogurt m) Favourite kind of book n) Interests o) Favourite place (river, town etc.) p) Enjoys English as much as you! 3. Variation: Find someone who has different..











of them.







CLASS MANAGEMENT GAMES

Hands Up!

In your first class teach your Ss that whenever you shout out "Hands Up!" they must

instantly stop whatever they are doing, put their hands up in the air and remain perfectly

still and silent. They can only put their hands down again when T say "Hands down". You

can then use this technique any time your Ss are getting a bit noisy or you need to get

everyone's attention.

Silent Ball

If the Ss are being loud and off task play this game with them. It really works and they love

to play it. Have all the Ss stand up and give one student a ball (make sure it is soft). Have

the students toss the ball to each other without saying a word. Any student who drops

the ball or talks must sit down. (Submitted by Samantha Marchessault)

LISTENING GAMES

Listening race (Listen, run and stick)

This is a game to practise personal descriptions, and works on aural skills.

Good to use with my students aged 10 and 11.

You need to prepare a selection of sentences as 'My name is..', 'I'm 10 years old', 'I've

got one brother and two sisters', etc.

Make two sets of all the descriptions you choose to use in the game and cut out the

phrases separately. Don't forget to take a record of the sentences you have cut up!

Put a set of the phrases on a table in front of each team - about halfway down the class -

then read out the sentences and the children race to bring the correct phrase to the

front. Whoever is first wins a point.

Children could take it in turns to be the teacher and read out the descriptions.

Rise or order the mini-storycards

Listen to the story and rise or order the story card.

Mime the story

Listen to the story and mime in griups by characters.

Drawing dictations

Drawing dictations are a great way to practise vocabulary and listening.

You can make the dictation as easy or difficult as you like, depending on the level of the

group and you can use drawing dictations to revise vocabulary you've studied in class in a

fun way.

If you've been studying food, dictate instructions for your students to draw a fridge, with

the door open, and a range of different food items inside.

Keep the language simple and concise.

For higher levels, have a picture in front of you and describe it to the class. See who, at the

end, has the most similar picture to the original. Students can take turns in giving the

dictation too.

Missed One Out







If the sentence is right students should take a big step to the right. If iwrong, they to the

left.



eliminated.

WRITING GAMES

Building bricks

Can build sentences through use of flashcards and gestures. E.g. 1 x thumb up + 1 x picture of a pear = I like pears. Can be extended by adding more cards to stretch the learner and develop the language. This can also be achieved in pairs with mini flashcards.

Paired dictation

Two texts. Work in pairs. The scribe turns his/her back to the reader and writes down what he hears and vice versa. This helps both pronunciation and writing skills.

Running Dictation

A simple way to practise writing. Pin several copies of a short text (could be a list of words) on the walls. Divide the class into teams which include a scribe, a reader and runners. Each team must be stationed at different points between the text and the scribe. The reader reads some of the text and runs to recite it to the runner who runs to tell the scribe who writes it down. The winning team is the team which transcribes the most correct text. It is a good idea to set a time limit for the activity.

Horse race dictation

This is an activity in which students try to predict the order of words in a

jumbled sentence before listening for the answer.

It is enjoyable because students are asked to predict the first Word.

Choose a sentence and write words in random order on the left of the

board.

finally

was

o’clock

eleven

home

when

I

it

got

Students in groups think about the sentence and write it in the blackboard.

Chain drawings

This is a fun activity using music which can be used with all groups.

Procedure:

Give each student a piece of paper and some coloured pencils.

You play music, while it sounds, they draw whatever comes into their heads.

After 20 or 30 seconds, stop the music.

Students stop drawing and pass their picture to the person to the left of them.

Play the music again, they go on with the person next to tthem drawing.

Continue the procedure until the end of the song.

When you have finished each student will have a picture.

Then it's up to you what to do with the pictures. Here are some ideas:

o Colour and label everything on the picture.

o Describe the picture to the group or a partner.

o The picture is actually a postcard. Write the postcard to a friend telling them

all about the place where you’re on holiday.

o Imagine the picture was a photo taken at 5pm yesterday. Describe what was

happening.

o Put the pictures up around the room and create your own art gallery.

The Chat Room

This is a fun question and answer writing activity.

Each student needs a blank piece of paper and a pen. Tell them they are going into a

pre-historic internet chat room so they all need to decide on a nickname. Tell students

that you and a volunteer are going to be the net and you will need to stand in the middle

of the circle to exchange the papers. Explain that the net has gone a little bit crazy and

they can’t send messages to specific people.

Give students model sentences. Eg. Pingu: How are you feeling today? As students

complete their questions they should hold the paper in the air and then you swap the

papers over as if their messages are being sent. They then reply to the one they’ve

just received and so it goes on until each student has a page full of ‘chat’. Then give the

papers back to the student who wrote the initial question and they can see how the chat

developed. This could lead on to talking about the internet, or chat rooms or you could use

the text to do some error correction. As students have been writing quickly there will

probably be lots of silly mistakes they can correct themselves.

In the teacher´s shoes

This is great for the first class with a new group or when you come back after a holiday

Put students into 2 teams. Ask the teams to write 5 questions they’d like to ask you.

Then ask for a volunteer from each team to sit at the front of the class. They are going

to imagine they are you, and spend a few minutes ‘in the teacher’s shoes’!

The teams ask their questions and the students at the front who are in your shoes must

try to answer the questions as they think you would answer them.

You decide whose response is closest to your own answer to the question and award

points accordingly.

STORY GAMES

One word stories

This is a simple activity where each student adds a word to create a group story.

Despite the simplicity it can be really challenging and I would only use it with higher levels.

Students should be in a circle (if this isn’t possible make it clear they know who they are

going to follow on from) The teacher can begin by saying the first word and each student

adds the next word, without repeating what has come beforehand.

Good starting words are “Suddenly” or “Yesterday” to force the story into the past tense. It

is great for highlighting word collocations and practising word order. It also highlights

problems studnts may have with tenses or prepositions for you to focus on in future lesson.

The stories can develop in any number of ways. Some groups may need the teacher to

provide punctuation and decide that the sentence should end and a new one should begin.

The great thing about this activity is that all students have to concentrate and listen

carefully to their colleagues to be able to continue the story coherently.

Writing consequences

This is a fun activity to create a group story.

Each student needs a blank sheet of paper and a pen. If possible, sit in a circle shape to

play. Each student adds one stage to the story then folds the paper to cover the information

and passes the paper to the student on the right. At each stage, before folding and passing

to the student on the right, give these instructions.

Write the name of a man. It can be a famous man or a man everyone in the class knows.

(Depending on the group, allow them to put the names of class mates)

Write the name of a woman. It can be a famous woman or a woman everyone in the class

knows. (Depending on the group, allow them to put the names of class mates)

Write the name of a place where the two people meet.

When they meet, he says something to her. What does he say? Students write what he

says to her.

She replies to the man. What does she say?

What’s the consequence of this encounter? What happens?

What’s the opinion of the whole story. What does the world say as a comment?

The end result is a mixed up story that can often be amusing. Read yours as an example of

how you want the students to tell the story. Then invite students one by one to unfold their

stories and read them to the group. Depending on the level you can encourage use of

connectors, reported speech etc.

Start and finish the story with …

1. Write a sentence on the board: a. E.g. On the weekend … wonderful. 2. The first student will say ‘On the weekend’. 3. Each student after that will say a word each making a sentence, paragraph or story. 4. The last student will finish with ‘wonderful.’ 5. Can do two laps or as many as you want. 6. Once the tense is established must be stuck to and be grammatically correct. 7. You can include guidelines: a. Must be in past tense using past perfect. b. The word spinach and phone must be included.

Gobbledygook

This activity is great for practising intonation.

Put students in pairs and give them a scene to act out. They are going to have a

conversation using an invented language. Explain to your students that

gobbledygook is a made up language that is total nonsense. The pair should act

out the scene using the correct intonation as if they were really talking to one

another. The rest of the class can watch and guess what the situation is. After,

you could write out the real dialogue in English for one of the scenes

VOCABULARY GAMES

To practice vocabulary (Presentation)

Learn 5 New Words

1. Make groups of five and choose five words that are new to the students. 2. Assign a word to each student. 3. Go in order repeating the words. 4. Go until you have done 3 laps (each student will say each word three times). 5. E.G. Weather: a. Student 1 → Rainy… b. Student 2 → Rainy, cloudy… c. Student 3 → Rainy, cloudy, sunny… d. Student 4 → Rainy, cloudy, sunny, windy… e. Student 5 → Rainy, cloudy, sunny, windy, stormy… f. Student 1 again → Rainy, cloudy, sunny, windy, stormy, Rainy… 6. You’ll be surprised how well the students remember the new words!

Missed One Out



Pupils repeat in sequence backwards or forwards as teacher goes backwards or forwar

Flipping: Teacher flips card over quickly giving the class a mere glimpse of the picture.

True or False Teacher gives a word/phrase and shows a picture. Children say, ‘true’ if they think it is correct and ‘false’ if they think it is wrong.

Choices Teacher gives two possible words / phrases and children select the one they think is correct.

Key Hole A piece of paper with a keyhole or circle cut out of it. Children see part of a picture and state which one they think it is.

Match Them Up Children match text flashcards and pictures ones together. (find partner)

Group mimes Divide the class into small groups. Give each group a word or a phrase to mime and

then shout ‘Go!’ (or put music) in whichever language you are teaching. The groups all

begin miming their word. After a few seconds, shout ‘Stop!’ (or stop the music) and

they all freeze. The other groups must guess which words / phrases were being mimed.


Send a child out of the room. Hide the item or flashcard. Child returns and class chants the word / phrase getting louder the nearer the seeker moves to the hidden object and quieter the farther away s/he is. Seeker must find it and say the word!

Fruit Salad 1. The students sit in a large circle. 2. Students are assigned an animal and its actions. Example: Crocodile: snapping hands, tiger, roar. 3. The teacher calls out two animals and those animals run around the circle doing the actions. 4. Last one back goes into the ‘zoo’ in the middle.






If the sentence is right students take a big step to the right. If iwrong, they to the left.



eliminated.











of them.







Run and touch or Flyswatters (matamoscas) game

This game is good topractice and review any type of vocabulary. The teacher puts

flashcards in a circle on the floor or sticks them on the walls of the classroom. Then

the teacher makes a sentence using one of the words on the cards. Students have to

run to the word or card and slam it with their flyswatters. To get the necessary reward

or praise,a studenr has to hit the word with the flyswatter and repeat the sentence the

teacher used with the word or for low levels, simply repeat the word. Teachers can also

make things more challenging by describing the word on the picture. For example "It is an

animal with a long nose." Students run and slam Elephant.

Word Search (Prepare and do it)

1. Work in small teams. 3. There are 10 English words hidden in the square 4. The words can be hidden in any direction (forward, backward and diagonal). 5. Work as a team & try to find the 10 words as quickly as possible. 6. It could be a good idea to prepare them as well.

Syllables

Break words down in to syllables for repetition. E.g. ‘chocolat’ = cho – co - choco – lat - chocolat / at – lat – olat – colat – ocolat – chocolat! This is fun and enables the children to develop correct pronunciation and also an awareness of the ‘rhythm’ of the language.

To practice vocabulary (Practice)

Acting

1. Ask for a volunteer from the class. 2. Tell him/her a word in which he/she must act. Have the class guess. Examples: Fishing, war, fairy, queen, rock star, teacher, Wayne Rooney,

gorilla, nurse, sumo wrestler, truck driver, pirate, bear, sleepy lizard

Picture Drawing

1. Ask for a volunteer from the class. 2. Tell him/her a word in which he/she must draw. Have the class guess. a. Have a student draw with their eyes closed: Examples: The moon, football, spaghetti, yacht, hot dog, snake, a butterfly, a banana, a t-shirt, etc. b. Now with their eyes open: Examples: School, a toilet, Australia, beach, tractor, a net, an onion,

Christmas, a pen, a computer, a city.


Select nine words or phrases and list them / stick pictures in a line at the edge of the board. Letter them a – i. Teacher draws secret grid on separate piece of paper and places the letters a – i in at random. Teacher then draws a large noughts and crosses grid on whiteboard and numbers the boxes 1 – 9, A-C Divide the class into two groups – noughts and crosses. Children select a box by saying the number and says the flashcard Word.

Swap

Students sit in a circle and flashcards faced down in the middle. When teacher

says SWAP, students change seats. (have to stand up and run to another seat). The

teacher tries to find a seat also. There will be one student standing. That student will pick

up a card and use it to make a sentence.

Musical chairs

Bring some nice kids music to class. Put chairs in circle and make it short by one chair.

Put flashcards in the middle. Students listen to music and when you stop it they sit

down. The one person who remains standing says the flashcard. Game continues.

Good for young learners.

Quickpix

1. The students work in two teams. 2. In each team, each students has a unique number (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.) 3. Call a number and a letter (e.g., 4 P). The #4 student from each team will have to stand up, run to the board and draw something that starts with that letter (in the example, the number four students will stand up and draw something starting with P, like a pirate or a pencil.) 4. The rest of the team has to guess what the drawing is. 5. The first team to guess wins one point.

Mallet (mazo) game

Bring two chairs to the front or center of the class and put them back to back. Split the

class into teams. Choose or let students volunteer to come sit back to back. Tell them

what the rules are. The students will say words related to a group of words. For

example you can tell them to say animal words or words related to animals. When the

teacher raises the mallet over a student’s head s/he has to say an animal.

A word cannot be repeated in one sitting of the game.

Students cannot wait for more than 4 seconds before saying a word.

Shorten the time as you advance in the game.

Every time the above rules are violated the student gets a mallet hit on his head.

Then replace the student with another student and continue with the game.

Caution: Some kids can be delicate, even when using a soft mallet, do not hit their heads

too hard. To start the game sometimes, kids find it fun when you test the mallet by hitting

your own head hard.

Spin the Bottle

Sit Ss in a circle with a bottle in the middle. T Spins the bottle. When it stops spinning

the S it is pointing to has to answer a question. If the answer is correct then that S can

spin the bottle. This is a good class warm up activity (e.g. What did you do last weekend?

Did it rain yesterday? What did you have for breakfast this morning?).

Word Snakes

This is a simple word game to start or finish a lesson. A word snake is simply a chain of

words where the following word starts with the last letter of the previous word. Here

are a few examples.

Food

Spinach – ham – melon – nuts – sausage – egg – garlic – cheese…..

This game is harder than it looks so offer students lots of help and support, and maybe

even a dictionary.

What's on my head?

This activity is good for practising or revising vocabulary.

You will need rubber bands, mini-flashcards and a timer (or a sand clock).

Divide the class into groups of 4's or more and get each student to wear a band around

their head. Give a bunch of cards to each group, making sure all cards are facing down.

In turns, each student grabs a card and, without looking at it, places it on his/her

forehead, so that the rest of the group can see it.

Each member of the group takes turns to ask questions until he/she guesses what is on

the card. The other members of the group should only say yes and no, or give short

answers. Set a time limit per person (1-2 mins time each). Students should come up with

questions like

o Am I a lion? - No

o Am I a crocodile? - No

o Am I an animal? - Yes

Hot seat

This is a good activity for getting for revising vocabulary.

First, split your class into different teams

Sit the students facing the board.

Then get one member from each team to come up and sit in the hot seat chair facing their

team-mates and have their back to the board.

Write a word clearly on the board.

Students in the teams to describe that word, using synonyms, antonyms, definitions etc.

to their team mate who is in the hot seat - that person can't see the word!

The student in the hot seat listens to their team mates and tries to guess the word.

The first hot seat student to say the word wins a point for their team.

Freeze game

Students sit in a circle. Put the cards face down in the middle of the circle.

Tell them they will pass the ball around the circle very quickly until you say “stop”. Warn

that no student can hold the ball for more than two seconds. As the ball is being circled

around, the teacher randomly shouts “Stop”.

The student who is holding the ball when you shout “stop” cannot pass it to the next.

S/he remains still with the ball. Ask the student to pick up a card from the pile of cards

facing down. The student reads or tells the other students what is on the card.

Depending on their English level, s/he makes a sentence or more with the word on the

card.

Variations:

You can make it more competitive by giving points to any student who makes a sentence

with the card or word which is picked up.

Hop and say

The teacher brings a number of flash cards to class and lines the cards up across the

floor in a row. Two teams stand at the extremes of the row. When the teacher orders

the game to start, the first student from each team starts to jump on the first card. Every

time a student jumps on a card s/he says what is on the card-For higher levels ask them

to make a sentence with the word on the cards. Eventually s/he will meet the other team

player somewhere on the row. When the two team players meet, they have to do the old

guessing game of ROCK, PAPER & SCISSORS . The student who looses the Rock,

paper & scissors game of chance, leaves the row and goes to the back of his or her

team’s line up. Another player in his/her team restarts the game for their team. It should

be such that the next team mate in the line up should be ready to start immediately when

s/he realizes that their team player has lost the stone paper scissors guessing part. The

idea is not to let the other team player get to the end of the row. If the other team player

gets to the end of the row, his / her team wins.

Volleyball game

Pick out three captains for three teams. The captains will take turns choosing students

to join their teams until everyone is chosen.

Decide two teams to play first, the remaning team has to sit at the side of the

playground. Define a playground and use a skip rope to divide the playground into two

equal parts. Get a medium-sized balloon and blow it to almost full capacity.

The teacher is the referee.

Rules:

1- Every time a student hits the ball s/he must say a word or sentence under a chosen

category (animals) (I like…)

2- Students can only hit the ball once every time.

3: First strike of the ball must be upwards.

4- Loosing points. When a team looses a point the teacher blows his whistle, takes the

ball and restarts the game.

Loose points if the ball touch the ground. if a student hits the ball without saying a

word, If the ball doesn´t go over the skip rope before three attempts, if a team looses a

total of three points, the next team takes their place.).

Categories

1. Write five common categories of words on the board, like this: Animals Food or drink Sports Places School 2. Students work in pairs. Give one letter (for example, s.) 3. Students have to think of one word related to each category that starts with that letter (for example, snake, strawberry, swimming, Somalia, student.) 4. The first team to finish says “Stop!” and gets ten points. 5. The other teams get one point for each word they have written. Play a few times with different letters. Complete the grid with the selected letter,

Against the clock

Two teams, flashcards distributed around the class. Select a runner from the first team. Teacher calls out the vocabulary and times the child as s/he runs around collecting them. Play against second team who also has a go.

Scrabble letters

You need to prepare 5 sets of scrabble letters. It’s a good idea to copy the letters onto

different coloured card for each set. If students are working close to each other it makes

it easy to separate them at the end and for tasks when you need more letters you can mix

two sets together.

Once you have made your sets there are hundreds of things you can do with them.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Spelling tests – Divide the class into teams and give each team a set of Scrabble letters.

Get them to spread out the letters on the table so they’re all facing up. Then give clues

for words you want to test them on, e.g. ‘the day before Wednesday’, students ‘write’

TUESDAY on the table by selecting the scrabble letters. ‘What’s this in English?’ – point to

things in the classroom, draw on the board etc. Once students get the idea, ask one of

them to lead the game and give the clues instead of you.

Crosswords – Put students in groups and give each group one set of scrabble letters.

Ask them to see how many words they can make with their set connecting them up like a

crossword.

How many words can you make in two minutes? In groups students use a set of letters

to see how many different words they can make. The winning group makes the most /

longest words.

The more you use the letters, the more uses you’ll find for them.

Games for all

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