Fun Games to Play For Your ESL Class
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Pick it Quick!

Games to learn English need to motivate your students to participate! In this game your students divide into two groups that try to quickly grab a piece of paper in English. Imagine two students hovering over a table of vocabulary words that you are reviewing. The rest of the class is divided in two lines and into teams that are all intently watching the two competitors. The teacher, who is standing next to the cards, begins to say a sentence. One of the English vocabulary words is within the sentence. The students have to listen to the teacher to be able to pick the vocabulary word that the teacher says as soon as the teacher says it. If a student picks incorrectly, the other students gets to take their time, which is usually hilarious. If one student is constantly winning, you can ask another student to act as the teacher while you become that student’s competition. This helps level the playing field.

What Did She Say? Using Lyrics

Lyrics are some of those most difficult words to understand. Do you know what it is like to listen to a song in a foreign language? It is difficult. So, help your students by having them, or yourself, choose a few songs to study in class. More often than not these songs will touch on some grammar that you are currently working on.

The game you can play involves having students listen to a section of the song and having them guess what the artist said. You should have them listen to the lyrics once, without the words in front of them, and then later you should repeat the song and have them try again.

Listen, Write, Say!

As the title implies, in this English game, have your students divide into two teams and make sure there are two markers close to the whiteboard. You will say a sentence in English. Your students have to run to the board and write the sentence, turn around, and then say the sentence. The first to do so correctly wins a point. You can also play this game having each student sit at their desk and write their answers on a piece of paper, or whiteboard, which they then hold up and, when you call on them, read aloud.

Have Fun!

As with every class, you must make it fun! Be certain that each student is getting a chance to participate and that everybody feels good about the game. Make sure to speak with all of your students to make sure they know that you will not, under any circumstances, tolerate disrespect to another student or yourself.

If you have an overly competitive student, you may need to take them aside and speak with them about their behavior, or even remove them from the game if it becomes too much of a problem. Remember, the point is to have fun and learn at the same time. Feel free to check out some more educational games.

Images

Wikimedia Commons- High School Class

This post is part of the series: ESL Lesson Plans

More isn’t always better, unless you are talking about ESL lesson plans.

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