Vol. 5 Issue 23 – Six Games for Your Next English Class

ELTWeekly Vol. 5 Issue#23 | July 1, 2013 | ISSN 0975-3036

It’s been long I wrote any article for the ELTWeekly. I am glad to be on board this week 🙂

Today I would like to share six classroom games you could try out with your language students.

Here you go!

1. One word stories

   This activity is extremely simple. 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.

2. Talking topics

   This simple board game provides an excellent way to give students a bit of free speaking practice. You can choose your own topics either based on the topics you’ve covered in lessons or topics that you think will be of interest to your students.

3. Change places…

   This is a great activity to get students moving about and practice some vocabulary or sentence structures.

4. A Dark and stormy night

   The main focus of the activity is on developing writing skills, but it’s also good for developing listening speaking and reading skills and also for practising past tenses, descriptive vocabulary and generally having fun.

   The activity should work at most levels above elementary, as long as your students have some knowledge of past tenses, but it works best when they also know past continuous / progressive too. All you need to get things started is a sheet of plain paper for each pair of students.

5. The Press Conference

   This is a longer activity that needs some preparation. It’s great for practising question forms in a fun way and gives structured speaking practice to lower levels. You will need a sticky label for each student or a pack of Post-It notes.

6. Conditional chain game

   This game is good to revise and practise structures in the first conditional. The teacher begins with a sentence, for example “If I go out tonight, I’ll go to the cinema.” The next person in the circle must use the end of the previous sentence to begin their own sentence.

I am sure you and your learners would enjoy these games in the classroom.

Do share your feedback.

Thank you,

Tarun