Lost in a Jungle

This game can be done in groups of three to six students. It keeps everyone involved even the quietest students.
The Teacher prepares a list of say 20 items and writes the list on the board or gives copies to groups. This is a list of things that people may need if they're lost in the jungle and things that they may not need.
For example:

• A pack of canned food
• 50 meters nylon rope
• Knife
• Torch
• Tent
• Cellular phone
• 6 gallons of water
• Petrol
• Alchohol
• Blankets
• Candles
• Matches
• ...

Then, the students in groups decide on 5 itmes on the list which seem essential to all of them.This usually takes a whole session since they all come up with different ideas. Sometimes a creative student chooses an item apparently irrelevant, but when he/she explains how to use it, everyone agrees! 

Air Write

One person "writes" letters, words, numbers, shapes etc: in the air and others guess what it is. Can be done in pairs, as a group, along a chain. Can also be played as back-write, that is, writing the letter/word/... on the back of another and they guess what it is.

Good Morning Balls

1. You have three different coloured balls, (they should be very light weight, samll balls).
2. Get the class to make a circle.
3. Then give three people a ball.
   • Red Ball - Good Morning
   • Green Ball- How are you?
   • Blue Ball - Fine thank you and you?
4. The class members pass or gently throw the balls and the person who receives them says the meaning of the balls.

This is fun and gets the class going first thing in the morning. 

Punctuation Game

Draw a period (.), a comma (,), a question mark (?), exclamation mark (!), and an apostrophe (') on the board and leave a few inches between each symbol.

Tell the students the name of each and have them repeat each name. When they are comfortable with the names, begin by pointing to each one in succession. Once they are proficient at this, speed up the pace. This is where it gets fun. Once they are able to say the names in order, change the order on them. Speed up each time through to get the kids excited. As a final tactic, have each student go through the names of the symbols at a slow pace and then speed up. I give the one who can say the most right a piece of candy or a sticker. Have fun and you'll see a big improvement in their punctuation. 

Martian

Tell your class you are a Martian and you are inhabiting a human body to study human ways. You then ask about virtually anything in the room, and ask follow up questions: What is this? It's a pen. What's a "pen"? You use it to write. What is "write"? You make words with it on paper. What are "words"? ETC... You can make it as difficult as possible for your higher level students; at some point, though, you'll need to say "OK, I understand", and go to the next object. Even your best students will eventually get stuck on this one!

Prepositions Game

Prepare a text that contains prepositions. Take out the propositions and print them on a separate sheet, then cut this sheet so that each preposition is on a piece of paper, then put all of them in an envelope. 

Divide the class into groups and give each group an envelope. Tell the students that you are going to read a text and whenever you raise your hand they should bring a suitable preposition and put it on your desk and that the fastest team would get points.

Read the text with each groups' order and cancel a point for each mistake. Finally read the text with correct prepositions. You can play this game with adj as well as a,the and an. 

Spin Zone

Each set of partners receives a top. One learner says as many sentences or words in the target language as he can before the top stops spinning. His partner counts. The student who says the most words wins. We had fun letting the winners compete in "spin offs". I like to give stickers to all and candy to the winner!

Writing Idea

I asked my students to write in their daily journals what rules they would like to see implemented in our classroom and which rules they beleived would benefit our class the most. I then asked them to imagine how it would be if we had no rules in our class, in our school, and in the world. I asked them to weigh the pros and cons of this idea and write whether or not they would like to experience or live in this type of environment.

Cut-Up Sentence Kabadi

This is a combination of a basic TEFL game and the Indian game Kabadi.

Prepare some cut up sentences from the grammar or vocab area you've been working on and place them on a table at the front of the class. Arrange the students into teams, standing behind a line or marker. They have to run to the table and arrange the words into correct sentences, however, they are not allowed to breathe in.

To prevent this the students have to repeat 'kabadi' over and over. If they stop saying the word they have to return to their teams. The first team to correctly arrange all their sentences is the winner. This can get a bit wild but it's fun.

Suppose That

This works well as a fluency activity

1. You are the black sheep of your family. Explain to us why.
2. You won a motorcycle and you are planning to embark on a voyage. Explain where you go.
3. You arrive face to face with a person who you owe 100 dollars to. What do you say?
4. You help an old woman across the street. It turns out that she is a magician. To thank you, she offers you four wishes. What do you ask for?
5. You arrive home at midnight, you open the door and ......

Acting Adverbs

This activity is a great way to introduce the idea of how adverbs affect the way a verb action is done. Divide the blackboard in two and write as many verbs on one side and as many adverbs on the other as you can (get the class to come up with them). At this stage you can also teach how adjectives 'turn into' adverbs by writing down adjectives e.g. angry, happy, and adding the 'ily'. Then divide the class into two teams and perhaps give them goofy team names (I find they enjoy giving each other names). Then get one team to choose a verb and adverb combination and the other team has to act it out, e.g. talk crazily.

My experience with this activity has been with younger learners where some kind of reward is offered at the end like stamps or being the first team to leave at the end of class. You can think of your own reward (or penalty) to motivate your class. It can be a lot of fun with both the actors and the 'directors' enjoying making fools out of themselves or watching others make fools of themselves. 

Draw the Teacher

The teacher gives every student a piece of paper on which they write a sentence about their personal life. This sentence can be about school, family, music, friends, the last vacation, etc. For example "I went to the beach last vacation" or "I always study for my exams" or "I have two brothers" etc. When they finish writing their sentences they fold the paper and give it to the teacher.

It is very important to tell students before writing the sentence that the information they are going to write is "a secret" and not to show it to their classmates. If they have a question about something, they should ask it to you instead of a classmate. Tell students to write their names on the papers.

After collecting all the papers, ask the students to write the numbers from one to 10 (or 20, depending on the number of students you have in that moment in the classroom) in their notebooks. After that, the teacher reads the sentences in random order (without saying the name of the student), and the students write the names of the people they think wrote sentences.

After reading all the sentences, say the question number and read the sentence again for each piece of paper and ask the students to name who they thought wrote it.

Then tell the students the name from the student who wrote that sentence. Students should write (C) for correct guesses and (I) for incorrect guesses.

This is one way for studnets to start knowing a little more about their classmates. 

Getting to Know a Little More about Your Classmates

The teacher gives every student a piece of paper on which they write a sentence about their personal life. This sentence can be about school, family, music, friends, the last vacation, etc. For example, "I went to the beach last vacation" or "I always study for my exams" or "I have two brothers" etc. When they finish writing their sentences they fold the paper and give it to the teacher.

It is very important to tell students before writing the sentence that the information they are going to write is "a secret" and not to show it to their classmates. If they have a question about something, they should ask it to you instead of a classmate. Tell students to write their names on the papers.

After collecting all the papers, ask the students to write the numbers from one to 10 (or 20, depending on the number of students you have in that moment in the classroom) in their notebooks. After that, the teacher reads the sentences in random order (without saying the name of the student), and the students write the names of the people they think wrote sentences.

After reading all the sentences, say the question number and read the sentence again for each piece of paper and ask the students to name who they thought wrote it.

Then tell the students the name from the student who wrote that sentence. Students should write (C) for correct guesses and (I) for incorrect guesses.

This is one way for students to start knowing a little more about their classmates. 

Ball Game

Students stand up in a circle around the teacher. 

A ball is tossed to a student and the teacher asks a question, e.g.: "Say a color". The student then responds and throws the ball back to the teacher.The teacher then throws the ball to another student and asks another question. For higher levels, you can ask such questions like "Give me the past participle of an irregular verb".

This is a fast game, and it is great for reviewing vocabulary. 

Human Bingo - Getting to Know You Activity

Have the students divide an 8.5" x 11" paper into 9 squares (two vertical lines / two horizontal lines. The middle square is the "free" space. Next, put a list of 5 questions on the board (these can vary in difficulty). For example:

1. What is your name?
2. Where are you from?
3. How long have you been in the USA?
4. What is the strangest thing you have eaten here?
5. (they make a question)

The students must then interview 8 different people in the class to fill in the bingo page. Each square on the paper represents one person's answers. When they have written all the answers from one person, they go on to someone else until all of the boxes on the paper are filled. When everyone has finished, the teacher uses the class list to call off names. For example, if the teacher says, "Who has Rodrigo?", the students who interviewed Rodrigo would then provide the answers he gave to the bingo questions.
It's a fun game that gets students speaking right away. It usually takes a while to complete.

What's Your Name?

One student sits in the front of the classroom (usually in the teacher's comfortable chair) with his back to the other students. The teacher then points to students in the class and asks "What's your name?" The student indicated must respond "My name is__________" with either his own name or the name of someone in the class. The student in the front cannot see who is speaking. The teacher says to him, "Is it___________?" and he must say "Yes, it is" or "No, it isn't". If the student in front is correct, he gets to stay there, but if he's mistaken, he changes place with the student who fooled him.

To make the game more interesting, the students are encouraged to disguise their voices.

I always do this with my beginners at the beginning of the year, but always at the end of the class, and for not more than 5 to 10 minutes. (My beginners are elementary age.)

Survivor Spelling Game

Use this activity to review vocabulary:

Make a list of vocabulary covered in previous lessons. Have students stand. Call out a vocabulary word. The first student begins by saying the word and giving the first letter, the second student the second letter of the word, the third student the third letter, and so on until the word is spelled correctly. If somebody makes a mistake they must sit down and we start from the beginning again until the word is spelled correctly. The last student must then pronounce the word correctly and give a definition in order to stay standing. The student who is left standing is the "survivor" and wins the game. I usually give them some type of prize. If all the students remain standing we have a pizza party at the end of the week.

The students love it and it is a great way to practice vocabulary!!!

Alphabet Liar Game

Take a pack of letter cards, mixed up. It is better if it is not a complete alphabet, and there are some duplicate cards.

Deal all the cards out to the players:

Students take it in turns to play cards face down. They must go through the alphabet, starting from 'A', playing one card face down and saying the letters in Alphabetical order.

Even if they do not have the card to be played for that turn, they must play any card and pretend it is the card they said. Say the sequence has gone A,B. The next player must play a card and say C, even if he has not got an C.

If any player does not believe that someone has played the real card, he can say: "You're a liar" and turns the card over. If the card has the letter which was said, the challenger picks up all the cards. If it is not, the liar picks up all the cards in the pile. The winner is the first one to finish all their cards.