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.

Think Fast

A game for revision (review). It also works well for the last 5 minutes of class

The teacher prepares a list of items for revision e.g. word fields, grammar, facts. In class he/she explains the procedure. Three to five volunteers leave the classroom and wait till their turn has come. The teacher appoints a student to take the exact time and another to take down a tick for every correct answer. No repetitions! (Set up or negotiate rules on pronunciation.) Then the first player is called in.

• Teacher: You have 20 second to name as many things as come to your mind.
• Your topic: Parts of the body / London sights / plays by William Shakespeare / the places in a town / traffic signs / weekend shopping-list / etc.
• Ready, steady, go

Once all volunteers have done their bit, award a small prize (e.g. a sticker) to the winner of the round. 

Then ask the class for additions before you pick the next item. Then pick the next item.
Allow more time (30 or 40 seconds) for longer answers: What have you done so far today? / What did you do last weekend? / School rules: What do students have to do? What are they not allowed to do?, etc.

If this game is played in groups, they should be evenly balanced.

Find Parts of Speech of Words in a Sentence

• Prepaire cards with parts of speech. Give these to your students.
• Write the sentences on the board.
• Ask your studnets to find parts of speech of words in the sentences.
• You can divide the class into teams to make the games more fun.

Example: Your sentence:

I  WENT TO  SCHOOL  YESTERDAY.    
Pronoun verb preposition noun  noun

Reviewing Tenses

Preparation:

• Print out three sentences (negative, positive, and question) of the tense you want to review.
• Cut each sentence into words.

The Activity:

• Students work in groups.
• Give each group of students words of a sentence and ask them to make the sentence.
• Draw a table on the board and ask students to tick sentences at suitable positiions, positive, negative, or question.
• Ask students to make rules of the tense.

Example:

• Three Sentences:
  • I am a student.
  • I am not a student.
  • Are you a student?

Guessing the Word from a Drawing

• Ask one student to be in front of the class. Give him/her a word that can not be seen by other students.
• He/she will draw (on the blackboard) a picture expressing the concept of the word.
• The rest of the class have to guess the word.
• If you are keeping score, the one who drew the picture gets the point if the class can guess the word.

Fold-over Stories

This is an old favorite. Give each student a sheet of blank paper. Write the following words on the board in a vertical line: WHO, WHAT, HOW, WHERE, WHEN, WHY. Explain that everyone will be writing a sentence story. 

Write an example on the board, explain, asking for suggestions.

1. Tell them to write someone's name at the top of their paper, i.e., their own, a classmate's, the teacher's, a famous person that everyone knows; fold the paper over in half once so no one can see it, then pass the paper to the person on their right.
2. Write on the received paper what the subject did (suggest funny or outrageous actions), fold it over and pass it on to the right.
3. Continue to write one line, how they did it (adverbs), fold and pass; where-pass; when-pass; and last of all, why (because...) and pass it one more time.
4. Have the students unfold their stories, and read them silently. Help anyone who cannot read what the others wrote, or doesn't understand.
5. Ask one student at a time to read "their" story aloud, or turn the stories in for the teacher to read. Funny!

Guess the Letter on Your Back

This game is used to practice the alphabet.

Divide students into groups and ask them to stand in line and give the students in the front of the line a piece of chalk to write on the blackboard.

Then write with your finger a letter on the back of the students at the end of the line. They must do the same with the student in front of him/her and so on. The students with the chalk try to guess the letter and write any word that begins with that letter on the board.

Can You Find What Is Different?

Ask a volunteer to go out of the classroom. While the student is out of the room, the other students change their sweaters, shoes, coats and so on. Bring the student who went out of the classroom back inside. He/she has to guess the differences (speaking in English, of course.)

Act Out an Activity

This is a game-like activity to teach continous tense.

One student simply acts out some activity (e.g.cooking) and the other students guess what that student is doing. The student who guesses correctly acts out another acitvity...

Words Beginning with a Given Letter

The teacher chooses a letter from the alphabet. Then each student must say a word that begins with that letter. If a student repeats a word that has already been said, then he/she is out of the game. The game ends when only one student remains. That student is the winner. In high level classes students lose if they say a past form of the verb. Example:see-saw.

You can increase the difficulty by adding a timer. Only allow each student 5 seconds to think of a word.

Classroom Rules: Must and Mustn't

• Prepare small pieces of paper each with either one thing students must do or one thing students must not do.
• Tell the students that they are supposed to form sentences that explain classroom rules.
• Divide the class into groups (of 4 if possible, so that everyone gets a chance to speak).
• Give each group the pieces of paper.

The winning group, the group that finishes first, reads their sentences aloud. (Each student of the group reads one or two sentences depends on size of group. 

It's an easy game and the preparation does not take too much time. You can make as many rules as you wish.

Digital Camera Scavenger Hunt

This game may require students to leave the classroom depending on how you set it up.
Make a list of things students must take photos of. Then put your students into teams, each with their own camera and have them go out and take the photos. The team that comes back first with all the photos is the winner.
Some ideas for lists are:

• Bus, taxi, car, bicycle, etc.
• Restaurant, post office, mail box, traffic light, etc.
• In the classroom: pencil, pen, eraser, blackboard, etc.
• Around the school: principal's office, copy machine, cafeteria, etc.

For further review of vocabulary, have the students look at all the photos and identify other things that appear in each photo.

Beep Game

Choose around 10 volunteers to come and stand in a line at the front of the classroom.

The first student in line must begin counting from 1, and each student in turn calls out the next number. However, every 4th number must be replaced by the word "beep" (or buzz etc.).

 Following a "beep" the next student in line must call out the next number, and not the number that has been replaced. For example, 1, 2, 3, beep, 5, 6, 7, beep, 9 etc.

If a student hesitates too much or makes a mistake he/she must sit down, so eventually only one student remains. Whenever a student sits down, begin from 1 again. See how far you can get!

Catching up on your ABC's

This game is short and simple.

Write the alphabet on the board. Throw a bean bag to someone and say a word begining with the letter A. This person must catch the bean bag, say a word begining with the letter B and then throw it to another person This third person says a word begining with the leter C and so on.

Obviously the game is meant to be played fast. If played with higher level students you may not want to write the alphabet on the board. There are many ways to change the game to make it adaptable to your level of students.

Spelling Contest

First, if you have a large class you have to divide it in 2 teams, then the teacher says a word or a sentence depending on the level for the students to spell.

Students should spell these correctly with not even one mistake. The team that has more points is the winner

Pictionary (Game 1) - Charades (Game 2)

Write out series of categories like professions (doctor, bus driver, etc.), animals, foods, actions (fishing, haircut, etc.) then divide the class into groups of 2. 

One student draws and the other guesses. Next turn, the guesser draws and drawer guesses. This game works best with the arbitrary stop watch (30 seconds). This is designed for one lesson.

Then for another day take the same categories (or create new ones) and play the same game except students, this time, act it out (no speaking or noises).