Headmaster Game

Have each student take out a piece of paper and their dictionary. Write on the board:

You are the new headmaster of this school. You have two years to make this the perfect school. You can have as much money as you want, but you must spend it all in 2 years.

• What changes would you make immediately?
• What changes must be gradual?
• What would you do to make it a better school?
• What changes would you make?

Be specific. For example, don't say hire better teachers. You must say how you would find better teachers or what kind of teachers you would hire. Also, remember you must think like a headmaster, not like a student! Making school easy and letting the students do no exams or homework will not make parents happy!

Give the students 15 minutes to work alone. Then put them in groups of 3-5 with a leader to organize their thoughts. Each group's leader will give its "report" to the other students during the following class period.
If your students have a small vocabulary you can help them out by listing on the blackboard areas of discussion: teachers, buildings, classrooms, activities, dorms, lunchrooms,curriculum, sports, playground, library, bathrooms,schedules,music, art,etc.

This is a great activity for all ages. We always run out of time!

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!

Crazy Story

This is an activity that will make your students speak in class and be creative.

• Ask students to write a word on a piece of paper and tell them not to show anyone. This word should be a verb (or whatever you'd like to rewiew).
• The teacher starts telling a story, then stops and chooses a student.
• That student will continue the story and must use his/her word. This student then chooses the next student to continue the story.
• The last student must end the story.
• After the story is over, the students then try to guess what words each student has written on his/her paper. The student who guesses the most words wins the game.

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.

What's the Meaning?

You, the teacher, may need a dictionary do this activity.

• Choose a word which is long, difficult, and unknown to the students, a good word to begin with is: warmonger.
• Without using a dictionary, your students write down a definition. (They can work out the definition in groups of three).  Allow them a few minutes to think and write.
• Collect the definitions and read them aloud.
• When you have finished reading, they will have to vote which of those is the correct one. (It doesn't matter if none of them is the correct one) 
• After they have voted and none of the groups guessed the meaning you read the correct one aloud.

The idea of this game is to let students be creative and practice writing skills.
Then you can have the students to discuss their writings.

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). 

Sentence Race

A good game for large classes and for reviewing vocabulary lessons.

1. Prepare a list of review vocabulary words.
2. Write each word on two small pieces of paper. That means writing the word twice, once on each paper.
3. Organize the pieces like bundles, 2 bundles, 2 sets of identical words.
4. Divide the class into 2 teams. get them to make creative team names.
5. Distribute each list of words to both teams. every student on each team should have a paper.  Both teams have the same words.
6. When you call a word, 2 students should stand up, one from each team. The students must then run to the blackboard and race to write a sentence using their word.

The winner is the one with a correct and clearly written sentence.

This is always a hit with kids. For more advanced students, use tougher words.

Paper Airplane Game

Draw a target (with points - like a dart board) on the white board or use a cardboard box in the middle of the room.

Then, students make paper airplanes and launch them after they answer your question in the form of a sentence. I don't except my beginners/low intermediate students to form complete sentence so I help them to form correct sentences. To my surprise they will repeat the sentence several times (while I'm helping them) just so they can throw their airplane.

For beginner and low intermediate classes, I recommend formulating questions that lead to 1 or 2 types of answers.

This allows for better memorization. For example, use CAN/WILL questions and write the beginning part of the answer on the board "I can/will...".  I recommend giving a prize to make the target points mean something, thus peaking their interest.

Battle Ships - A Vocabulary Game

Preparation:
Divide the students in to groups of four or five. Then ask the student to make the name for their ships for example with the names of animals, cities, movie stars or let them find their own favourite names.
Ask them to choose the Captain and the Shooter. The captain's duty is to memorize his ship's name, so he can reply if somebody call his ship's name. The shooter's duty is to memorize the names of the ships of 'their enemies', so he can shoot them by calling their ship's name.

Activity:
Arrange all the captains in a circle, the ships' crews must line up behind their captains. The shooter is the last crew member in line.

The teacher must decide a lexical area of vocabulary, this vocabulary will be used to defend their ships from the attacks. Every students (except the shooters) must find their own words. The lexical area for example, "Four Legged Animals". Give the students 1-2 minutes to find as many possible words as they can and memorize them.

Start the game by calling a ship's name, for example the ship name is "THE CALIFORNIAN". The captain of THE CALIFORNIAN must reply with a word from the lexical area given, for example he says "TIGER" followed by his crews behind him one by one, "COW"; "SHEEP" until it  is the shooter turns and he calls out the name of another ship and the captain of the ship called must reply and his crews must do the same thing. No word can be repeated.

If the captain is late to reply (more than 2 seconds) or his crew can not say the words or a word repeated or the shooter shoots the wrong ship (his own ship or the ship that has already been sunk) the ship is sunk, and the crew members can join the crew of another ship.

The teacher can change the lexical area for the next round.

In the last round there will be two big groups battling to be the winner.

Secret Code

I sometimes give instructions to my students written in code that they have to interpret before completing tasks. I've used this at various levels:

Here's an example: to revise alphabet and simple present verbs/vocab.

• ·        Tell students the code e.g. each code letter represents the letter that comes before it in the alphabet ‘a’ is ‘b’, ‘m’ is ‘n’, 'dbu' is cat etc. 
• ·        Then they decode their message and do the task: 

o   xbml up uif cpbse - walk to the board 

o   kvnq ufo ujnft - jump ten times

To make it more difficult, I've...

• ·        Used more complex codes,
• ·        Let them work the code out for themselves,
• ·        Have not defined where words end,
• ·        Have given more complicated tasks or vocabulary
• ·        Or given them half an instruction which they must decode and then find the classmate with the other half of their task information.

This activity can be used to review or practice vocabulary or structure or simply be a different way to introduce the topic for the day's class - each student gets one or two words to decode and then the class work to put all the words together.

Chain Spelling

The teacher gives a word and asks a student to spell it, and then a second student should say a word beginning with the last letter of the word given. 

The game continues until someone makes a mistake, that is, to pronounce the word incorrectly, misspell it or come up with a word that has been said already, then he/she is out. The last one remaining in the game is the winner.

This game can be made difficult by limiting the words to a certain category, e.g.. food, tools, or nouns, verbs, etc.

Bad Fruit: A Shoppers' Nightmare

This is an oral communication activity appropriate for EFL learners in elementary/primary school. (It's optimal for grades 3-6). This game is designed for practicing "shopping" dialogues and vocabulary.

Materials: "produce" and play money.

Object of Game: 

• To accumulate as many products as possible.

• Students are divided into clerks and shoppers.

• The clerks set up "stands" to allow easy access for all shoppers (e.g. around the outsides of the room with their backs to the wall).

• The shoppers are given a set amount of money* (e.g. dollars, euros, pounds, etc.) and begin at a stand where there is an open space.

• Students shop, trying to accumulate as many items as possible (each item is 1 unit of currency).

• Periodically, the instructor will say "stop" (a bell or other device may be needed to attract attention in some cultural and classroom contexts) and call out a name of one of the products. Students with that product must then put ALL their products in a basket at the front of the room. The remaining students continue shopping. Students who had to dump their products must begin again from scratch (with fewer units of currency).

• The student with the most products at the end wins.

• Students then switch roles.

*It is recommended giving students as much money as possible since students who run out can no longer participate.

Alternative play for more advanced students: Clerks set the price of items. Shoppers have the option of negotiating the price. There are two winners in this version: The shopper who accumulates the most products and the clerk who makes the most money.

Toilet Paper Icebreaker

This activity is used as a "getting to know you", icebreaker on the first day of class.

Teacher takes the toilet paper roll and takes several squares of toilet paper, then hands the roll of toilet paper to a student.

• The teacher tells the student to take some, more than three.
• After everybody in the class has some paper, we count the squares we have, then we have to tell that many things about ourselves, in English. 

 This activity works well with substitute teachers also. The toilet paper is such an attention getter.