Tefl Games

7/24/2019 Tefl Games

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TEFL Games

Compiled by Scott Jarvis,

Sources: ESL-Cafe, My own

Games for teaching English to speakers of other languages.

These games require very little preparation, in general.

Most are for intermediate and above, but many will work for other levels as well.

They are in no particular order.


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Word Challenge

Duration: 15-30 minutesNumber of Students: Teams of 4-10English Skills: Listening / Speaking / SpellingObjective: One team says a word and the other tries to spell it

1. Have students get into teams of 4-10 people2. One person from each team does rocks, paper, scissors3. Winner says a word and opponent tries to write the word correctly4. If they get it right, their team gets a point5. If they get it wrong, the person who said the word can write it out for a point

for their team6. Have another person from each team play 'Word Challenge'

Make an 'arena' in the middle of the class for two students to face off

Students will start to look up difficult words to stump the other team. Remember toto a follow-up assignment for words used, such as teaching the class the meaningsand having students make sentences with the new words.


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The Hot Seat

Duration: 45 minutesNumber of Students: AnyEnglish Skills: Listening / Speaking / VocabularyObjective: Communicate words without saying them

1. Break class into 4 or less teams2. Place a 'hot seat' in front of the class and facing away from the board3. Each team selects a leader4. One team is up at a time and their leader sits in the hot seat5. Write ten words on the board so the leader can't see them6. Number the words 1-107. Each team member is assigned a word or words on the board8. Some team members may have more than one word

9. Team members take turns communicating their word to the leader withoutsaying the word with no spelling, writing, or drawing allowed

10.Team members can say 'pass' if their word is too difficult11.Each team has 1 minute to get as many words as possible12.The team with the most points at the end wins

Use simple words like animals or days of the week for weaker students Use the word 'pass' as one of the words on the board to challenge strong

students


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Running Dictation

Duration: 15-30 minutesNumber of Students: Pairs or small groupsEnglish Skills:Listening Reading Speaking WritingObjective: Remember words and phrases and dictate them to your partner

1. Break students up into groups of 3-4, or pairs for small classes2. Put one sentence on a piece of paper for each team3. One leader from each team goes to the board and tries to remember their

sentence4. The leader returns to their group and dictates the sentence while team

members write it down5. First team to finish correctly gets a point

6. Change words/sentences and switch leaders

Use pictures for children who can't spell and have them draw the pictureinstead of writing the words

Use multiple sentences for more advanced students Place

sentences around the room and have each group member do one each. Groups have to put the sentences into the right order before turning in the

paper

Make each team's paper different so students don't simply listen to other teams.Leaders are not allowed to take their paper, write down anything, or yell across theroom. They are allowed to return to board to look at their paper as many times asthey like. Use words from class to reinforce learned vocabulary and grammarstructures.


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Assembly Line Monster

Duration: 5-10 minutesNumber of Students: AnyEnglish Skills:Listening Speaking VocabularyObjective: Learn and practice body parts by drawing monsters

1. Make sure each student has a piece of paper/notebook2. Ask one student a 'How many?' question such as, 'How many heads does it

have?'3. Ask follow up questions like:4. Is it big/tall?5. Does is have a round head, a big head, a beard, etc6. Once decided everyone draws the monster

7. Move on to the next student and ask another question8. Keep going until everyone has drawn a monster

Let students take the drawings home for coloring Have students explain their pictures with other students

This is a good lesson to teach about body parts.

Use listen and repeat to help reinforce the parts of the body.

You can also have students touch the part of their body as they say it.

Share the art by putting the pictures up on the wall.


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What's the Question?

Level: Any Level

Type of Activity: listening and speaking

Purpose: review question forms previously studied in class

Procedure:Form two teams (three will work, but two seems to add just the right amount ofcompetitive tension).

Explain the game, with a few examples of answers in search of questions. Ask,'What's the question?', and get students to correctly say the corresponding questionsfor your answer.

Have two players--one from each team--come to the front. Style it like a game showif you like, with the students standing side-by-side. If you have access to bells orbuzzers, it's even more fun.

Next, read an answer to a question and say, 'What's the question?' The fastest playerto respond wins a point for her/his team. New contestants come to the front for anew round.

Rationale: This game forces the students to think backwards a little, so they must

provide a grammatically perfect question. All too often, they are used to answeringrather than asking questions, so this is challenging and useful as review.


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Bang Bang

Level: Easy

Divide the group into two teams.

Explain that they are cowboys and they are involved in a duel. One student fromeach team comes to the front. Get them to pretend to draw their pistols. Say "how doyou say..." and a word in their mother tongue.

Editor's Note: Instead of saying the word in the students' mother tongue, it would bepossible to use a picture or to say a definition ("What do you call the large, greyanimal with a long nose?")

The first child to give the answer and then "bang bang", pretending to shoot his

opponent is the winner. He remains standing and the other one sits down.

Give 1 point for the right answer and 5 extra points if they manage to "kill" 4opponents in a row.


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Describing Appearances & Characteristics of

People

Level: Easy to Medium (Low to low intermediate)

Each student is then give one sheet of paper. One student sits at the front of a room.

He/she describes a person and the rest of the class draws the person being described.

It is more interesting if the person being described is known by everyone.

Once the student has finished describing that person then he/she reveals who it isand each student shows his/her drawing.

It is a good idea to encourage students to ask the interviewee student questions about

who they are describing.


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Sentence Race

Level: Any Level

A good game for large classes and 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.


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Paper Airplane Game

Level: Any Level

Draw a target (with points - like a dart board) on the white board or use a cardboardbox in the middle of the room. Then, students make paper airplanes and launch themafter they answer your question in the form of a sentence.

I don't expect my beginners/low intermediate students to form complete sentences soI 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 thatlead to 1 or 2 types of answers.

This allows for better memorization. For example, use CAN/WILL questions andwrite 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 peakingtheir interest.


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Digital Camera Scavenger Hunt

Level: Easy to Difficult

This game may require students to leave the classroom depending on how you set itup.

Make a list of things students must take photos of. Then put your students intoteams, each with their own camera and have them go out and take the photos. Theteam 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 andidentify other things that appear in each photo.


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Taboo

Level: Medium to Difficult

Preparation:

Put students into 2 teams or more. Give each student a small piece of paper.

Get students to make a list of 5 to 10 words on their piece of paper.

(They should choose nouns people, places, names, hobbies, and so on.)

Collect the teams sheets and swap with another team, so all students have a new listof words, made by another student. Students mustnt show their words to anyone!

Students can check dictionaries, ask the other team or ask the teacher for help, ifthey dont know any of the words on their new list.

How to Play:

Students will describe their words to their team mates and must NOT say any wordsin their list when describing their words. Other players guess the word.

When a word has been guessed, the next student in the team chooses any word anddescribes it. A team finishes when all their words have been described and guessed.

The fastest team wins start at the same time, or time them individually.


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Can You Find What Is Different?

Level: Easy

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

Descriptions

Level: Medium

Write down names of every student in your class on pieces of paper. Give the names to students. Try to make two students describe each other. Ask them to describe the person whose name is on the paper. After they finish, give the description to the person who is described. He/she

has to find any writing mistakes on the paper. Students work in pairs to correct the two papers.

Find Parts of Speech of Words in a Sentence

Level: Any Level

Prepare cards with parts of speech. Give these to your students. Write the sentences on the board. Ask your students 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


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Intonation Fun

Level: Medium

Use this activity to underline the importance of intonation when your students, asthey often do, talk like robots. Basically, get them to say the words in quotationmarks in the contexts that follow.

'Hello'to a friendto a friend you haven't seen for 3 yearsto a neighbour that you don't liketo a 6 month old babyto someone you have just found doing something they shouldn't

to someone on the phone when you're not sure if they are still on the other end

'Goodbye'to a member of your family as they are going through the boarding gate at the airportto someone who has been annoying youto a child starting his very first day at school

'How are you?'to someone you haven't seen for 20 yearsto someone who has recently lost a member of the family

to someone who didn't sleep in their own bed last night

'I never go to pubs'by a person that totally disapproves of drinking alcohol to someone who often goesto pubsas a response to someone who has told you they sometimes go to pubssaid before: 'but I quite like discos.'

'What have you done?'to someone who claims to have fixed your television only that now it's worse than

beforeto someone who is scolding you for not doing anything when you suspect the sameabout them.to someone who has just done something very bad and which has seriousconsequences


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FOUR-LETTER-WORDS

Level: Any Level

This game has nothing to do with offensive words. I play it just for fun and thestudents like it a lot. You will be amazed to see how many different words can begenerated from a single word!

1.-The teacher writes a four-letter word (not a bad word but word made up fourletters) on the board.

For example:

The teacher writes on the board: TIME

2.-Students will take turns generating words from the first one. The idea is to changeonly one letter but generate a meaningful word.

TEACHER.-TIMESTUDENT1.-DIME

3.-Any letter can be change. Only one at a time, but not on the same placeconsecutively. Example:

TEACHER.- TIMESTUDENT1.- DIMESTUDENT2.- LIME (Wrong you should change any other letter but not on the sameplace consecutively).

TEACHER.- TIMESTUDENT1.- DIMESTUDENT2.- DOMESTUDENT3.- COMESTUDENT4.- CAMESTUDENT5.- CANEEtc.

Etc.


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MEMORY GAME (Long and Short forms)


RULES: The same rules as the regular memory games (the only difference is theyare going to match the long forms with the sort forms).

Foreign students sometimes do not realize there are many reductions in English.They feel frustrated when they are not able to understand spoken English. This is inpart to because they are not aware of short forms. A way to help them is by showingsame expressions in both short and long forms. Examples:

want to- wannagoing to-gonnaought to-outta

because-'causea lot of- alottasee you-seeyagot to-gottalet me-lemmigive me-gimmiwhat have-wattavetc.


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SPELLING REVIEW

Level: Medium

This activity will make students review spelling in a funny way. You can createsimilar spellings as the following ones:

I.1.2.C.U = I want to see youR.U.O.K? = Are you Ok?Is T = Iced teaI.C.Q = I seek youI.O.U. = I owe youE.Z. = EasyB.Z. = BusyI.1.T = I want tea

I.8 = I ateU.2 = You two/ you too.Y? = [email protected] = See you at nine2E.Z.4U = Too easy for youR.U.D.Z? = Are you dizzy?


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THE GAME OF TRUTH


I learnt this game when I was chatting with a Brazilian girl. It is a very simple butinteractive game. As you know people always ask the same questions in chats overand over again.

What do you do? How old are you? etc. She asked me if I wanted to play THEGAME OF TRUTH. I say yes of course! Here are the rules:( I made some changesfor the English classroom)

1.Make a lot of small cards with interesting topics written on them, such as:LOVE,JEALOUSY,PIRACY,MONEY,SMOKING,SEX,DINKING,CLONNING,BRIBING,FRIENDSHIP,DEATH PENALTY,PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT,

FAMILY, etc, etc. Look for topics that make students speak. Sometimes evenCONTROVERSIAL ones.

2.-Every student in the class will take turns in taking a card. He or she will talk alittle about the topic in the card he or she selected. For example:

MONEY: for me money is very important, but is not the most important thing. It isonly a way to reach things. Success is not measure by the money you can get.

3.-Allow student to express their feelings even if it is not their turn. Remember themain point of this game is to make students speak!However dont lose the control ofthe class.

If you select very interesting topics I guarantee everybody will try to answer thequestions even when is not their own turn. This activity is excellent to "to break theice" and to help you know each other in the classroom.


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Making Words from Letters in a Long Word


This game is a good activity for learning new words and for reviving some wordknowledge and for giving a teacher time to prepare other tasks for students.

The class is to be divided into 2-3- teams. Give each team a dictionary and write onthe board a long word.

Students should compose different words from the letters of this word. After sometime, the teams give their words. the team that has the most correct words wins.

For example:

R E T R I B U T I O N

return tribute iron notion note tone rib tube bruit tent tribe bur button rent burin nobbite burr run route tire tore bent bet bonnet rub nib net nub bin nut bit rube ruin robrot unit union unite tier tie tin tint tone toe brute burn brunt butt butter riot tot tenettenure terrier retro bone boot born bout totter tote tour bore

Also BOGGLE make a 9x9 grid of letters, and students make the word


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BETTING/AUCTION

Level: Any Level

PREPARATIONPrepare a worksheet with 20 or so sentences using grammar points you have recentlytaught. 2/3 of the sentences should include a grammatical mistake. Make fakemoney, it is more realistic if you use the currency of whichever country they areliving in.

PART ONEDivide the students into teams of 5 or so. The students then have 10 minutes to studythe worksheet and decide and mark which sentences are correct (0) or incorrect (X).

PART TWO

Each team receives a set amount of money.The instructor(s) reads one sentence (select sentences from the list in random order).The instructor begins to auction off the sentence. The students should try to buy onlythe correct sentences. The students bid and the instructor sells to the highest bidder.(This is really fun!)

The instructor tells whether or not the sentence is correct.IF the sentence is correct the team wins the amount which they bought if for. If it isincorrect the team looses the amount which they bought it for.

ANY team may win the lost money buy stating the incorrect sentence correctly.(YOU WILL BE SHOCKED TO SEE EVEN THE QUIET STUDENTSSCREAMING FOR YOUR ATTENTION).

IF the sentence is CORRECT and NO ONE bids on it, ALL TEAMS pay a fine.

After all the sentences have been read the team with the most money wins!

The students seem to really enjoy this game!


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My Town

Level: Any Level

Activity A

Do you like the town/city you live in? Why? Why not?

Teacher makes a list of the positive points mentioned by the pupils. Discusscommon and original comments. Teacher makes a list of negative comments abouttowns/cities mentioned

Activity B

THE PERFECT TOWN/CITY:

The class now makes a list of the characteristics of a perfect town/city. For example,these could include:

Bicycle paths / No smoke / No cars / Sports facilities / No violence / Culture

Activity C

Compare your town/city with another one you know, and make a list of thecomments. Some examples:

My town is noisier than X, because ...My city is more boring than Y, because ...

You can go on to mention aspects such as: Pollution, Poverty/Wealth, Green areas,Transport, Health, Cost of living

Activity D

The best town/city you have ever been to/seen? Why? Describe it. Compare it.


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Time Indicators

Level: Any Level

Rationale: Students practise using different subject pronouns, verb tenses, and thetime words and phrases that go with them. They must also be able to recognizedifferent forms of the same verb, especially irregular verbs.

Materials: None.

Levels: All. Beginners can play using only four verb tenses (present, past, future,and present progressive). More advanced can play using all the tenses.

Method: One student says a time word or phrase (e.g. next year, a few days ago). Asecond student must complete a sentence using the proper verb tense. That student

then says a different time word or phrase. A third student uses it to form a sentence,but may not use the same verb or subject pronoun the second student used.

Verb tenses may be repeated if necessary, but verbs may not, and subject pronounsmay be repeated only after they have all been used once.

The game can continue as long as the teacher wants, though two runs through all thesubject pronouns is an appropriate length. The teacher may write the full sentenceson the board, but should at least keep track of which subject pronouns and verbshave been used.

Example:

First student: "At the moment . . ."Second student: ". . . I am sitting in a classroom."Second student: "Last year . . ."Third student: ". . . they went to Europe."Third student: "Every day . . ."Fourth student: ". . . she takes the bus to work."


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Add a Word

Level: Any Level

Rationale: Students practise grammar and syntax.

Materials: None.

Levels: All levels, though better for more advanced students, because the game ismore fun at a quick pace.

Method: One student begins a sentence by saying only one word. A second studentmust say a word which continues the sentence. A third must continue, and so on,until someone says a word that does not fit syntactically or grammatically. If thesentence comes to a logical end without error, the next student may say "period" and

begin a new sentence with a new word.

The teacher may suggest a topic to get things started. What the students say may alsobe recorded and played back, so the class can discuss the error that stopped thesentence.

Example:

Teacher: The topic is 'pets'.First student: "My . . ."Second student: ". . . dog"Third student: ". . . has . . ."Fourth student: ". . . spots . . ."Fifth student: ". . . brown . . ."

The sentence would stop here. The teacher would ask the students why, hopingsomeone explains that the adjective 'brown' normally comes before and not after thenoun 'spots'.


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Indian Poker (Acting out verbs on cards):

Purpose:

Introduction of verbs, or verb tenses

Materials:

Cards with verbs (Picture cards work best because they show the motion)A list of the verb names depicted in the pictures for the students.

Pre-teaching: The verbs involved

Game Play:

A student chooses a card but does not look at it.The student holds the card to his/her forehead for all the other students to see.Other students must act out the verb.Holding student must guess which card is on his head.

Notes:The same cards can be used for game charades, where the drawing student actsout the verb and the others guess.


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Comparison Game

Prep:

First, divide the class into 4-6 teams. Have the kids name as many adjectives as they

can and write them all on the board. Then, ask them to name 8-10 countries (writethose on the board too).

How to:

Give them 10 minutes to make sentences using the adjectives and the countries (ieCanada is colder than Japan, Russia is the biggest country...) It's better if they havejust one student writing the team's sentences so that they actually work as a team.

At the end of the ten minutes, each correct sentence is a point for that team- if you

want to encourage originality, tell them that no other team can have the samesentence as them.

Then switch it up- I had them name animals and famous people too (famous peoplecan be really funny- especially if they count you as famous)

I was surprised- kids who hardly ever talk were yelling out adjectives that I didn'teven know they had learned, and the competition factor really got the whole classinterested.

Hope it works as well for you as it did for me!


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Claymation

You need some clay or play dough.

Give a student a list of objects, which they should make using the given clay.

(It's like Pictionary, only you use play dough or clay to make the words.)

Nouns are particularly good for this, but I've used verbs as well.

It is a nice change of pace!

One thing you have to watch for, though, is for inappropriate objects being made outof the play dough!

I usually just make an announcement about it being school appropriate!


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Persons to Kill Debate

(Famous people to use: Hitler, Walt Disney, an old man,

Tell Students:

o Youre on holiday with 3 famous people, then something goes wrong..o Students help to choose these 3 people

Then tell Students one of these:

- Youre in a hot air balloon, its going down

- Youre on an island, and are rescued by a boat, it can only take 3 people

- Youre trapped in a burning building, safety net can only take 3 people.

In groups of 3 or 4, Students agree on who should be saved:

- You have the final decision. Who will you save, who will you kill?


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3 Part Sentences

Aim: practicing their grammar both out loud and on paper.

Preparation: 3 boxes (box tops, hats, or bins will work). The first should be labelled

Tense, the second labelled Pronouns and the last labelled Positive/Negative.

In each box have slips of paper related to the label. For instance, in Tense - havefuture, past, present.

In Pronouns, pit these slips - I, you, he, she, they, we.

In Positive/Negative you will have one with positive and the other with negative.

Make at least three sets of each, for each box for more variety.

How To:

Each student comes up to the front of the classroom and pulls out one slip of paperfrom each box.

The teacher then calls out an infinitive verb and the student must say a sentence forthe class using that verb with the Tense, Pronoun and Positive/Negative slips theypulled.

If they get it correct - that student gets 2 points. If it is incorrect, another student cansteal. I usually play that the first hand I see up gets to try. If they get it correct - theyget one point.

I like to have all students' names on the board when keeping score - they really getinvolved when they see who is winning!

After each correct sentence is said aloud by a student - all students must write itdown on a piece of paper to turn in at the end of class. This way, they are practicingwritten and oral grammar.


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Agree to Disagree

The teacher divides the room into four corners: strongly agree, partly agree, partly

disagree, and strongly disagree. Then the teacher makes a statement like "Football

players deserve to be paid huge sums of money for what they do."

The students must then move to the corner that best fits how they feel about the

statement. The students in each corner have a few minutes to discuss why they feel

this way and then their group presents.

Depending on the type of statement made by the teacher, this game can be very

serious, very funny, very political etc... Cultural differences among students are

highlighted in this game and debate can get intense.


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Animal Fight

Time : about 2 mins, or as long as you can stretch it!

Method: Elicit animal names in 2 columns, get an even number in each column.

You must use 4, 8 or 16 animals!!

Pair off each animal with the next in its column, making a tournament

Ask students who would win in a fight and why.

Note: You could also do celebrities or anything else that could conceivably fight!


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Brainstorm Rummy

Preparation:

Put the students into small groups or teams. One student has pen and paper, the

others should have nothing no dictionary/translator, etc.

Method:

You will announce a general topic to the entire group such as "fruits and vegetables"or "animals" or "holidays" or "irregular verbs" or "adjectives" or "Hollywood actors"or "fast food items." Adjust the topics to the level of your students.

The groups then will have just one minute to "brainstorm" and write on their piece ofpaper as many English words related to the topic as they can. So if the topic is

animals they will probably write words like bear, horse, pig, etc.

HOWEVER, once a word has been given, another team may not use it, even if theyhave that word on their brainstorm list.

How to:

Give a topic, so students start brainstorming related words. After one minuteannounce time is up and make sure the writing stops. Then ask a team to say ONEword from their brainstorm list.

Say it and write it beneath their team name on the board. Then ask the other teamsfor one word from their lists. Remember, they cant use any words on the board.

Keep asking each team in turn for a word and keep writing it on the board until theyrun out of words. The team with the most words wins the round.

Mark a point by their team name to indicate the winners and then announce anothertopic. The winner of the last game should go first in the next round.


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Comics Sans

Prep:

Take a page from a popular comic photocopy enough for the class to work in, eitheralone or in small groups.

Photocopy the again, leaving only empty speaking bubbles (no text).

Method:

Allow students to read the original, elicit vocab and meanings.

Then handout the blank version, tell students to make their own story.

Students can use dictionaries, teacher, each other to help write the story.

When students are finished, they read their stories to the class.


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Cluedo

Best for advanced classes, or older students.

Preparation:

You need 18 blank cards onto which you write 6 names, 6 rooms, 6 weapons. Writethese names, rooms and weapons on to the white board so everyone can see.

Put 3 cards (1 from each category) into an envelope these will be your murderer,murder weapon and crime scene.

Put students into lots of small teams. Tell the students that a crime has beencommitted and the answer/evidence is in envelope.

Keep the envelope sealed. Deal out the remaining 15 cards 1 card chosen randomlyto each student until all are gone.

The teams must guess WHO did it, WHERE and WHAT with.

Each student asks 2 questions to each of the other teams, during which everyone elsecan collect evidence and eliminate potential suspects, weapons etc...

HOWEVER, students cannot use the words in the board/cards they must describeit. Example: Was it Homer, in the Library, with the Gun? becomes What is ayellow, fat man, in the room with lots of books with a thing that shoots bullets.

OR, tell students they cannot ask a direct question, such as Do you have a knife?Does your weapon cut people?, Does you room have lots of books?, Is yourcharacter fat?

Each team gets one chance to make an ACCUSATION and can do so at any time; "Isuggest it was ... in the ... with the ..." BUT, once they do so they're out, one way oranother!

After seeing the contents of the envelope they either win, if correct, or continue to

act as witnesses if wrong. There will be many false guesses, as students are itchingto accuse, eager for a resolution, desperate to be the super sleuth. They love it.

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