games and activities.

Most learners enjoy language games. They can vastly help with recycling and assimilating
language - and can be fun, competitive, challenging or relaxing. When choosing classroom
games, make sure they are appropriate for the levels, ages, aims and cultures of your students.
You can find a huge variety of ideas for games on EFL/ESL internet sites and in large bookshops.

In this module, you will find out about:

Before you decide what games to adapt for your classroom purposes, you will need to take
certain factors into consideration. Take a look at these top tips that will help you choose games
that are directly relevant to your students.
● Think about how the game will generate useful and relevant language
● Find a way to review and practise language points students have already learned
● Choose a game that works on their desired skill areas
● Consider your students' age, level and cultural background
● Assess how well your students interact with you, and one another
● Choose a game that is challenging but not too difficult
● Choose a game that will create cooperation and a sense of community in the classroom
● Consider the practical issues like the size of your classroom

Alibi
The story
The teacher relates a crime story. For example, last week you and another teacher were kidnapped
and your kidnappers didn't release you for three days.

The problem
You've returned to work but disaster - your boss doesn't believe you, and is going to interview you
and the other teacher separately, to check if your stories add up.

Get into pairs

Questions, questions
Give everyone 10-15 minutes. The bosses must write as many detailed questions as possible, and
the teachers have to work out their story. It is best to first brainstorm with the class what they
could include in the story and come up with some example questions before having them get to
work.

In the crossfire
When they are finished, one member of a boss pair takes one member of a teacher pair and asks
all their questions. The other boss does the same with the other teacher.
Sting in the tail
The bosses then come back together and try to find a contradiction in the teachers' stories. Does
the story hold water?

Dominoes are good for practising phrasal verbs, verb collocations and prefixes & suffixes. Adapt
the pieces so that they match up (e.g. take + out, lay + down, get + on) so the students have to
match them in the game.

Bingo can be used as it is to practise numbers. You can adapt the game to focus on larger
numbers or pronunciation problems like the difference between '13' and '30'. Or you can use
vocabulary; say the word and the students have to cover the correct picture. It can be adapted to
any language item and it's a great way to finish off a lesson, especially with children.

Charades can be adapted well for classroom use. In its original format it is used to guess the titles
of books, films and TV shows. The problem with this is that many students in other countries will
be unfamiliar with them or know them by a different title. What you can do instead is to decide in
advance what culturally-specific or internationally known items to use, and write these on slips of
paper which students choose at random. For more of a language focus, you may wish to jot down
verbs or occupations which students have to mime.

20 Questions provides great speaking practice, especially if done in pairs. You should insist on
totally accurate questions; students generally have a lot of problems with this form.
The objective of the game is to guess an animal, profession, mineral, famous person, etc. by
asking no more than 20 closed (yes/no) questions (e.g. Is it a man? Is he alive? Does he live in
Europe? etc).
Battleships can be used in children's classes by putting grammar along the top and side of the
board so that students have to form a sentence to choose a square. The strategy of the game
remains but with a language focus.

Hangman is an excellent way to work on letters and spelling. It serves as a fun way to review
language items and requires no preparation. For this reason it is also good for the last 5 minutes
if you need a filler!

Monopoly could be useful for a lesson on money, reading cards, and using questions dealing with
buying and selling. It is not very communicative though, and is too long.

Pictionary is great fun in the classroom at all levels - try using it as a warmer at the beginning of
the class. Split the class into teams - one player from each team comes to the front and the
teacher shows them a word. They return to their team to draw the word; the first team to guess
wins a point.

Snakes and Ladders can be adapted by putting sentences in the squares, some of which are
grammatically or otherwise incorrect. When the student lands in the square, they go up the ladder
if they can correct it, or down the snake if they can't. It is great for end of week revision of new
concepts and language items. With children you could use simple words spelt wrongly which they
have to correct.

Noughts and Crosses (or Tic Tac Toe) can be adapted easily by writing the grid up on a
whiteboard and filling each square in with a modal verb, an idiom, a phrasal verb, a preposition,
etc. A team has to make a correct sentence with whatever is in the square before they can claim it.
Again, it is a great way of revising at the end of the week.

Trivial Pursuit can be adapted for the classroom by inventing your own version using facts and
general knowledge you have incorporated in lessons (avoiding culturally specific questions). Use
it to review different language areas and designate different categories for questions dealing with
verb tenses, vocabulary, articles, plurals, spelling, etc. Coming up with all the questions takes a
long time, so consider making a game that can be used again and again.

Twister may be suitable for small children's classes to practise colours and body parts.

Scrabble is a good way to review vocabulary and practise spelling. To make it more fun, it can be
played in pairs or teams. If you use the original game board and pieces, you will need to provide
more than the normal 7 letters per player so students can easily find words. Junior Scrabble
features a board with the words written on it so that the students only have to find the letters. This
is handy for young learners and beginners.

So why do you think the game didn't work? Can you name at least three things that Julie did
wrong, or how she could have dealt with the game differently?

● She explained the game only verbally whereas the best idea is to actually show how it
is played.
● She could have prepared a large bingo card to be shown to the class and demonstrated
how to call out and cross out the numbers.
● She could have got the students involved in the explanation of the game.
● She could have done a trial run first.
● She didn't take the elementary level of the students into consideration and spoke in
long and complex sentences.
● She didn't stop to check understanding.
● She assumed that if some of the students said they understood, they really did. In fact,
students will rarely admit they don't understand something, or they may be sure they
understand when in fact they have misunderstood.

Stage 1. Warm-up.
Elicit the word 'admire'. In pairs write down the names of three people you admire the most and
discuss why you admire them. Discuss as a class. S-S, S-T 5 mins.
Stage 2. Introduction.
Announce the game of 20 questions to be played later in the lesson using names of famous
people. Ask if the students know the game. T-S 1 min.

Stage 3. Drilling.
Present simple questions. Teacher says an affirmative sentence, students turn it into a question.
First affirmative sentences/questions with 'to be', then with other verbs. T-S 4 mins.

Stage 4. Plenary.
Students write the form on the board: 'to be' questions and 'do/does'-questions in the present
simple. S-T 2 mins.

Stage 5. Drilling.
Past simple questions. Teacher shows an emotion card (e.g. happy man) and a card with a time
word (e.g. yesterday). Students produce the question 'Was he happy yesterday?'. T-S 2 mins.

Stage 6. Drilling.
Past simple questions. Teacher shows an action card (e.g. a woman shopping) and a card with a
time word (e.g. Sunday). Students produce the question 'Did she go shopping on Sunday?'. T-S 2
mins.

Stage 7. Plenary.
Students write the form on the board: 'to be' questions and 'did'-questions in the past simple. S-T
2 mins.

Stage 8. Lead-in to the game.

Stage 9. Game.
Divide the class into two teams and play the game. Each team writes down two people's names -
one who is alive and one who is no longer alive. Team members take turns asking questions
(using the past and present tenses respectively). In case of mistakes encourage self and peer-
correction.
If any questions require the present perfect, correct and briefly explain/elicit the difference
between the past simple and the present perfect (e.g. 'Has he written any books?' if the person is
alive vs. 'Did he write any books?' if the person is no longer alive) S-S 15 mins.

Stage 10. Follow-up activity.