 |
Games
Variations on the Clap Clap Clap game
This is a nice game that can be used with classes of four year olds and also anyone up to adults. The whole class claps three times and on the fourth beat the person whose turn it is must say a word in the category selected that no one has said before, without pausing too [...]
Variations on Change Chairs If
Change Chairs If is a great game for approximately 4 to 12 year old kids (plus older students who are up for fast physical games). Students sit on chairs in a circle with one chair less than people in the class or group. The person left standing up, e.g. the teacher, then gives a description [...]
Yet another 15 games for Reported Speech
1. Reporting the whole course Students report something someone in the class (including the teacher) said, and the other students try to guess or remember who said it. This is nice near the end of a course or as part of a revision lesson. 2. Tell on his errors Students watch a segment of a [...]
15 variations on Grammar Reversi
Grammar Reversi is a game first described, I believe, in More Grammar Games by Paul Davis and Mario Rinvolucri and that I have used in almost every adult and teenage course I’ve had since discovering it. It is a variation of the game Othello, redesigned for language practice. The original game, Othello, is similar to [...]
More Reported Speech games
I always used to get stuck for interesting games that involved Reported Speech and so tended to skip through that unit of the book quite quickly and then spend far too much time on the First Conditional just because it is so much fun. Not anymore! After sitting down for some serious brainstorming the last [...]
Q and A personalisation games
Getting students talking about themselves to each other is a great way of making them take interest in classroom communication and showing them that the language is something they can use in their own lives. There is also evidence that connecting language with your own experience is a good way of making it easier to [...]
Fun ways of practising Reported Speech
1. Reported speech reversi Prepare cards with reported speech on one side and direct speech of the same sentence on the other. Students have to correctly say what is on the other side to turn it over and score one point. There are many games you can play with these cards, including the TEFL version of [...]
Error correction games
1. Grammar auction Students try to outbid other teams for correct sentences from the list you have given them while not buying incorrect sentences (but perhaps still bidding for them at the beginning to make other teams think they are correct). The team that has “bought” the most correct sentences and least wrong sentences at the [...]
15 more fun ways to practise the Past Perfect
1. The Time is Right! This is based on the television quiz show “The Price is Right” in which contestants see how close they can get to the real price of a product without going under. A student gives an event or a number of times they had done something before a certain (unstated) time, and [...]
15 fun ways of practising the Past Perfect
1. Fairytale dominoes This is a game from Intermediate Communication Games that can easily be played without access to the book. Students continue a story by choosing from pictures that they have spread out on the table in front of them, continuing until they bring the story to a conclusion with the very last picture. To [...]
15 board game variations
Board games, especially the classic version of tossing a coin and then answering the question in the square you land on, have been the saving of many a tired teacher or bored class over the years, so much so that the students might have had one from each teacher for several years or teachers might [...]
15 variations on a grammar auction
Grammar auctions (students bidding for the right to say whether a sentence is right or wrong and/ or correct it, doubling the money they bid if they are right and losing that money if they are wrong) make correcting errors fun and are therefore one of the most popular games in TEFL. Unfortunately, this can [...]
15 typical textbook activities you can personalize
Below is a list of ideas on how you can bring personalization into classes where you are using typical textbook activities such as gapfills. The tasks mentioned can be done instead of the task given in the book (sometimes the textbook exercise will need rewriting in order to make this possible), as a warmer/ lead-in [...]
15 games for the language of likes and dislikes
1. Likes and dislikes mimes Students mime whole sentences about likes and dislikes, e.g. miming “I hate tea” by showing picking up a cup from a saucer, sipping, and looking disgusted and maybe spitting it out. The game can be personalized by students only being given a single word or picture clue and miming their [...]
15 classroom language games
Using English and avoiding L1 for instruction language and common questions in the classroom is absolutely vital if you want students to use English every day and realise that what you are teaching them is relevant to their lives. Below are 15 games to practise this kind of useful
15 fun ways to score points
Giving students points in class has so many benefits in terms of motivation and classroom control that some teachers of kids and even adults use games and other activities with points in almost every class
15 fun gapfill task games
1. Musical gapfills Give the students the lyrics of a song with some words blanked out. It is best if those are words they can guess through rhyme, collocation, logic or
15 variations on Find Someone Who and mingling games
“Find Someone Who”, in which students stand up and walk around asking questions to match people to information they have been given, is one of the most popular TEFL games as it is a good excuse to get students up and moving around, and so
15 best drawing games
1. Pictionary Students are given a word or sentence and have to draw it until their partners guess what they are drawing.
15 best TEFL games with miming/ TPR
Miming is used in almost every English language class, if only as a warmer or when a teacher is trying to explain or elicit language. However, the positive elements of waking people up with movement, making them aware the use of gestures for communication, an easy activity for students who have difficulty speaking etc. can [...] |
Browse Classroom Ideas by category |
 |