Compiled ESL Activities

qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqw
ertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwert
yuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyui
opasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopa
COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES
Collated Learning Materials for all levels.
sdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdf
ghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghj
klzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklz
xcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcv
bnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbn
mqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmq
wertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwe
rtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwerty
uiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuio
pasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopas
dfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfg
9/13/2014
Compiled by Edward Pye

Foreword
This book is a collection of EAL activities, warmers, reviews, games, time-fillers and games that I have
compiled in my time as a language teacher. Some were created by me, but most are passed on from
many teachers I have worked with. Determining their origin was a lot of extra work, so please excuse the
lack of referencing. This book is not for profit, but simply for passing on ideas and making prep easier for
teachers.
Most activities have a specific focus, but many can be adapted for different themes, levels, cultures,
ages and duration. What works in one classroom may not work in another, so making these activities
appropriate/relevant to your students, I leave up to you.
This book also has a matching Supplementary Materials book that has all the handouts that match with
these activities.
Enjoy.
1|Page

Foreword....................................................................................................................................................... 1
Introductions & Ice Breakers ................................................................................................. 11

1. SNOWBALL FIGHT Reading/Writing/Listening/Speaking/Energy Boost .............................................. 11
2. LIAR LIAR Reading/Writing/Listening/Speaking/Creative Thinking ..................................................... 11
3. TIMELINES Reading/Writing/Listening/Speaking ................................................................................. 12
4 CLASSIFICATIONS Introductions/Idioms............................................................................................... 12
5. TOILET PAPER ICEBREAKER Speaking .................................................................................................... 13
6. YOUR LOGO Introductions/Art/Being Creative .................................................................................... 13
7. CONCLUSIONS Introductions/Speaking/Writing/Visual Comprehension ............................................ 13
8. JOHARIS WINDOW intros/personal info/speaking ............................................................................. 14
9. STRING INTRO - Speaking ........................................................................................................................ 16
10. POCKET PRESENTATION Introductions/Speaking .............................................................................. 16
11. THREE IN COMMON Introductions/Conversation ............................................................................. 16
12. RAINBOW CONVERSATION STARTER Introductions/Warmer/Conversation..................................... 17
13. YOUR FAVORITES Introductions/Warmer .......................................................................................... 18
14. RANDOM QUESTION Introductions/Conversation ........................................................................... 19
15. COMMON BOND Introductions/speaking.......................................................................................... 20
16. CHALLENGE - Introductions.................................................................................................................. 20
Energy Boosting Warmers ....................................................................................................... 21

17. HOT SEAT - Review/Warmer/Energy Boost ......................................................................................... 21
18. MOLECULES Warmer/Speaking/Making Questions/Energy Boost .................................................... 21
19. NO YES, NO NO GAME Speaking/Energy Boost ................................................................................. 22
20. MOVE YOUR BUTT Speaking/Listening/ Energy Boost....................................................................... 22
21. LINE UPS warmer/review/active ........................................................................................................ 23
22. HUMAN KNOT Warmer/Energy Boost ............................................................................................... 24
23. DARLING, I LOVE YOU... Warmer/Active/Fun .................................................................................... 24
24. FIND YOUR PARTNER Comprehension/Fun/Energy Boost................................................................. 25
25. BODY BUILDER Warmer/Review/Speaking ........................................................................................ 25
Quick Warmers & Reviews.......................................................................................................................... 26
26. QUESTION OF THE DAY Warmer/Review/Speaking........................................................................... 26
27. WORD OF THE DAY Warmer/Review/Speaking ................................................................................. 26
28. ON THE WEEKEND Warmer/Speaking ............................................................................................... 27
2|Page

29. ACROSTICS Warmer/Vocabulary/Speaking........................................................................................ 28
30. NEW WORDS Warmer/Vocabulary .................................................................................................... 28
31. SHOUT OUT Warmer/Review/Speaking............................................................................................. 28
32. ANYTHING GOES Warmer/Speaking .................................................................................................. 29
33. MISSING LETTERS Vocabulary/Critical Thinking.................................................................................. 29
34. PICTIONARY Warmer/Review/Fun/Vocabulary ................................................................................. 30
35. DRAW/SPEAK/ACT Warmer/Review/Fun/Vocab ............................................................................... 30
36. NAME SIX Warmer/Review/Fun ........................................................................................................ 30
37. FRONT TO BACK Warmer/Review/Vocab/Time Filler ........................................................................ 31
38. WORD ASSOCIATIONS Warmer/Vocab/Time Filler............................................................................ 31
39. WHAT AM I DOING? Active/Comprehension/Energy Boost .............................................................. 32
40. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Warmer/Speaking...................................................................................... 32
41. THE MOON IS ROUND Fun/Comprehension ...................................................................................... 32
42. THE MEMORY GAME Warmer/Review/Fun/Vocab ........................................................................... 33
43. THE CATEGORY GAME Warmer/Review/Fun..................................................................................... 33
44. OUTBRAG speaking/present perfect.................................................................................................. 33
45. COMPOUND WORDS Vocab/Review/Time Filler ............................................................................... 34
46. BATTLE THE BAG Warmer/Review/Vocab/Fun .................................................................................. 34
47. TOURNAMENT KNOCKOUT Warmer/Review/Fun ............................................................................. 34
48. TABOO - Review/Warmer ..................................................................................................................... 35
49. STORE SNAP - Review/Vocabulary ........................................................................................................ 35
50. BALL BOMB Speaking/Energy Boost .................................................................................................. 36
51. JUMBLED SENTENCES Warmer/Review/Time Filler........................................................................... 36
52. SENTENCE RACE Warmer/Review/Writing ........................................................................................ 36
53. SENTENCES of 3 Fun/Sentence formation/Concentration ................................................................ 37
54. MEGA MEMORY Review/Warmer/Vocab/Memory........................................................................... 37
Longer Warm-up/Review Activities .................................................................................. 38

55. FIND SOMEONE WHO Warmer/Speaking/Review/Energy Boost ...................................................... 38
56. TRADING SENTENCES Review/Energy Boost /Grammar .................................................................... 38
57. AGREE OR DISAGREE speaking/debating ........................................................................................... 39
58. ODD ONE OUT Warmer/Creative Thinking/Vocab ............................................................................ 39
59. READ N RUN Warmer/ Reading/Writing/Speaking/Listening............................................................ 39
3|Page

60. CONSTRAINED WRITING Warmer/Writing/Creative Thinking ........................................................... 40
61. 20 QUESTIONS Speaking/Listening ..................................................................................................... 41
62. JEOPARDY Warmer/Review/Fun/Question Formation ...................................................................... 43
63. DICTOGLOSS Listening/Team-Work/Writing ..................................................................................... 43
64. TELEPATHS Warmer/Review/Vocabulary .......................................................................................... 44
65. I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT Warmer/Speaking/Time.......................................................................... 44
66. SPOT THE DIFFERENCE Communicating/Prepositions/Vocabulary ................................................... 45
67. CIRCLE OF DEATH Review/Energy-Boost ........................................................................................... 46
68. FAMILY FEUD Vocab/Review/Warmer............................................................................................... 48
69. KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOR /1 MIN SPEECH Speaking/Listening/Comprehension ................................. 48
70. ROTATING STORY-TELLER warmer/creative/story-telling/speaking.................................................. 49
71. SCATTEGORIES Warmer/Vocabulary .................................................................................................. 49
72. WRITE/DRAW/WRITE Warmer/Comprehension/Drawing ................................................................. 50
73. GAME OF THINGS Writing/Comprehension/Speaking/Fun ................................................................ 51
74. REPETITION/HESITATION/CORRECTION Speaking/Listening/Comprehension.................................. 52
75. PICTURE STORIES Information Gap/Speaking/Comprehension......................................................... 52
76. WHATS SUITABLE? - Speaking/Warmer/Interviews ............................................................................ 53
77. TALKING CARDS Speaking/Sentence Formation ................................................................................ 53
78. MAGAZINE TREASURE warmer/review/speaking/reasoning............................................................. 53
79. BOARD BOGGLE warmer/vocab/fun .................................................................................................. 54
80. WHATD HE SAY? Warmer/Sentence Formation/Review .................................................................. 54
81. IMPOSSIBLE Warmer/Speaking .......................................................................................................... 55
82. WHAT DO YOU SAY WHEN Warmer/Speaking ................................................................................ 56
83. BATTLESHIPS Warmer/Review/Sentence Making ............................................................................. 57
84. SENTENCE RELAY Warmer/Review .................................................................................................... 58
85. ANSWER ME warmer/speaking/Q&A ................................................................................................ 58
86. KEY WORD warmer/speaking/listening ............................................................................................. 59
87. SELF TRIVIA review/question formation ............................................................................................ 60
88. THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE Speaking/Comprehension/Active.......................................................... 60
89. STRIP STORIES Speaking/Q&A ............................................................................................................ 61
90. QUICK REPLIES Speaking in casual situations..................................................................................... 62
91. VOCAB 369 vocabulary/sentence formation ..................................................................................... 63
4|Page

92. I LOVE MY LOVE Vocabulary/Writing ................................................................................................. 63
93. COMMUNICATION RACE Warmer/Energy Boost ............................................................................... 64
94. KEEP YOUR DISTANCE Warmer/Speaking ........................................................................................... 65
95. SILENT COMMUNICATION Warmer/Comprehension ........................................................................ 66
96. 1 MINUTE SPEECH Speaking/Listening............................................................................................... 67
97. FINISH THE SENTENCE Reading Review/Critical Thinking .................................................................. 67
98. PICTURE VOCAB ROTATION RACE Warmer/Vocab/Review/Energy Boost ........................................ 68
99. SENTENCE GRIDS Warmer/Review/Filler ........................................................................................... 68
100. KILLER Warmer/Review/Fun ............................................................................................................ 68
101. THE MESSAGE KING - Review/Technology......................................................................................... 69
102. STORY TELLER Speaking/Writing/Sentence formation/Creative Thinking ...................................... 69
103. OUTBURST Warmer/Vocabulary ...................................................................................................... 70
104. ROTATION REVIEW BOARD GAME Review/Speaking ...................................................................... 70
105. WHISPERS Warmer/Review ............................................................................................................. 71
106. WHISPER/DRAW/WHISPER/DRAW Warmer/Review ...................................................................... 71
107. CONNECTIONS Warmer/Review ...................................................................................................... 72
108. VOCAB DOMINOS Warmer/Review ................................................................................................. 72
109. RE-REPORTING 3rd person/speaking ................................................................................................ 73
110. SOLUTION RACE would you like ................................................................................................. 73
111. WANT/HAVE/NEED STRIKEOUT warmer/grammar ......................................................................... 74
112. NEGATIVE/POSITIVE GIFTS like/dont like........................................................................................ 75
113. GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS TENNIS speaking/idiom........................................................................... 75
114. VOCAB SCAVENGER HUNT vocabulary/comprehension.................................................................. 76
115. AGREE TO DISAGREE speaking/opinions.......................................................................................... 77
116. Q&A ROTATION - speaking ................................................................................................................. 77
Theme-Focused Activities ........................................................................................................ 78

117. MURDER speaking/indirect questioning .......................................................................................... 78
118. SPEED DATING speaking/Q&A ......................................................................................................... 79
119. MYSTERY BOX Speaking/Senses....................................................................................................... 80
120. PERSUADE ME Warmer/Speaking/Persuasion/Marketing .............................................................. 80
121. LYRIC RELAY GRAB Listening/Music ................................................................................................. 81
122. THE LOVE TESTER Comprehension/personality/relationships ........................................................ 81
5|Page

123. THE LOVE TESTER 2 - Comprehension/Personality/Relationships...................................................... 83
124. HELLO VAN GOUGH Art/Giving Directions/Prepositions ................................................................. 84
125. CLASSROOM ART GALLERY Art/Speaking/Comprehension ............................................................. 84
126. SCAVENGER HUNT Warmer/Review/Active .................................................................................... 85
127. THE NEWLYWED GAME Warmer/Speaking/Question Formation ................................................... 85
128. MAFIA warmer/speaking/reasoning/crime ..................................................................................... 86
129. TRAVELOCITY Travel/comparative-superlative/money/presentation ............................................. 87
130. VENUS AND MARS Gender Differences/Q&A .................................................................................. 88
131. DETECTIVE Creative Thinking/Speaking/Crime ................................................................................. 88
132. CULTURAL EXPLORERS cultural differences/speaking/comprehension .......................................... 89
133. TRAVEL THE WORLD travel dialogues/Role-play game.................................................................... 91
134. WHAT WILL THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE? Speaking/Drawing/The Future ............................................. 92
135. PUSH & PULL Speaking/Influencing/Q&A ........................................................................................ 93
136. CAN YOU FOLLOW DIRECTIONS? Reading Comprehension/Following Directions .......................... 94
137. WEEKLY BUS Time/Active ................................................................................................................. 95
138. THE LOVE DOCTOR Warmer/Speaking/Relationship Problems ....................................................... 95
139. CRIMINAL INTENT Writing/Crime/Speaking .................................................................................... 96
140. PEOPLE WHO Speaking/Opinions .................................................................................................... 97
141. PERFECT MATCH dating/speaking.................................................................................................... 99
142. EASY PERSONALITY QUIZ comprehension/reasoning/personality .................................................. 99
143. FLAWS AND QUALITIES intros/speaking/writing ........................................................................... 100
144. CELEBRITY PAIRS Speaking/Listening/Entertainment ..................................................................... 100
145. FEMININE OR MASCULINE Gender/Personality/Speaking ............................................................. 101
146. WORLD CONQUEST speaking/strategy game/positives & negatives ............................................ 102
147. BUILDING THE EEMO Culture/Problem Solving/Team Work/Speaking ........................................ 104
148. SOCIABILITY PERSONALITY TEST speaking/personalities/comprehension .................................... 105
149. WHAT KIND OF STUDENT ARE YOU? study styles .......................................................................... 107
150. ZOOM Information Gap/Speaking ................................................................................................. 108
151. GREEN CARD speaking/questioning/Q&A/dating .......................................................................... 108
152. TOUR GUIDE speaking/tourism ...................................................................................................... 109
153. VALENTINES personality/writing/speaking ................................................................................... 109
154. INTERVIEW GAME - Q&A/speaking/jobs .......................................................................................... 109
6|Page

155. WE ARE THE WORLD warmer/active/geography ........................................................................... 110
156. CALENDAR PUZZLE Problem Solving/Time..................................................................................... 110
157. STAND UP AND BE COUNTED Advanced Warmer ......................................................................... 111
158. REAL LAW/FAKE LAW Creative/teamwork/reasoning/laws .......................................................... 112
159. CONVINCE ME Warmer/Speaking/Persuasion............................................................................... 113
160. PROVE IT warmer/speaking/Q&A .................................................................................................. 113
161. WEEKLY BUS Time/Active ............................................................................................................... 113
162. HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING Hypothetical Choices/Speaking ....................................................... 114
163. ALIBI Warmer/Speaking/Crime ...................................................................................................... 114
164. VIDEO MATCHUP Visual Comprehension ...................................................................................... 115
165. ENGLISH POKER warmer/vocab/sentence formation.................................................................... 115
166. THE FORTUNE TELLER future tense/review/vocab/want to....................................................... 116
167. EASY QUIZ QUESTIONS trivia/comprehension............................................................................... 117
168. STRATEGY AUCTION Speaking/Reasoning/Art ............................................................................... 118
Problem Solving & Creative Thinking ............................................................................ 119

169. SURVIVAL ISLAND Creative Thinking/Reasoning/Speaking ........................................................... 119
170. SURVIVOR NASA speaking/reasoning ............................................................................................ 119
171. WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Visual Comprehension/Speaking/Future Tense ................................... 120
172. WORD PUZZLES Parallel Thinking/Warmer.................................................................................... 120
173. PARALLEL THINKING Speaking/Comprehension/Question Formation ........................................... 120
174. PARALLEL THINKING #2 Creative Thinking/Speaking/Comprehension ......................................... 121
175. APOCALYPSE Creative/Critical Thinking ......................................................................................... 122
176. BLUEPRINTS Creating & following directions/comprehension/should ...................................... 122
177. THEMS THE RULES permission/speaking/brainstorming .............................................................. 123
178. PAPER AIRPLANE PREPOSITIONS creating instructions/comprehension....................................... 124
179. PLASTIC CUP PYRAMID warmer/team work .................................................................................. 124
180. RIDDLE ME THIS - Parallel Thinking/Comprehension/Riddles ......................................................... 125
181. DROP THE EGG Fun/Active/Team Work ........................................................................................ 126
182. RANSOM NOTE sentence formation/creative ............................................................................... 126
183. ASSOCIATION PUZZLE word connections/vocab ........................................................................... 127
184. VACATION CARDS Story Telling/Speaking/Comprehension .......................................................... 128
185. 3 PICTURE STORY story telling/team work .................................................................................... 129
7|Page

186. ANIMALS FOR A DAY Creative Thinking/Schedules/Writing .......................................................... 129
187. MY WIKIPEDIA Writing/creative thinking ...................................................................................... 130
188. HEROES AND VILLIANS creative/speaking/reasoning/superheroes .............................................. 131
189. CLASS ELECTIONS politics/creative thinking/writing ..................................................................... 132
190. MAKE YOUR OWN COMPANY Creative/Team Work/Q&A ............................................................ 133
191. MAKE YOUR OWN COUNTRY Creative/Team Work/Presenting .................................................... 134
192. MAKE YOUR OWN GAME Creative/Team Work ............................................................................ 134
193. MAKE YOUR OWN NEWS CAST Creative/Team Work/Role-Play ................................................... 134
194. MAKE YOUR OWN RESTAURANT Creative/Team Work/Role-Play ................................................ 135
195. MAKE YOUR OWN NEWSPAPER Creative/Writing.......................................................................... 136
196. CREATE A FACEBOOK GROUP Writing/comprehension ................................................................. 137
Grammar Focused Activities ................................................................................................. 138

197. SENTENCE AUCTION error identification & correction/grammar.................................................. 138
198. OBEY MY ORDER Time Phrases/Writing/Speaking ......................................................................... 138
199. COMPARATIVE DICE Comparatives/Sentence Formation .............................................................. 139
200. I HAVE NEVER Present Perfect/Speaking/Comprehension ............................................................ 139
201. DILEMMA Would you rather/Reasoning/Speaking .................................................................... 140
202. PAST TENSE ACCUSATIONS Past Progressive/Speaking ................................................................. 141
203. ADVERBS OF FREQUENCY CALLOUT grammar/review .................................................................. 142
204. PRESENT PERFECT REPAIRS Modeling present perfect/review ..................................................... 142
205. 3 PART SENTENCES sentence formation/review/grammar ........................................................... 143
206. CRAZY COMPARATIVES Grammar/ Comparatives/Speaking ......................................................... 143
207. ENGLISH RUMMY Vocab/sentence formation ............................................................................... 144
208. COMPARATIVE CLUES grammar/ comparatives/speaking/comprehension .................................. 145
209. CONDITIONAL SENTENCES If I was I would/sentence formation ........................................... 145
210. CONDITIONAL SENTENCES 2 - If I was I would/sentence formation ......................................... 145
211. CONDITIONAL SENTENCES 3 - If I was I would/sentence formation ......................................... 146
212. PASS THE COUNTABLES Count/Non Count .................................................................................... 146
213. ERASER MADNESS Grammar/Sentence Structure Review ............................................................ 146
214. PERMISSION CARD GRAB Grammar/Specific Language ................................................................. 147
215. PRESENT CONTINUOUS MIMES Present Continuous/Active/Comprehension .............................. 148
216. PRESENT CONTINUOUS SOUNDS present continuous/active/comprehension ............................. 148
8|Page

217. PASTCONTINUOUS FREEZE past continuous/active/review .......................................................... 149
218. SUBJUNCTIVE ASSOCIATIONS Warmer/Speaking/Grammar ......................................................... 149
219. PRESENT CONTINUOUS SHOUT OUT Brainstorming/present continuous..................................... 150
220. PRESENT CONTINUOUS ARTIST Present Continuous/Comprehension .......................................... 150
221. SUBJECT-VERB-OBJECT ARTIST Comprehension/Sentence Formation/Review ............................ 150
222. PRESENT CONTINUOUS MAGAZINE SEARCH Present Continuous/Listening ................................ 151
223. NOT GETTING THROUGH Present Continuous/Speaking/Making Appointments ......................... 151
224. PREFERENCE BINGO I prefer .................................................................................................... 151
225. PRESENT CONTINUOUS DIARIES Speaking/Making Appointments ............................................... 152
226. TIME ZONES Present Continuous/Listening/Comprehension/Speaking........................................ 152
227. GAMBLING GRAMMAR Error Identification................................................................................... 153
228. LOST AND FOUND Possessive Pronouns/Sentence Formation/Speaking...................................... 153
229. PRESENT PERFECT SCAVENGER HUNT Active/comprehension/present perfect ............................ 154
230. THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT - Sentence Formation/Vocab Association ........................................ 154
231. ADVERB CHARADES Adverbs/Comprehension/Sentence Formation ............................................ 155
232. GO/PLAY/DO grammar/speaking ................................................................................................... 155
233. BOUNCE Future tense/Speaking/Review ....................................................................................... 156
234. PERSONAL PRONOUNS BATTLESHIP pronouns/introductions/review .......................................... 157
235. WORD CONNECTORS - Grammar/Connecting Words ...................................................................... 158
Pronunciation & Intonation .................................................................................................. 159

236. TOUNGE TWISTERS speaking/pronunciation/fun .......................................................................... 159
237. NUMBERS PRONUNCIATION pronunciation/comprehension ....................................................... 160
238. PRONUNCIATION COUNT DOWN Pronunciation ........................................................................... 161
239. BANANA BANANA Pronunciation/Intonation/Fun ........................................................................ 162
240. KNOCK ON WOOD PRONUNCIATION pronunciation/reading ....................................................... 162
241. INTONATION FUN warmer/pronunciation..................................................................................... 163
242. THE ACTORS VOICE Pronunciation/Intonation ............................................................................. 164
Role-Plays .......................................................................................................................................... 165

243. EMOTION/SITUATION MATCH UP Speaking/Role-play/Creative Thinking .................................... 165
244. COMPLAINT MENU complaining/role-play/speaking .................................................................... 165
245. ROLE-PLAYS Role-Play/Speaking/Reasoning .................................................................................. 166
246. PLAYING HOUSE Role-Plays/Medicine/Doctors/Symptoms .......................................................... 168
9|Page

247. LISTED ROLE PLAYS Role-Plays/Speaking/Opinions ....................................................................... 170
248. AGATHAS WILL - role-play/creative/speaking ................................................................................. 173
249. A SHOPPERS NIGHTMARE Role-play/Shopping ............................................................................ 174
Mental Stimulation ...................................................................................................................... 175

250. BRAIN BUTTONS mental stimulation ............................................................................................. 175
251. CROSS CRAWL mental stimulation ................................................................................................. 175
252. REBEL FOOT mental stimulation/fun/warmer ............................................................................... 175
253. HOOK UPS mental stimulation ....................................................................................................... 176
10 | P a g e

Introductions & Ice Breakers
1. SNOWBALL FIGHT Reading/Writing/Listening/Speaking/Energy Boost
Summary: Fun and active introduction game.

Theme:
Basic introduction sentences (or

other.)
Materials: 3-4 Small pieces of paper for each
student to use as snowballs.
Level/age: Intermediate advanced class (4 or

more.)
Skills:
Sentence formation and Q&A
Time:
20-30min
This game is good for a class warmer or an introduction activity.

Give students 3 pieces of scrap paper and have them write 1 thing about themselves on each piece. The
information can be anything but you may want to model some grammar on the board for the students
first I am from __________ or My favorite hobby is _________
To make the game more interesting have them write more interesting sentences about themselves.
Once that is finished tell the students that they are going to have a snowball fight they must screw up
their pieces of paper and throw them at each other.
Give them a minute or so and let the chaos ensue make sure the pieces of paper get thoroughly
distributed around the class. Once the minute is up tell them each to pick up 3 pieces of paper. They
must open the paper and find the students that those sentences belong to by going around and asking
questions. The first student to find all 3 is the winner.
2. LIAR LIAR Reading/Writing/Listening/Speaking/Creative Thinking
Summary: Students must pick who is lying and

who is telling the truth.
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: Intermediate-advanced (adult)

Skills:
Speaking, comprehension, questioning
Materials: -
Time:
30-40mins
Have all the students in the class write 3 true but strange or interesting statements about themselves
that no one else would know on a piece of paper along with their names. e.g. I was in a rock band or I
met Brad Pitt...
Students should write their name on the paper but not to show their sentences to anyone else, they are
a secret...Collect all the pieces of paper and divide the class into 3 or 4 teams.
To start the game you need to call up to the front of the class one student from each team. From the
pieces of paper choose the statements from 1 of the students at the front and read them aloud without
saying who they belong to. All the students at the front then have to pretend that those statements are
theirs while the rest of the class has to find out who the statements actually belong to. Each team gets
to ask one question to each of the students to try and trip them up on the truth of the statements. Each
team then guesses which student they think the statements belong to and get points for the correct
answer.
11 | P a g e

3. TIMELINES Reading/Writing/Listening/Speaking
Summary: Students write up their personal

timelines.
Theme:
Introductions/past tense
Level/age: high beginner advanced classes

Skills:
Targets introduction language, time

prepositions, other basic vocab etc.
Materials: Paper for the students, tape, scissors
Time:
40mins+
Before class, teachers prepare a timeline of their life. Teachers show their example, explain the idea,
give the students paper, and have them prepare one. Tell students to list at least five or six events and
not to put their names on the timelines. Collect them, when the students finish, number them, and tape
the time lines up around the room. Students then need to walk around the room and interview each
other to determine which timeline belongs to which classmate. Students can ask either open ended
information questions (When were you born?) or yes/no questions (Did you get your first kiss in 1995?),
but cannot ask the interviewee's number. After students have determined which timeline belongs to
which student, or after a set time, remove the timelines from the walls and ask students who is who.
Alternately, this activity can be done with any information that you want to extract from the students.
They could write short bios, stories about their experiences or things they want to do in the future. The
possibilities are endless.
4 CLASSIFICATIONS Introductions/Idioms
Summary: Students examine the line between

stereotypes and generalities
Theme:
Classifying people, objective
information
Materials: -
Level/age: High Intermediate Advanced (All

ages)
Skills:
Time:
The classification game can be a quick icebreaker or a more complex activity. For the purposes of this
example, we will treat this activity as a quick icebreaker. Before splitting the room into teams of four,
explain the concept of pigeon-holing someone, which means classifying someone as something or
stereotyping someone. You can also explain other idioms that describe people, night owls for
example. It should be made clear that this type of classification is subjective and sometimes judgmental.
Instruct the participants to introduce themselves to those in their team and quickly discuss some of their
likes, dislikes, etc. After the introductions, reveal to the teams that it will be their job to discover how
they should classify themselves- as a team- into two or three subgroups by using criteria that contains
no negative, prejudicial, or discriminatory judgments.
Examples of these subgroups can include night owls, morning people, pizza lovers, couch potatoes,
gamers , homebodies, B-Boys, movie lovers etc.
To extend this activity, students can then rotate into different teams, explain their classifications and
then find new ones in their new teams.
12 | P a g e

5. TOILET PAPER ICEBREAKER Speaking
Summary: Fun introduction method for any
level.
Theme:
Introducing yourself.
Level/age: Any level.

Skills:
Sentence formation.
Materials: Roll of toilet paper.
Time:
20 min+ depending on number of

students.
Take a roll of toilet paper to class and instruct each student to take as many sheets of the roll as they
like. Students will often be cheeky and take lots, however the joke will be on them because once
everyone has their sheets of paper, they have to say one thing about themselves in English for each
sheet. This activity can be done with Jelly Beans, cards, almost anything.
6. YOUR LOGO Introductions/Art/Being Creative
Summary: A self-describing activity using
Level/age: intermediate advanced classes
personal logos.
Theme:
self-descriptive language
Skills:
Creative thinking & Speaking
Materials: Paper and pencil
Time:
20min+
Each person is given a blank name tag. Explain to the group that corporations are recognized by a
specific logo or symbol. (McDonalds arches, 3M, Apple Computer's Apple, etc.) They are given 5 minutes
to draw their personal logo. This logo should reflect their personality, their interests, major or anything
they would like other people to know about them. Then give the group time to mingle and see what
each others logo looks like. When it looks like the entire group has mixed, instruct everybody with a
similar logo to form a small group. You may be surprised at how many similarities there are in your
group.
7. CONCLUSIONS Introductions/Speaking/Writing/Visual Comprehension
Summary: Students draw conclusions from
Level/age: Intermediate-advanced (all ages)
props
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Visual comprehension, Speaking,
Writing
Materials: Props from home
Time:
40mins+
This activity works well as a review for the phrase drawing a conclusion but is also good as an
introduction activity.
Have all the students bring a prop to class. Something that reveals something interesting about that
student a photo is good but make sure that student doesnt appear in the photo. Put the props around
the room and then in small groups have students go to each one and draw a conclusion about who the
owner might be and what the object says about them. Have them write down their conclusions and then
bring the class together and see which team was the most accurate.
13 | P a g e

8. JOHARIS WINDOW intros/personal info/speaking
Summary: Students divide info about them
Level/age: intermediate - advanced
into categories
Theme:
Self-evaluation
Skills:
Speaking, Q&A
Materials: -
Time:
30mins
This is an exercise which increases self-awareness by encouraging sharing, self-disclosure and feedback.
Start by drawing the following diagram of Johari's Window on a flip chart: (diagram below) Now ask the
participants to draw their own Johari Windows on a sheet of paper and to fill the panes with:
Information about themselves they want to share, or
Aspects of themselves that they would like feedback on
Areas that they would like to explore.
For example, in Pane 1, they could list things that are generally known about themselves hobbies etc.
This could form the basis for an open sharing or introductory session.
In Pane 2, they could identify the feedback they would like to receive about their behaviour,
mannerisms etc. This could form the basis for small-group sessions.
Pane 3 could include aspects of themselves that they have not told anyone before, but they might be
willing to share during a one-to-one or small-group session.
Pane 4 could include areas that they would like to explore in a counselling session or with the help of the
group their future, how they would react in a particular situation...
14 | P a g e
JOHARIS WINDOW
Pane 1
Things I Know About Me
Things Others Know
Pane 2
Things Others Know
Things I Don't Know
Pane 3
Things I Know
Things Others Don't Know
Pane 4
Things I Don't Know
Things Others Don't Know
15 | P a g e

9. STRING INTRO - Speaking
Summary: Introduction activity for the whole
class.
Theme:
Introductions.
Level/age: Beginner advanced classes, any age.

Skills:
Sentence and question formation.
Materials: Ball of string.
Time:
20min
Put the students in a circle. You hold the yarn and introduce yourself. "My name is _____. I am your
teacher. I am from _____ etc." Then hold on to the end of the string and throw the yarn to a student
across from you. He then introduces himself and throws the yarn to another student, while holding the
string. The game continues until everyone is holding the string.
The second round I have them throw the string back to the person that threw it to them and ask that
person a question relating to their 1st sentence while rolling the ball back up.
10. POCKET PRESENTATION Introductions/Speaking
Summary: Creative speaking activity
Level/age: Intermediate +
Theme:
How your things relate to you
Materials: Anything in your pocket
Skills:
Speaking
Time:
15-30
Have everyone in the group select one (optionally two) items from their pocket or purse that has some
personal significance to them. They introduce themselves and do a show and tell for the selected item
and explain why it is important to them.
11. THREE IN COMMON Introductions/Conversation
Summary: An active fact finding activity
Theme:
Personal details
Materials: -
Skills:
Speaking, comprehension
Time:
10-20min+
Break into groups of three.

The objective is for each group to find three things they have in common, but not usual things like age,
gender or hair color; three uncommon things.
After allowing 5 10 minutes to converse, each group shares with the larger group the three things they
have common. You can change groups around to make it last longer.
16 | P a g e

12. RAINBOW CONVERSATION STARTER Introductions/Warmer/Conversation
Summary: Color based intro and speaking
Level/age: high intermediate advanced classes
activity
Theme:
Personal opinions and ideas.
Skills:
Speaking
Materials: -
Time:
10-20 min
The object of this small group exercise is to get the group to quickly meet the other members. The
facilitator calls out a color of the rainbow: - for example RED:
Red: typically is the stop/turn- off color - each member talks about something that is an obstacle in their
life
Orange: is the motivation color - what motivates them

Yellow: is the inspiration or creativity color - what was the best idea they've had
Green: is the money color - what they plan to do for money, or the dumbest thing they ever did for
money.
Blue: is the sky's the limit color - what is your favorite fantasy about your future?
Indigo: is an odd or different color - what is the most daring thing they ever did.
Purple: is the color of royalty - if you were ruler of the universe for a day - what is the first thing you
would do?
17 | P a g e

13. YOUR FAVORITES Introductions/Warmer
Summary: A quick game to discover students
favorite things.
Theme:
Favourites
Skills:
Writing and reading.
Materials: Pieces of paper
Time:
15-25min
What/who/where is/are/was/were your favorite:

A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
L.
M.
N.
O.
P.
Q.
R.
S.
T.
U.
V.
W.
X.
Y.
Z.
Animal, Actor/Actress, Album

Biopic, Body Part, Blog, Breakfast, Band
Country, City, Culture, Clothing, Comic
Dream, Dinner, Date, Dance, Drink
Exercise, English Word, Educational Institute
Food, Free-time Activity, Film, Family Member
Game, Grammar Point, Grandparent
Happy Memory, Historical Figure, Hobby, Hemisphere
International Airport, Invention, Instrument, Ice Cream
Japanese Dish, Jargon, Journalist, Job
King, Knot, Kind Act
Laugh, Love Story, Location, Lunch, Language
Magic Trick, Magazine, Music, Mysterious Event
Noise, Nut, Night Time Activity,
Occupation, Outside Activity, Odour, Organic Food
Poem or Poet, Place, Police Show, Politician, Phone
Quote , Quiz Question, Quarter of the year
Roast Meal, Reggae Song, Recreational Activity, Restaurant
Song, Singer, Sport, Sportsperson, Superhero
Form of Travel, TV Show, Tool, Teacher
Underdog Story, University, Unique Talent, Upmarket Store
Vacation Spot, Vehicle, Villain, Voice
Kind of Weather, Water Sport, Word, Work
Music Mix, Flex, Example of a Role-model, Extreme Sport
Young Performer, Yoga Position, Yearly Activity, Yoghurt
Zoo, Zombie Movie, Pizza
One student chooses a letter and then each student in the group writes down an answer for each of the
favorites. The cards are shuffled and redistributed. Each student reads aloud the card they picked up
and the group discusses who might have written it. Students write their guesses and the most correct
guesses is the winner.
18 | P a g e

14. RANDOM QUESTION Introductions/Conversation
Summary: Alternative introduction activity
Level/age: High intermediate advanced
Theme:
Finding out about more in-depth

things about people.
Materials: -
Skills:
Speaking
Time:
15-40min
Random Question is just a set of more in-depth introduction questions that you can use instead of the
same old tired Whats your hobby? questions. It should promote discussion and give students a better
understanding of other students personalities. You can use these like a survey or write them all up on
the board and have students answer them randomly.
(Works better with older and more advanced students.)
Did you have a happy childhood?

When do you tell white lies? Tell us one.
The most capable person in your country?
Favorite novelist?
Proudest moment?
Worst moment? (last week if necessary)
Most hated song/music at the moment?
The last piece of music you bought?
Were you good at school?
The greatest influence on you? (parents, friends ...)
Current bedside reading material?
Where will you go when you die?
What do you admire most about yourself?
One of your main faults?
A small crime you once committed? (anything at all)
Music you would like played at your funeral?
19 | P a g e

15. COMMON BOND Introductions/speaking
Summary: Introductions activity
Level/age: All levels
Theme:
Common bonds
Materials: several different colored pieces of

paper
Skills:
Speaking, personal descriptions
Time:
20 40mins
Introduce the game by showing students how to write introductory sentences about themselves;
I am from New Zealand...
I like playing soccer etc...
Give each student several different colored pieces of paper (or playing cards, so one student gets all 2s,
the next all 3s etc.) and explain the rules of the game.
Each student must collect a piece of paper from all the other students by finding common bonds
between them. Students must stand up and walk around the classroom asking other students about
things that they might have in common.
So student 1 might say I have a part-time job, do you have a part-time job? If student 2 answers yes
then student 2 must give student 1 a piece of their paper.
The first student to collect a piece of paper from all the other students is the winner.
To make this game a little more difficult you might want to have rounds with different topics, for
example round 1 hobbies. Round 2 favorite music etc...
16. CHALLENGE - Introductions
Summary: Card play game for introducing
yourself.
Theme:
True or false
Level/age: High Beginner - advanced

Skills:
Speaking and comprehension
Materials: Cards
Time:
25min+
Take a deck of cards and give each student an equal number of black and red cards (6 cards each is a
good number, 3 black, 3 red.) The black cards are the truth cards and the red cards are the lie cards.
When it is a students turn they must make a statement about themselves which is either a lie or the
truth and then lay (face-down) one of the corresponding colored cards in the middle of the group. If
they have laid down a red card they have told a lie and a black card they have told the truth.
At this point the other students will not know if what the student said is the truth or a lie so they can do
1 of 2 things. 1 - they can assume what the student said is the truth and remain quiet in which case the
card remains in the middle and the game moves to the next student OR 2. if they believe the student is
lying they can challenge them by saying challenge! The student then flips the card if the student is
caught in a lie then they must take any cards that are in the middle, if they are telling the truth then the
student who challenged must take the cards.
The student to get rid of all their cards first is the winner.
20 | P a g e

Energy Boosting Warmers
17. HOT SEAT - Review/Warmer/Energy Boost
Summary: Fun and active review activity
Level/age: Beginner-advanced
Theme:
Skills:
Time:
20mins +
Anything
Materials: Chairs, board
Divide the class into 2 teams and put 2 chairs at the front of the class facing away from the board. One
student from each team must come to the front and sit in the Hot seat. The teacher writes a word or
sentence on the board (which the seated students cannot see) and then the other students in the team
must try and explain this word to the seated students without using the word. The first team to get the
answer gets the point and the team with the most points is the winner.
18. MOLECULES Warmer/Speaking/Making Questions/Energy Boost
Summary: Active Question and Answer Game
Level/age: Any Level (Under 30s)
Theme:
Skills:
Q&A
Time:
20-40mins
Anything
Materials: Large Space
To begin this game, ask the students if they know what molecules are. Give them the example of H20
and once theyve speculated, show them how hydrogen and oxygen are molecules and they come
together to make water.
Explain to the students that they are going to move around the classroom like molecules until the
teacher yells out a number. If the number is 3, for example, the students should quickly make groups of
3. The students who cannot make groups of 3 are out and they must come up with a question for the
other groups to answer it can be any conversation question or something that reviews what you have
been studying. Students who are already out should discuss amongst themselves.
When they have discussed the question, quickly elicit some answers and then play another round with
the students who are out moving to the side. The last 3 students remaining in the game are the winners.
21 | P a g e

19. NO YES, NO NO GAME Speaking/Energy Boost
Summary: Students fool each other into saying

yes or no.
Theme:
Anything
Materials: Something to use as chips/tokens
Time:
Skills:
Sentence Formation, speaking,

alternative language use
10-15min
Firstly, give each student a certain amount of chips or tokens that they will play with during the game.
The students must stand up and go around the class asking questions to different students. Within each
conversation the student must try and get the other student to say yes or no. If they can do this
then the other student must give them one of their chips.
The idea of the game is to get students thinking outside of the square and to answer with different
responses than the usual yes or no which can be an easy trap to fall into.
20. MOVE YOUR BUTT Speaking/Listening/ Energy Boost
Summary: Present perfect sentence formation

activity
Theme:
present perfect language and past
participles
Materials: chairs
Level/age: intermediate advanced

Skills:
Speaking, listening comprehension
Time:
20mins
Get all the students sitting on chairs in a circle then stand in the centre and say: "Swap chairs if you have
been to Europe... eaten rice', 'seen a movie starring Tom Cruise'. If the students have 'been to Europe'
(or whatever) they MUST swap chairs with another student who has also stood up. The first time they
do this - stay where you are. The second time - quickly sit down in one of the free chairs - this of course
leaves one student standing in the middle and now he/she has to say "Swap chairs if you have
ever/never ...".
As they play, the students will realize that the more general their sentence is the better, because more
students will move. If only one student stands then they swap with the speaker, if no students stand the
speaker just makes another sentence.
This can be done with lots of different grammar points present perfect works well but so does present
continuous and present simple.
22 | P a g e

21. LINE UPS warmer/review/active
Summary: Students line up in order to win
Level/age: beginner advanced
Theme:
Skills:
Comprehension, organization
Time:
10-20mins
any kind of sequential language
Materials: -
Students must line up according to their position in any kind of sequential list.
Put the students into 2 teams and have them line up in two parallel lines at the front of the class.
The teacher gives a condition and the two teams have to line up in that order.
Examples of order:
According to birthdate day/month/year

Height
People in family
hair/leg/arm/finger length
Hand/foot size
How many times you have done something been skiing/seen a movie/spoken to your family
this month etc
How many things you have (or had) cars/boyfriends/girlfriends/money/cards in wallet/books
in bag/Japanese meals etc
The last or first time you did something (by date)
How strongly 1-10 you agree with a statement
23 | P a g e

22. HUMAN KNOT Warmer/Energy Boost
Summary: Students tangle and untangle

themselves
Theme:
Team work
Level/age: Any
Skills:
Giving directions, teamwork
Materials: -
Time:
10-15mins
Group students in teams of 5 or more students. Have them stand in a circle.

Each student needs to put on hand into the middle and hold hands with another student. THE ONLY
RULES ARE, YOU CANNOT HOLD HANDS WITH THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU and YOU CANNOT HOLD BOTH
HANDS WITH THE SAME PERSON.
After you are holding one hand, put your second hand in and hold someone elses hand. Now, you have
a 'Human Knot!'. The students need to try to untangle themselves WITHOUT letting go of their hands.
Encourage them to use directions such as STEP OVER, GO UNDER, TURN AROUND, GO THROUGH. They
will soon have the hang of it!
The best part of this is when you say nothing at all! Join in and let them guide you. They love to play
teams against teams, to see who can unknot themselves the quickest.
There are only 2 ways to successfully 'UNKNOT'.
1. First, you will have one circle again, all hands joined but some may be facing inwards and others
outwards.
2. Second, you will have two joined circles.
23. DARLING, I LOVE YOU... Warmer/Active/Fun
Summary: Students must make other students Level/age: Intermediate-advanced (adult)
smile using the dialogue.
Theme:
Love
Skills:
Speaking
Materials: -
Time:
10-20mins
This one doesnt have a lot of English practice in it but its a lot of fun. Its also more for older students,
teen university age is good.
Clear out a space in the classroom and have the students all stand around in a circle. Youll have to
model it for the students or else theyll be too shy to try it themselves explain to them that there is
one dialogue that you will practice, it goes like this;
Darling, I love you so much...wont you please smile for me...
You know I love you too, but I will not smile for you...
You can change the dialogue up to be more wordy but thats the general gist. So, to model the dialogue
you should jump in the middle of the circle and explain that the person who is in the middle must
choose a student in the circle and say the dialogue with them to try and get them to smile, the person in
the outside circle has to try and not smile. It sounds easy but its actually very hard...to model the game I
usually pick out a student who I know will break and approach them very theatrically - I find being more
theatrical will get the students more interested in the game. You say the first line of the dialogue and
24 | P a g e

the student in the circle must reply with the second without smiling. If they do smile then they have to
take the place of the person in the middle. This works well for a while and there will be a lot of laughs
but it will soon get boring so to spice the game up make it so that when a person from the circle smiles
then they must both stay in the circle and they can then both try to get people in. The last person to not
smile is the winner.
24. FIND YOUR PARTNER Comprehension/Fun/Energy Boost
Summary: Students try to find their partners
Level/age: All levels (good for younger students)
by matching the context
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Comprehension
Materials: Cards with objects in SM book
Time:
10-20mins
This activity doesnt have a lot of production practice but it is a good activity to get students energized
and matched up with someone in the class.
Students each get a card that has an animal or type of person on it.
The teacher will give an example of something that these creatures do and the students have to act this
way to find their partner in the class. The first students to find their partners sit down
Feeling hungry
Eating
Having fun
Meeting a friend
Feeling happy/scared/nervous/angry
Looking for a boyfriend/Girlfriend
25. BODY BUILDER Warmer/Review/Speaking
Summary: Students draw pictures from
Level/age: beginner-advanced
information gap
Theme:
Bodies, Anything
Skills:
Speaking
Materials: Cut up strips of parts of something
Time:
10-20mins
Each student gets a secret part of the body that they have to explain to another student who uses that
information to draw the body part and complete the picture of the person. The activity can be done
with anything. The students choose what their part will look like and have to explain it to the other
student without saying the word. Give students 5 minutes with each partner and then rotate to another.
They can look at each others pictures as they go.
25 | P a g e

Quick Warmers & Reviews
26. QUESTION OF THE DAY Warmer/Review/Speaking
Summary: Students discuss interesting

questions
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: Intermediate-advanced
Skills:
Speaking
Materials: -
Time:
10mins
This can be a very easy and continuing warmer and there are many websites that have regular word of
the day words.
Put students into small groups and give them an interesting question to discuss. Once they are finished
the groups can be rotated to compare answers or discussed with the class as a whole.
As a follow up you can have the students write an extended answer for homework.
27. WORD OF THE DAY Warmer/Review/Speaking
Summary: Students discuss new vocabulary
Level/age: beginner-advanced (good for children)
Theme:
Skills:
Speaking
Time:
10-20mins
Anything
Materials: -
Similar to Question of the Day. Give the students several new vocabulary words and ask them to discuss
the meaning and then come up with sentences that utilize these words. This activity works well with
slang or idioms.
Have each group write their sentence on the board and then go through them examining the meaning
and errors.
26 | P a g e

28. ON THE WEEKEND Warmer/Speaking
Summary: Students try to guess what people

did on the weekend
Theme:
Skills:
Speaking
Materials: -
Time:
15-30mins+
This activity works well on a Monday.

Put the class into 3-4 teams (the more teams you have the longer this activity will take.)
Instruct teams to choose 1 person from each of the other teams. If they already know what that person
did on the weekend then they should choose someone different.
Have the teams discuss what they think their chosen students did on the weekend using the structures
below and have them write their answers on a piece of paper.
When time is up, bring the class back together and have each team go through their guesses from
number 1-6. If they get number 1 correct they get 1 point for their team and they can continue onto
number 2 (worth 2 points) if they get that correct then they can go onto number 3 and so on. However,
teams must consecutively get their guesses correct, if any of their guesses are wrong then they continue
to give their answers but they get no more points. If they get all 6 correct they get 21 points. The team
with the most points at the end is the winner.
Discuss
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
one specific place/event that this person went to

one person that they met at this place
one activity they did at that place
why they went to this place and did this activity
how they got to that place
what time they went there
1 Point
2 Points
3 Points
4 Points
5 Points
6 Points
27 | P a g e

29. ACROSTICS Warmer/Vocabulary/Speaking
Summary: Students come up with connected

vocabulary
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: Any level/Age scaled

Skills:
Vocab recall, speaking
Materials: -
Time:
10-20mins
This activity can be done in many different ways. The most basic way is to write a word on the board and
have students come up with words that are related to that word and which begin with the letters in the
word.
Another, more interesting way to do it is by having students come up with their own words.
You can trick the students by asking everyone to choose a thing from a certain category e.g. Choose a
country you want to travel to to which a student might choose America. Then, for each letter of that
word, students then have to come up with something that they connect to America.
Give them 10mins to come up with answers and then check with the class. Students read out their
acrostics and get a point for each word that makes sense. Ask students to justify their connections to
add a speaking element to the activity.
30. NEW WORDS Warmer/Vocabulary
Summary: Students make new words from old
Theme:
Skills:
comprehension
Time:
10-20mins
Anything
Materials: -
Write a longer English word on the board and tell the students they must make new words from the
letters of that word. The team or student who can make the most new words is the winner. A good idea
is to take 2 or 3 names of students in the class and write their names on the board to use for letters.
31. SHOUT OUT Warmer/Review/Speaking
Summary: Students think of vocabulary under

pressure
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: All levels (good for younger students)

Skills:
Speaking, recall
Materials: -
Time:
10-20mins
Put students into small teams or pairs (the more in the team, the more difficult the game is) and give
each team 2 or 3 lives.
Give the students a category e.g. animals, body parts or fruits then quickly go around the class with each
team having 3 seconds to shout out something from that category. The only catch is that all the students
28 | P a g e

on the team have to shout out their answer at the same time. If they do not simultaneously shout out
their answers or repeat something then they lose a life. Last team standing is the winner.
This activity seems a little childish but it is great for having students quickly and accurately have to
discuss word choice. It requires energy, focus and gets teams bonded quickly.
32. ANYTHING GOES Warmer/Speaking
Summary: A creative thinking question forming

activity
Theme:
Questions
Materials: -
Time:
Skills:
alternative thinking and sentence

formation
10-20mins
Students try to come up with as many different answers to one question as they can. The teacher asks
something like, How many fingers do you have? The first student will probably say, I have ten
fingers. The next student can say, I have more than nine fingers. The next, I dont have sixteen
fingers. The next, I am an alien, so I have sixty fingers etc. Try to get them to use any grammar point
that they have ever covered.
33. MISSING LETTERS Vocabulary/Critical Thinking
Summary: Students have to navigate a letter

maze.
Theme:
Words with similar letters

Skills:
Vocab, creative thinking
Materials: -
Time:
15-25mins
Think of a five-letter word, for example heart, and for each but one letter write a dot on the board,
revealing only one of its letters, e.g. _e_ _ _
Students call out a five-letter word, e.g. fears. The teacher writes that word on the board circling the
letters that appear in the secret word as well and putting a square around the letters that not only
appear in your word but are at the right place (e, a and r in my example). The goal is to find out the
teacher's word in maximum five tries (hence the name; there are going to be five lines and five
columns.)
29 | P a g e

34. PICTIONARY Warmer/Review/Fun/Vocabulary
Summary: Drawing and comprehension game
Level/age: beginner advanced classes
Theme:
Skills:
Drawing, comprehension
Time:
15-30mins
Anything
Materials: Board + good drawing tools
Divide the class into teams. 1 student from any team comes up and is given a word or sentence which
they must then draw on the board. The first team to guess the word or sentence gets 1 point. The team
with the most points at the end is the winner.
35. DRAW/SPEAK/ACT Warmer/Review/Fun/Vocab
Summary: A mixture of Pictionary, hot-seat

and charades
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: Modified for any level
Materials:
Time:
Skills:
Speaking, drawing, acting,

comprehension
15-30mins
This game mixes Pictionary, hot-seat and charades. There are several ways to play; you can divide the
class into 3 teams and have 1 student from each team performing one of each of the tasks for a word or
sentence or you can have any number of teams and just have 1 student come up and have them
randomly select draw, speak or act. If they choose draw they must draw the word or sentence and the
first team to guess gets a point, if speak they must describe the word or sentence without using the
word or sentence and if act then they must act out the word or action without speaking.
36. NAME SIX Warmer/Review/Fun
Summary: Vocabulary race game

Theme:
Anything
Materials: Something to pass around the circle
Level/age: Beginner advanced (maybe younger

ages)
Skills:
Speaking, vocab
Time:
10-20mins
This game is fun and challenging at the same time. It can be adapted for virtually any subject and any
grade level. It allows the students to review material they've learned, without having to get out a pencil
and paper and answer questions from the text.
Arrange 6 chairs in a circle and choose one person, the teacher or another student, to stand outside the
circle.
Give someone in the circle a stuffed animal, the funnier the animal the better!
The person outside the circle states what the person holding the animal has to name six of.
The person then starts moving the animal around the circle and the other players pass it around.
The player must name six of the objects before the animal gets back to him or her.
30 | P a g e

For example, let's say that you have just finished a vocabulary unit on animals. The person standing
outside the group may say something like, "Name six animals that have fur." The person sitting in the
circle begins naming six animals and at the same time, the stuffed animal is being passed around the
circle. If the player cannot name 6 animals with fur by the time the stuffed animal reaches him, he has
lost and it's his turn to stand outside the group and stunt the other students.
My students absolutely love this game and so do I because it requires no prep time!! It may take the
students a few times before they become successful at the game, but eventually I'm sure it will become
one of their favorites. I hope you have as much success with Name Six as I have had.
37. FRONT TO BACK Warmer/Review/Vocab/Time Filler
Summary: Students link words through letters
Level/age: beginner-advanced (good for children)
Theme:
Anything
Materials: -
Skills:
Speaking
Time:
20-30mins
The first student must say a word and then the next student must say a word that begins with the last
letter of that word and so on. I give them 5 seconds and if they cannot answer then they lose a life
either for themselves or for their teams.
A double letter e.g. America makes the game change direction. If they say something that has already
been answered then it doesnt count. I write the words on the board as we go. Mean teachers will make
them lose a life for repeating.
38. WORD ASSOCIATIONS Warmer/Vocab/Time Filler
Summary: Students come up with word
association chains
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Materials: -
Time:
10-20mins
Make out a list of words which are relevant to the class. Put the students in a circle and give them 3 lives
each. Say the first word to the first student who must immediately think of an associated word. The
game then moves to the next student who must say something associated to the previous word. If the
students take too long or say a word that has already been said then they lose a life. If they say a word
that doesnt seem associated then another student can say challenge! the student must then explain
the connection between the words. If the other students deem it inappropriate then they lose a life. The
last student standing is the winner.
31 | P a g e

39. WHAT AM I DOING? Active/Comprehension/Energy Boost
Summary: Students create actions with props
Level/age: Beginner - advanced
and other students guess
Theme:
Creative thinking
Skills:
Miming, creative thinking
Materials: Various props
Time:
10mins
Students mime the different actions you can do with one object that has a various shape or color. The
other students try to guess what the student is pretending the object is to get a point for their team.
40. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Warmer/Speaking
Summary: Active miming game
Level/age: Beginner advanced
Theme:
actions
Materials: -
Skills:
verbs and comprehension
Time:
10-20min
The first student starts by miming an action. The next student in the circle must ask them What are you
doing? to which the first student must answer something different to the action they are doing.
The student who asked must then do the action that the first student said but when asked by the next
student must say something different and the game continues. Put the students into 2 teams and give
each team a certain amount of points. When they make a mistake like taking too long to do the action or
doing the wrong action their team is minused points. Teams that lose all their points are out and the
remaining team is the winner.
41. THE MOON IS ROUND Fun/Comprehension
Summary: Students must find the pattern
Level/age: All levels younger ages
Theme:
Anything.
Materials: -
Skills:
Comprehension/listening
Time:
10mins+
While tracing a simple picture of a face on the desk in front of you, you say "the moon is round, has 2
eyes, a nose and a mouth." and invite everyone else in turn to do exactly the same as you. BUT the
secret is, you must do a little cough before you start, and this is the key to doing it correctly. Students
will concentrate very hard on saying the sentence correctly but invariably miss the cough. Sometimes
people get the cough by mistake, feel triumphant, and are then dismayed to find they get it wrong next
time round. As it slowly dawns on people what the secret is, you can end up with everyone doing it
together, putting in an enormous chorus of coughing and choking at the start, and the one or 2 still in
the dark STILL don't get it..
32 | P a g e

42. THE MEMORY GAME Warmer/Review/Fun/Vocab
Summary: Students try to remember as many
Level/age: All levels, all ages
items as they can
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Memory, Vocab
Materials: -
Time:
15mins
This is a very easy and often played game which is sometimes known as A ship came into the
harbour The student who starts can start with a phrase like In my bag, I have or A ship came into
the harbour carrying and then they say an object. The next student then has to say the same
sentence but repeating what the first student said along with their own object. The next student then
does the same but with all the objects.
You can play by giving each student 2 lives, so when they cant remember an object or they make a
mistake, they lose a life. The last student standing is the winner.
43. THE CATEGORY GAME Warmer/Review/Fun
Summary: Students try to name as many
Level/age: All levels, all ages
objects from a certain category
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Memory, Vocab
Materials: -
Time:
15mins
Have one student start by saying a category and an object in that category. Examples include Fruit,
Vegetables, Car Brands, Soccer Players, Land Animals etc. The next student then has to say something
from the category as well. You can play by giving each student 2 lives, so when they make a mistake or
repeat something, they lose a life. The last student standing is the winner.
44. OUTBRAG speaking/present perfect
Summary: Students try to out-do each other.
Theme:
Skills:
Time:
20-40mins
present perfect
Materials: Brag strips in SM book
You make up about 10-20 sentences in Present Perfect describing various activities one would brag
about. E.g. "I've eaten lunch with Al Gore".
Students draw a slip of paper with a statement like that and say it aloud to the group. Anyone in the
group can then attempt to out-brag that student. It might look something like this:
Student1: "I've eaten lunch with Al Gore"
S2: So what? I've eaten lunch with Bill Clinton!"
S3: So what? I've eaten lunch with Al Gore and Bill Clinton"
S4: So what? I've eaten Gore and Clinton for lunch"
When they can't come up with something, they just say WOW looking impressed and move on to the
next statement.
33 | P a g e

45. COMPOUND WORDS Vocab/Review/Time Filler
Summary: Students try to make the most
Level/age: low intermediate advanced classes
compound words
Theme:
Targets compound words and vocab Skills:
Vocab
memory
Materials: Time:
10-15mins
Put the students into teams and then give them a word that can be made into several compound words
e.g. game game play, game time, gamesmanship...
Give the students several minutes to talk together and write down as many as they can. The team with
the most compound words is the winner.
46. BATTLE THE BAG Warmer/Review/Vocab/Fun
Summary: Teams battle to answer question
Level/age: Modified to any level
Theme:
Anything
Materials: Bag, pre-made questions
Skills:
Reading, answering questions
Time:
20-30mins
Before the game, prepare a set of questions (15-20 questions- any type questions) including recently
taught structures. Write them on pieces of paper. Then put them in a bag. Find an ordinary ball. Divide
your class into two groups. And have them make two circles. Give the ball to one group and give the bag
to the other group. Play music. Students must pass the ball and the bag to the next student next until
the music stops. When the music stops the student with the bag in his/her hand draws a question and
asks it to the student with the ball in his/her hand in the other group. If he/she can answer it, they stay
in the group and the student with the bag goes out of the game. If they cannot answer it perfectly, they
go out of the game and the student with the bag stays in the group and group exchange the ball and the
bag. Teacher goes on pausing the music until there are 3 or 4 students left in a group. The group with
students remaining wins the game.
47. TOURNAMENT KNOCKOUT Warmer/Review/Fun
Summary: Question answering knockout
tournament
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Materials: 2 Desks
Time:
20-30mins
This activity can review anything that requires quick memory recall vocab works well but it can be
done with images, cue cards or questions.
Put the class into 2 teams. At the front of the class have 2 desks facing each other with 2 bells or noise
making devices. Bring 2 students up and give them 3 questions or cues. The first person to answer
correctly stays up and the other student goes back to their team and is replaced by another student.
Teams get a point for each correct answer and a winner can only stay at the front for a max of 3 turns
but if they do they get 2 bonus points.
34 | P a g e

48. TABOO - Review/Warmer
Summary: Students try to explain a word
without using related words
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: Intermediate+ any age
Materials: Taboo Cards in the SM book.
Time:
Skills:
Vocab, Speaking, Comprehension
Similar to Hot-seat except there is a list of words that the students cannot use to explain the word to
the student guessing. Taboo lists can be found in the SM Book.
49. STORE SNAP - Review/Vocabulary
Summary: Students review language using a
fun card game
Theme:
Different Stores (Or anything)
Level/age: Beginner-advanced with scaling

Skills:
Vocab, Quick Thinking
Materials: Cards for each team
Time:
25mins+
Put the students into teams - if they are a higher ability, you need a larger team (up to 8) , lower ability,
smaller (up to 6). You need a pack of cards for each team.
Tell each student that they have to choose a type of store (or a name) that they would like to represent,
for example, Music store, clothes store, fruit and vegetable store, etc...They should tell the rest of their
team who they are, and everyone should be different.
Deal all of the cards out to each student in the team. They SHOULD NOT look at the cards. Starting with
the oldest student in the group, they turn over a card and place it in a pile in front of them. The next
student then turns over a card (ONE AT A TIME) and places it on their own pile. Play continues until
there are two students with the same number. Here, the two with the same must shout out an object
they can buy in their opponents store BEFORE the opponent can
shout out something in theirs. There can be no repeats, and once one person has said something, it
cannot be used by anyone else.
The person who says the object first, gets to keep the two piles of cards. The aim is to get the most cards
as possible. Play continues with the next person. It is much harder to remember all the stores than it
seems, and the students have to work hard not to repeat.
To make it even harder, all the students can turn over their cards at the SAME TIME so they may have to
think of things for 2,3, or 4 stores at once. Another option is having two different packs mixed together.
This game can also be used for categories, so rather than a store the students pick a category.
35 | P a g e

50. BALL BOMB Speaking/Energy Boost
Summary: Students must try to get rid of the
bomb by making correct sentences.
Theme:
Anything

Skills:
Sentence formation
Materials: ball
Time:
10-20mins
Have the students sit in a circle and then pass around a ball. As they get the ball they must say an English
sentence e.g. this is your ball, not my ball (or any form that youve been studying) and then pass it onto
another student. If they get the sentence wrong then they have to keep the ball. While they are doing
this there is a timer counting down. If a student is caught in possession of the ball when the timer gets
down then they lose a life last student standing is the winner.
51. JUMBLED SENTENCES Warmer/Review/Time Filler
Summary: Review practice putting together
sentences.
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Comprehension, writing
Materials: whiteboard
Time:
15-20mins
Divide the class into 2 teams and have 1 student come up from each team. Take a sentence youve been
studying and write it jumbled on the board. The first student to write the sentence correctly gets a point
for their team.
Alternatively, you have the two teams line up and have a relay i.e. one student goes to the board and
writes the first word then the second student writes the next and so on until the sentence is complete. 1
point for the first team and 1 point for having the correct answer.
52. SENTENCE RACE Warmer/Review/Writing
Summary: Students race to write sentences
Theme:
Writing under pressure
Materials: whiteboard
Skills:
writing, comprehension
Time:
10-20mins
Very simple game that involves dividing the class into 2 teams then having 2 students come to the front.
The teacher calls out a sentence or word that the students must then race and write on the board. 1
point for your team for correct spelling and 1 point for being the first one finished.
36 | P a g e

53. SENTENCES of 3 Fun/Sentence formation/Concentration
Summary: Counting sentence activity
Level/age: Intermediate - advanced
Theme:
Fun
Materials: -
Skills:
Listening, speaking
Time:
10-20 minutes.
This game plays out a little bit like the drinking game 3s. Put the students in a circle and tell them to
start counting. At any number with a 3 in it or a multiple of 3 the student has to say a word that
continues the sentence. So for example the 1st student will start and say 1, the next student 2, the 3rd
student will start the sentence e.g. 1, 2, The 4, 5, cat 7, 8, is 10, 11, drinking milk (13 has a 3
in it.) and so on. Give students 3 lives and if they say the wrong thing then they lose a life. The last
student remaining is the winner.
54. MEGA MEMORY Review/Warmer/Vocab/Memory
Summary: Visual memory and recall activity
Theme:
Anything
Materials: Photos or props
Skills:
Visual recall, vocab, concentration
Time:
20-30min +
Select any visual sequence that scans over a large number of objects, people or includes many actions.
Allow players to view the segment once. They are not allowed to take notes.
Students make a list of as many of the objects, people or actions in the scene as can be remembered.
Play the scene again using still frames to check off the things on the list. Score one point for each correct
item but minus one for any item on the list that is not in the scene.
Variation
Narrow the range of things allowable on the list.
Examples:
Things that start with (pick a letter of the alphabet).
Things that are (pick a color or quality).
Things made of (pick a material).
Things used for (pick an action).
37 | P a g e

Longer Warm-up/Review Activities
55. FIND SOMEONE WHO Warmer/Speaking/Review/Energy Boost
Summary: Q&A activity
Theme:
Skills:
Speaking/listening
Time:
15-40min depending on Qs
Anything
Materials: Find someone who worksheets in

the SM Book or your own creation
The old classic... Make up a list of things that students might have in common. They can be anything
has been to another country. Ate cereal for breakfast. has been on a boat.
15 sentences should be enough give the students the sheet and then have them go around the class
finding students who have done these things. The first student to get all the things is the winner.
FIND SOMEONE WHO IDEAS
Experiences (present perfect)
Hobbies (like/dislike)
Favorite sports/food/entertainment etc (verbs)
Talents (can/cant)
Possessions (have/dont have)
Future plans (want/will/going to)
56. TRADING SENTENCES Review/Energy Boost /Grammar
Summary: sentence matching activity
Theme:
Skills:
Making correct sentences
Time:
20-30 min+
Anything
Materials: 2 sets of broken sentences.
This activity can be used with any grammar form that has 2 parts. First you will need to make sentences
on small pieces that you will then cut up into 2 pieces. It works well with conditionals and its funnier if
there are some crazy matches in there.
e.g. If I was rich I would buy a new car. If I were a monkey I would eat a banana.
Youll want to make at least 6 pairs for each team. Mix up the pairs and then hand out equal amounts to
each team. At first the students have to try and match up their sentences but if they cant then they
have to try and trade with other teams to get the correct matches. The team that matches all the
sentences first is the winner.
38 | P a g e

57. AGREE OR DISAGREE speaking/debating
Summary: Discussion activity for any number

of students
Theme:
General
Level/age: high intermediate-advanced

Skills:
Speaking
Materials: -
Time:
20-40mins
Have students make 2 lines facing one another so that each student has a partner. The teacher calls out
a marginal statement on any discussable topic.
The students must quickly process the statement and decide which side they will take, agree or
disagree. The first student to say their preference gets to argue that side. The other student must argue
the opposite even if they have the same opinion.
After each statement has been discussed, rotate the students so that everyone is constantly changing
partners.
58. ODD ONE OUT Warmer/Creative Thinking/Vocab
Summary: A comprehension/problem solving

activity
Theme:
Anything

Skills:
Vocab comprehension, speaking
Materials: Odd one out sheets in SM Book
Time:
10-20min+
Before class prepare a list of categories with 4 items in each one except 1 item is the odd one out. You
can do this with anything and everything including what you have been studying. Put the students into
teams and give them a set amount of time to pick the odd items. The team with the most correct is the
winner. Obviously you can level this activity for the students you are teaching.
At a more advanced level you can throw in some really ambiguous answers and then have the students
explain why they chose what they did.
Below are several odd one out handouts from beginner to advanced.
59. READ N RUN Warmer/ Reading/Writing/Speaking/Listening
Summary: Students race to collate information.
Theme:
Skills:
Reading, writing, listening, speaking
Time:
40-60mins
Anything
Materials: Prepared Review Sentences
Put the students into pairs with one student being the writer and one the reader. They must take turns
going to a set passage in order to relay information back to their partner. The first pair to get all the
information written down is the winner.
39 | P a g e

60. CONSTRAINED WRITING Warmer/Writing/Creative Thinking
Summary: Team writing activity that

challenges students to think
creatively
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Writing, Creative thinking
Materials: -
Time:
30mins+
Constrained writing is a literary technique in which the writer is bound by some condition that
forbids certain things or imposes a pattern. Constraints are very common in poetry, which often
requires the writer to use a particular verse form.
Lipogram: a letter (commonly e or o) is outlawed.

Palindromes, such as the word radar, read the same forwards and backwards.
Pilish, where the lengths of consecutive words match the digits of the number .
Alliteratives, in which every word must start with the same letter (or subset of letters;
see Alphabetical Africa).
Acrostics: first letter of each word/sentence/paragraph forms a word or sentence.
Reverse-lipograms: each word must contain a particular letter.
Twiction: espoused as a specifically constrained form of microfiction where a story or
poem is exactly one hundred and forty characters long.
Anglish, favouring Anglo-Saxon words over Greek and Roman words.
Anagrams, words or sentences formed by rearranging the letters of another.
Aleatory, where the reader supplies a random input.
Chaterism Where the length of words in a phrase or sentence increase or decrease in a
uniform, mathematical way as in "I am the best Greek bowler running", or "hindering
whatever tactics appear".
Univocalic poetry, using only one vowel.
Bilingual homophonous poetry, where the poem makes sense in two different
languages at the same time, thus constituting two simultaneous homophonous
poems.[1]
One syllable article, a form unique to Chinese literature, using many characters all of
which are homophones; the result looks sensible as writing but is incomprehensible
when read aloud.
Limitations in punctuation, such as Peter Carey's book True History of the Kelly Gang,
which features no commas.
Mandated vocabulary, where the writer must include specific words, chosen a priori,
along with the writer's own freely chosen words.
Give the students a constraint along with a topic and then award points for length of sentence
and if it makes sense.
40 | P a g e

61. 20 QUESTIONS Speaking/Listening
Summary: Students ask questions to find out

who the person, place or thing is
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: Intermediate advanced

Skills:
speaking, listening
Materials: Post-its of famous people, places or

things
Time:
30min
Before class, come up with a famous person, place and thing for as many students as you have in the
class and write them on post-its. In class attach them randomly to students backs so that they get 1 of
each category but are not able to see the information.
Students then go around to other students and have 20 ask yes/no questions to find the answer to each
one. They should switch partners when they get one and the first student to get all their post-its is the
winner.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
Famous People
Barack Obama
Albert Einstein
Marilyn Monroe
Brad Pitt
Nelson Mandela
Bill Gates
Tiger Woods
Michael Jordan
Mahatma Gandhi
Elvis Presley
Steve Jobs
Leonardo Da Vinchi
JK Rowling
Madonna
Michael Jackson
Taylor Swift
Adolf Hitler
18.
19.
20.
Lionel Messi
David Beckham
Queen Elizabeth
Famous Places
The Louvre, Paris
The Pyramid of Giza, Cairo
The White House, Washington
The Statue of Liberty, New York
The Eiffel Tower in Paris
St. Basils Cathedral in Moscow
The Great Sphinx at Giza
The Great Wall in China
The Taj Mahal in Agra
Machu Picchu in Peru
Big Ben in London
The Burj al Arab Hotel in Dubai
Tower of Pisa, Italy
Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro
Loch Ness in Scotland
Mount Fuji in Japan
Stonehenge in the English county of
Wiltshire
Niagara Falls
Angkor Wat at Cambodia
Mount Everest on the border of Tibet
and Nepal
Things
A police car
An Old Apple
My Wrist
A big-screen TV
An Alligator
A Tent
Backyard
A knife and Fork
A Smart Phone
July (A Month)
A cigarette
An Electronic Dictionary
A Microchip
A Basketball
A Tire
A Chocolate Cake
A Castle
A Diet
Microsoft (a Company)
A Puppy
41 | P a g e

Difficult
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
Famous People
Beyonce
Stephen King
Muhammad
Isaac Newton
Jesus Christ
Buddha
Confucius
Christopher Columbus
Galileo Galilei
Charles Darwin
John F Kennedy
Henry Ford
Jim Carrey
Leonardo DiCaprio
Miley Cyrus
Hillary Clinton
Oprah Winfrey
18.
19.
20.
Bruno Mars
Mao Tze
The Dalai Lama
Famous Places
Blue Domed Church in Santorini,
The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen
Lascaux in France
Mecca in Saudi Arabia
Mont St. Michel in France
Bran Castle in Transylvania, Romania
Agia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey
Brandenburg Gate in Berlin
Acropolis of Athens, Greece
Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain
Ayers Rock, Australia
Mount Eden crater in New Zealand
Easter Island in the Polynesian Triangle,
Capitol Hill in Washington DC
St. Peters Cathedral at Vatican City
Mount Rushmore in South Dakota
Victoria Falls between Zambia and
Zimbabwe
The Grand Canyon in Arizona
Auschwitz in Poland
Forbidden City in Beijing
Things
A remote Control
A Steam Engine
A Particle
A Printing Press
Garbage Truck
Disease
The Internet
Welfare
the government
A Rubber Chicken
A Corner Store
A LASER
A Surgeon
A Polar Bear
Deforestation
A Banana Cupcake
The Flu
A Homeless Person
A Weapon
A Walrus
42 | P a g e

62. JEOPARDY Warmer/Review/Fun/Question Formation
Summary: Activity based on Jeopardy
Theme:
Skills:
Time:
30-40mins
General knowledge/questions
Materials: Jeopardy topics/answers
The teacher must prepare a template that can be used in class. There are several websites that provide
projectable templates (http://jeopardylabs.com/) or the easiest way to do it is to just write the values
on post-its and then write the answers underneath them on the board. You can decide what the values
are and modify the game for whatever level you are teaching.
Put the students into small teams (or as individuals) and have one student choose a value. When the
answer is revealed the 1st student to make a correct question for that answer gets the value.
The team/student with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.
63. DICTOGLOSS Listening/Team-Work/Writing
Summary: Students try to remember a story 15

words at a time
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: Low Intermediate Advanced (Any

age)
Skills:
Comprehension, Memory, Team-work
Materials: Prepared story (Example Below)
Time:
45mins+
Have a story prepared before the class that matches the level of the students.
Explain to the students that you are going to read the story to them twice and that they should write
down the 15 most important words in the story, but they can ONLY write 15 words. Have them prep
their notebooks then read.
Once this is finished, tell them to look at their words and see if (in their heads) they can recreate the full
story from the words including all the details.
Next, read the story again and have them write down 15 more words but this time pair each student up
with a partner, give them 5 minutes and have them compare their words and memories to recreate the
story.
Finally, read the story a third time, students can write 15 more words and this time, partner 2 teams
together so theres now 4 students per team. Give the students 15 minutes and tell them to write the
full story, verbatim.
Bring all the final copies to the front and compare each sentence to the original the team with the
closest to the original gets a point. The team with the most points is the winner.
EXAMPLE - A CRAZY SIGHT!
Once I saw an amazing thing that was unforgettable! When I was travelling in Indonesia I went to a remote island
that was famous for hunting whales! I went there and when I arrived there were two dead whales on the beach!
The next day the whole village came to the beach and to cut up and share out the whale. It was a little disgusting
but also unbelievable. Ill never forget seeing all the villagers who worked so hard taking every piece of the whale
43 | P a g e

off of the beach!
64. TELEPATHS Warmer/Review/Vocabulary
Summary: Vocab recall game testing you and

your partners knowledge.
Theme:
Vocabulary
Materials: -
Time:
Skills:
word association, vocab review and

memory
15-25mins
Put Ss into pairs and show everyone a word. Give them 1 minute to individually come up with as many
word associations with that word as they can. They can write anything associated which may include
opposites, adjectives, synonyms etc. When the time is up have the students read out their words they
get 1 point for each word they wrote that is the same as their partners. The winner is the team with the
most points at the end.
65. I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT Warmer/Speaking/Time
Summary: Students make appointments to

discuss something
Theme:
Time, Making Appointments
Skills:
Speaking, Telling time
Materials: Clock Handout in the SM Book
Time:
30mins
This activity works well when prefaced by an Appointment Making Dialogue lesson.
In the first part of this activity, give all the students in the clock handout from the Supplementary
Materials Book. Have them walk around the class and meet up with other students. They should make
an appointment to meet that person at a certain time on the clock. They should come up with a
question that they will discuss at that time. Each student should write the others name at that time and
then go to another student and do the same thing. Obviously they should not double book
appointments.
Once all the students have filled up their clocks, the teacher yells out a time. The students have to
consult their clocks and find the student who they have an appointment with, meet up with them and
discuss the question they agreed on. Give them 3-4 minutes to discuss and then yell out another time.
44 | P a g e

66. SPOT THE DIFFERENCE Communicating/Prepositions/Vocabulary
Summary: Students find differences in their

pictures through conversation
Theme:
Anything

Skills:
Speaking, comprehension, prepositions
Materials: Spot the difference example in the

SM book
Time:
20-30min
There is one example of a spot the difference in the supplementary materials book but there are many
on the internet that can be used in class. Or if you are versed in photoshop, you can create your own out
of anything. Leave one picture alone, but make a few alterations on a copy of the picture that indicate
minor differences. Make enough copies of each for half the class. Pair students together allowing one
person to have a copy of picture A and one student to have a picture of copy B. Ask the students
(without allowing them to look at the partners picture) to find the differences between the two pictures
through verbal negotiation.
45 | P a g e

67. CIRCLE OF DEATH Review/Energy-Boost
Summary: Students play various English games

based on the popular drinking game
Theme:
Anything
Materials: Cards, Rules below
Time:
Skills:
Speaking, comprehension, listening,

spelling
40mins+
This is an adaptation of a popular drinking game but it works extremely well as a fun and engaging
English activity. It does require a lot of explaining however so be prepared for that.
You will need a deck of cards and a print out of all the possible games and rules for each card. (There are
many different variations on games so you can choose which ones you think will work for your class.)
Before the class begins you will want to write all the names of all the games up on the board with the
corresponding card so students can see them as you play.
Spread the cards out on the table face down in a circle and tell the students to listen carefully while you
explain the rules.
Circle of death rules:
2s Q&A. The teacher will ask a question and the student must answer perfectly. If they do they keep
the card. If not the question goes to the next student in the circle to see if they can answer. Thequestion
continues until a student can answer it perfectly.
3s Chain sentence. Students must make sentences saying only 1 word each at a time. The sentences
can finish and start again but if a student makes a grammatical mistake they give 1 card to the student
who started.
4s Spelling. If a student chooses a 4 they must spell a word that the teacher gives them. If they spell it
correctly they keep the card. If not, the word goes to the next student who can try to spell it the word
goes around the circle until it is spelled correctly. That student gets to keep the card.
5s Error Correction. The teacher writes a sentence on the board with a mistake in it and the student
must try to correct it. If the correction is right then they can keep the card, if not it goes to the next
student ala the spelling game.
6s Steal. If a student picks the 6 then they can steal just one card from any other student.
7s OH MY GOD. If a student picks a 7 then everyone plays OH MY GOD. The game begins with the
student who picked the card saying OH. The game then moves clockwise with the next student in the
circle having to say MY the next student then says GOD and as they say it must also look at another
student anywhere in the circle. That student must then start the game again with OH and then the
game moves around the circle clockwise again. If a student takes too long to say their word or says a
word out of turn then they must give one of their cards to the student who originally chose the 7.
Usually I play 1 or 2 rounds but it is designed to be a quick game so encourage students to up the pace.
8s Sing a song. This is pretty obvious, to keep the card the student must sing a chorus of an English
song.
46 | P a g e

9s Category game. If a student picks the 9 they must name a category such as fruits or animals and
then everyone goes around the circle (clockwise) saying something in that category. If a student repeats
something that has already been said or takes too long then they must give a card to the student that
began the game.
10s Memory game. Similar to the category game, the student who picks the 10 must start the game by
saying I have a _____ (noun) e.g. backpack. The game then moves clockwise to the next student who
must repeat that sentence and add their own noun e.g. I have a backpack and a pencil. The game then
moves around the circle with each student repeating the previous nouns and adding their own. The
game obviously gets harder as it goes further around. If a student makes a mistake or takes too long
then they must give one card to the student that began the game.
Jacks Snake eyes. Snake eyes is very easy and a lot of fun. The student who picks the Jack is the snake
eyes; anyone who makes direct eye contact with this student must give them one of their cards, so the
key is to not look at the snake eyes at all. This card is a running card so the student can use it anytime
and as many times as they want UNTIL the next Jack is chosen. Once another student picks up a Jack
they become the snake eyes and the previous snake eyes loses their power.
Queens Question master. Question master is similar to snake eyes in that it is a running card you can
use it as many times as you want whenever you want (so long as you are the current question master.)
Basically if you are the question master and someone answers you then they must give you a card. So
the key for other students is if the Question master asks you a question DO NOT ANSWER.
Kings Chin master. Again chin master is a running game to be used as many times as the student
pleases (until the next King is picked.) If the chin master puts their hand to their chin then all the other
students must do the same the last student to do so is the loser and must give the chin master a card.
Its a game that requires a lot of concentration from everyone in the group.
Aces Make a rule. The ace is the make a rule card which means that that student can decide any rule
for the group e.g. whenever you pick up a card you must do a quick dance... or Whenever someone
says apple all the boys must jump. If a student fails to obey a rule then they must give the rule maker
a card.
For games that require the whole group (OH MY GOD, memory and category game) I tell the students
that any running games (chin master, snake eyes and question master) get put on hold until theyre
finished because they can disrupt them.
So as you go through the deck students will accumulate cards and then the student at the end with the
most cards is the winner.
47 | P a g e

68. FAMILY FEUD Vocab/Review/Warmer
Summary: Vocab recall game.
Theme:
Skills:
Vocab recall
Time:
30-40mins
Any family feud topics
Materials: Family feud Topics in SM book
Pre-prepare a family feud game pack, this includes making a set of open questions each of which will
have 4-6 surveyed answers. There are many in the Supplementary Material Book but this website also
has thousands of topics - http://www.neoseeker.com/resourcelink.html?rlid=107362
Give them 5 minutes to determine their family name and who is who in the family (the father, the sister,
the grandmother, the uncle.they choose) and decide on who the captain will be (the captain should be
the person who is the strongest in English in order to take decisions for the team if needed.
Two students come up front where the teacher has put a small desk and some kind of buzzer device. Ask
the first question and the students must hit the desk when they know the answer. The quickest to
answer allows his/her team to play. If the person who hits the desk does not have the right answer, the
opposing contestant gets a chance to answerIf they hit the desk at the same time, the one with the
most popular answer gets it.
The teacher then asks the same questions to the other contestants of the team.
They are allowed three strikes to get all the answers. After three strikes, the other team gets a chance.
The captain of that team will give an answer with the help of his family. And if the opposing team
doesnt get it either, the point finally goes to the team who started the question.
69. KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOR /1 MIN SPEECH Speaking/Listening/Comprehension
Summary: Students must predict what other

students will say
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: High Intermediate Advanced (Any

age)
Skills:
Speaking/listening
Materials: -
Time:
30mins+
Put students into small even teams.

Choose one student from any team and have the other students in the class decide on a topic for them.
Popular topics include: Travel, family, Love, Home Country etc. but it can be anything.
Once the topic is chosen, that student must leave the class for 3 minutes and make some notes so that
they can speak on the topic for 1 minute when they come back in.
While he/she is gone, the teams get together and come up with a list of 15 words that they think that
student is going to say when they come back and give their speech.
When the time is up, the student comes back and gives their speech the teams have to listen carefully
and give themselves a point when they hear the words they have chosen. Keep a running tally of points
then get another student up with a new topic. The team with the most points at the end is the winner.
48 | P a g e

70. ROTATING STORY-TELLER warmer/creative/story-telling/speaking
Summary: A creative thinking/comprehension

story-telling activity
Theme:
Anything
Materials: Photos of various things
Time:
Skills:
story formation, story-telling,

comprehension and re-reporting
40-60mins
Lay out a good range of 'people' and 'setting' photographs from magazines, catalogues etc face down on
a table. Put students into groups of three or four and where possible arrange the room so that these
groups are spaced well apart and not too close to the laid-out pictures.
Have the students come up one at a time and randomly select a picture. Individually a team will put
their pictures together to come up with a story. If a teams pictures are too random then you might
allow them to swap.
Story creation proceeds. Group members can be encouraged to make very short notes, or a flowchart or
spider graph style diagram to help them keep the story in mind.
When groups have come up with a story, the members of each group play Rock, paper, scissors to
decide who will be the first story-teller and who will be the first listeners. The loser has to stay behind
and tell the group's story to two or more listeners from another group, while the other group members
move to the next group to hear that group's story. Remind the storyteller to arrange the pictures in
story sequence so that the listeners can see them clearly, and stress that listeners will have to pay close
attention to the story they are about to hear, asking questions if anything is unclear, since one of them
is going to have to tell it again her/himself.
After the two 'new' listeners have heard the story and asked any questions they want to, they also play
Rock, paper scissors. The loser again stays behind to tell the story, while the previous storyteller and the
other listener(s) move to the next group. The story is told again. Even if a chart or diagram has been left
behind, minor-to-drastic alterations may occur to stories in the re-telling, but this can add to the fun. If
you do overhear serious revisions, you might have students contrast the versions they heard at the end
of the activity.
71. SCATTEGORIES Warmer/Vocabulary
Summary: Students recall as many items from

a category based on a letter.
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Vocab recall
Materials: Scattegories lists in the SM Book
Time:
15-40mins
Give students empty category lists such as animals, food etc and allow them to choose letters. They are
then given a time limit in which to think of as many words as possible beginning with that letter in that
category. Students get one point for any correct answer, however if any students have the same answer
as another student then there are no points for them. The idea is to try and think of unique answers.
49 | P a g e

72. WRITE/DRAW/WRITE Warmer/Comprehension/Drawing
Summary: Students write sentences based on

drawings
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Writing, Comprehension
Materials: Sheets of A4 paper
Time:
40mins+
Give every student a piece of A4 paper and have them fold the paper up into 5 segments. Have the
students write their name in the first segment and then give them 5-10mins to write several sentences
about something. It can be anything what they did on the weekend/What they want to do in the
future/An interesting holiday etc. Make sure the topic allows them enough leeway to write a few
interesting sentences.
When time is up, the students should pass their paper around to the student next to them. The next
student must read the sentences and then in the next segment, draw a picture to illustrate the
sentences. Give them about 5-10 mins and then all the students rotate their papers again but this time
have the students fold the first written segment over so that the next student cannot see the sentences.
The next student must look purely at the pictures and then write several sentences to explain them.
Repeat this process switching from writing to drawing but making sure to fold the paper every time so
that the next student cannot copy the sentences or pictures from the previous turn.
When all 5 sections are finished, collect all the pieces of paper and quickly go through them with the
class picking out the ones that have the closest sentences from the first segment to the last. They are
the winners.
50 | P a g e

73. GAME OF THINGS Writing/Comprehension/Speaking/Fun
Summary: Students try to guess who wrote

what
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: Advanced (good with class or teams of

around 12)
Skills:
Writing, Comprehension, Intuition
Materials: Game of Things Lists Below and lots

of cut up strips of paper
Time:
40mins+
This activity works well with smaller groups of individuals but you can make small teams if you have
more students, have them discuss and write 1 answer as a team.
Give a strip of paper out to each student and then choose one of the things from the list below. Read
out the thing and give the students 5-10mins to write something on their strip of paper that they think
applies to this thing. For example; if the teacher reads out Things you shouldnt keep in your pocket
then a student may write A chocolate bar. Another may answer Money.
All the strips are then handed back to the teacher who reads all the answers out to the class but keeps
the identities of the writers secret.
Students can then discuss with each other who they think each strip belongs to. Once they think they
know, one student (or team) starts by trying to identify one of the writers. If they get it correct, they get
a point and another go. If incorrect, the game moves to the next student or team who can try and link
an answer to a student or team.
Things
You shouldnt keep in your pocket
You wouldnt want to find out about online
You shouldnt share over the dinner table
You would never do
You shouldnt put in your mouth
You shouldnt do at a funeral
You do when people arent looking
You shouldnt lick
You wouldnt do for a million dollars
That are harder than they look
You shouldnt do in a hospital
You shouldnt do at your English School
Your parents would kill you for
You would ask a psychic
You find in a library
That smell terrible
You shouldnt say when trying to make a good impression
Not to tell your mother
You would do if you were a giant
You shouldnt tie to the roof of your car
You dont want to find in your bed
You can never find
You shouldnt do when naked
51 | P a g e

74. REPETITION/HESITATION/CORRECTION Speaking/Listening/Comprehension
Summary: Students must listen for other

students errors.
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: High Intermediate - Advanced

Skills:
Speaking/listening/error correction
Materials: -
Time:
10 -20 mins
Firstly, explain to the students what the 3 words mean.

Secondly, choose a student and give them a set amount of time depending on the level. For lower levels
1 minute is good but you can go up to 3 minutes if they are really high. So, the class chooses a random
topic for the chosen student to talk about (you can give the chosen student a short amount of time to
prepare if you want) and then let them start. The other students must listen for the 3 errors - repetition,
hesitation and corrections when they hear one of these mistakes they yell out.
E.g. Speaking student Last night I went to thethe nightclub Listening student REPETITION!!
The student that spotted the mistake then takes over the speaking and must continue the speech while
the other students monitor their errors. The speech may switch hands many times before the time is up
but whoever is speaking at the end of the time period is the winner.
This game can be pretty daunting for unconfident students so keep it relaxed and dont put too much
pressure on anyone.
75. PICTURE STORIES Information Gap/Speaking/Comprehension
Summary: Students try to put together a story

via pictures
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: intermediate advanced (all ages)

Skills:
speaking
Materials: Cut up images from a short story
Time:
20min+
For this activity you will need to images from a short story. Comic strips or comic books work well.
Put students into 4 small teams and give each team a quarter of the images from the story. Give them 5
-10 minutes and have them discuss what they think is happening in the whole story from just their
pictures.
Rotate each quarter of the images through all of the teams and have them discuss each set as they see
them developing the overall story as they go.
Once teams have been through each set of pictures, have the teams write down what they think they
overall story is. The team that is closest to the actual story is the winner.
52 | P a g e

76. WHATS SUITABLE? - Speaking/Warmer/Interviews
Summary: Students think of suitable questions Level/age: Intermediate-advanced
for interviews
Theme:
Jobs, Interviews
Skills:
Speaking, question formation
Materials: -
Time:
Put students into teams and then give them situations where they have to ask one question to
determine a persons suitability for that situation .
Baby sitting
Police Officer
Head Chef
Soccer Coach
PHD Student
Father/Mother
President
Crocodile Hunter
Bus Driver
Once students have created questions, have them rotate around the room and ask these questions to
other students.
77. TALKING CARDS Speaking/Sentence Formation
Summary: A general Q&A activity
Theme:
General information questions
Materials: Cards in the SM book
Skills:
Time:
general question and answer, speaking,

general vocab
20-30min+
You distribute the cards among your students. If you have a large class, use two packs of cards. The
student answers the corresponding question to that card. The student is awarded 4 points for a
complete answer, 3 points for a reasonable answer, 2 points for an incomplete answer, and 1 point for
any answer at all. If your class is up to it, you can get them to award the points.
78. MAGAZINE TREASURE warmer/review/speaking/reasoning
Summary: Students search through magazines Level/age: beginner-advanced
to find vocab examples
Theme:
reading and visual vocab
Skills:
Comprehension, team work
identification
Materials: Magazines, scavenger hunt list in
Time:
30mins
the SM book
1. Obtain some subject-appropriate (but different) magazines that would be of interest to your class.
Popular magazines, teen magazines, cooking, home magazines, etc.
2. Review each magazine and compile magazine-specific lists of 15-25 random items that they must find.
Alternatively, you could give them a simple idea and they have to find something that represents that
idea.
3. Divide the class into two or more teams and give them the handout. (It can be modified for whatever
topic youre studying.)
4. Before giving each team a list and a magazine, explain the game to them through a couple examples.
Have a mock list and magazine and illustrate what they are about to do.
53 | P a g e

5. Do not explain the vocabulary words- you know your class level and can pick words that you have
studied and need practice remembering and using. The words can be funny and creative, can be
descriptions of people, adjectives and colors, rooms in a house, clothing, you name it!!!
6. Each team should pre-determine a labeler, a cutter, and someone to mark off each word that is
found. Everyone should look through the magazine together, but upon finding one of the pictures, one
person should cut it out, one should label the picture with the right word, and the other should check off
or cross out the word from the list. This promotes teamwork, organized communication, and gives all
levels a role which they can perform.
5. Start the clock. Give the teams about 20 minutes to finish or until the first team completes all words
on the list. You will witness a lot of laughter, discussion, and participation. Among adult learners,
competition can be a wonderful motivator!!
6. Upon completion, the group must organize the words in the appropriate order written on the list.
That involves someone reading the word and someone locating the picture (with the correct label) and
placing it in order. This repeats the English word identification process.
7. Wait for the others to finish. Each group should then elect a reader and a presenter. The reader will
read each word and the presenter will show the correct picture. There can be much discussion over
whether or not the picture is a true representation of the listed word! If it is correct and it is labeled,
they get a point. The team with the most correct pictures wins the round!
79. BOARD BOGGLE warmer/vocab/fun
Summary: A word identifying game
Level/age: Modified for all levels
Theme:
Skills:
language memory and spelling
Time:
20mins
Vocab
Materials: Boggle board
You can buy the boggle game which works well or you can use online boggle generators
(http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/brad/boggle/braggle.htm) and show them using multi-media.
Put the students in teams and get them to try and find as many words in the boggle as they can in an
allotted time. The team that finds the most words is the winner.
80. WHATD HE SAY? Warmer/Sentence Formation/Review
Summary: Students make script for pictures
Level/age: low intermediate advanced
Theme:
Anything
Materials: Pictures, cartoon strips (without

words)
Skills:
Sentence formation/captioning
Time:
20-30mins
Get some photos or cartoons and have the students make the captions for them. With strips the
sentences should flow into full dialogues that sum up the situation. Encourage full sentences and
creativity. When the students are finished review their dialogues and see which ones were closest to the
real dialogues.
54 | P a g e

81. IMPOSSIBLE Warmer/Speaking
Summary: Students try to outdo each other
with conditions
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: High intermediate - advanced

Skills:
Speaking, reasoning
Materials: -
Time:
10-20mins
Divide the class into 2 teams.

The first member of the starting team begins by coming up with some kind of plan for the weekend (e.g.
Im going to take the train to the seaside tonight. The 1st member of the other team must then reply
with a reason as to why that plan is impossible e.g. The last train leaves at noon or The weather
forecast says that there will be a tidal wave. The 2nd member of the first team then has to say how they
will change their plans, e.g. Really? In that case Ill go to the mountains instead. To which the 2nd
member of the other team must come up with a reason to why it is impossible. The team can help the
members as it is their turn but only give them a limited time to come up with an answer. If they are too
slow or cannot come up with something then the other team gets a point.
55 | P a g e

82. WHAT DO YOU SAY WHEN Warmer/Speaking
Summary: Students discuss what to say in
Level/age: High Intermediate- Advanced
common situations
Theme:
Common Situations
Skills:
Speaking, Conversation
Materials: Situations Below
Time:
30mins
This is a very general activity that can be used as a general warmer or speaking practice. Put students
into small teams and give them the situations below. Give them 15-20mins and have them discuss what
they would say in each of the following situations. Bring the class together and go over their responses.
You can give them points for the best answers if you want.
What Do You Say When?

What do you say in each of these circumstances? Work in a group to discuss what you can say
when:
1. you don't understand what someone is saying
2. you want to invite someone to sit down with you
3. you want to pass someone in a narrow space
4. you are with a group of people and you want to smoke
5. you want someone to go through a doorway before you
6. someone near you sneezes
7. you hand a paper to someone
8. someone mentions that it is her birthday
9. someone is about to walk into something
10. you learn that a friend's father has died
11. you want to offer someone a seat on a bus
12. someone is wanted on the phone
13. you want to know the time and don't have a watch
14. you don't agree with what someone is saying
15. you need to borrow someone's umbrella to go out for a minute
16. you want to signal a server in a restaurant
17. someone pushes into line in front of you
18. you get a wrong number on the telephone
56 | P a g e

83. BATTLESHIPS Warmer/Review/Sentence Making
of students
Theme:
taught vocab or grammar
Skills:
Materials: Battle ship board in the SM Book
Time:
30-40mins
Divide the class into pairs or small groups. Have the students draw up a 10x10 grid on two different
sheets of paper. For lower levels the left hand side (y-axis) of the grid can be labeled alphabetically and
the lower side (x-axis) can be labeled with simple categories such as food, animals, jobs, cities/countries,
hobbies etc. Each player/team proceeds to then fill in one grid with vocabulary :- an A food, an A animal,
an A job etc. For more advanced classes, place more complicated category combinations i.e. a European
animal, an ancient city etc. Alternatively you can use grammar forms along each axis and have the
students make sentences using that grammar.
The students are then to draw battleships on their grids - I suggest one battleship that covers three
spaces, two that cover two spaces and three that cover one space. The students can place their ships
horizontally or vertically anywhere on their grid.
Explain to the students that their second grid is a map of their opponents space. One team begins by
describing one of their own vocabulary i.e. " a yellow fruit ". The opponent guesses "banana" and then
examines their own grid for the space of "B-fruit". If there is a battleship on that space they must
declare "HIT" and if there is not they must declare "MISS". In the occurrence of a "HIT" the describer is
given a second turn. It is his/her aim to "SINK" the battleship by scoring successive hits to the vessel by
"bombing" or guessing the spaces up-down-beside the given space. If the battleship is merely a single
space battleship then it is sunk by a direct hit. When a battleship is destroyed the guesser declares "HIT
AND SINK". In the case of a "MISS" the turn is then given to the opponent to describe a word and to
bomb the opponents space. Each team can map where they have bombed their opponent by marking a
circle on their spare grid for a "MISS" and a cross for a "HIT". Continue this successively until all of one
teams battleships are sunk or time is out.
57 | P a g e

84. SENTENCE RELAY Warmer/Review
Summary: Students put sentences together
Theme:
Skills:
Sentence Formation
Time:
20mins
Anything
Materials: -
Have students line up in 2 teams. Half the team will be positioned at one end of the class and the other
at the other end with 2 piles of scrambled words. Students have to make 2 sentences, 1 at each end of
the class.
1 student will run from one end of the class to the other they must always exchange a card at each
end. The first team to finish their sentence gets the point.
85. ANSWER ME warmer/speaking/Q&A

Summary: Students discard by getting students
to say the words on their cards
Theme:
trickery
Level/age: Low intermediate-advanced

Skills:
Speaking, questioning
Materials: -
Time:
10-20mins
In this game you get a point if you make another student say something. For example, if one student is
holding a card with Yes, I will on it and they manage to get that response from one of the people in
their group, they can discard that card and score one point.
Give each student between four and eight pieces of paper (the same number for each student) and
show or tell them the group of words or phrases they can choose from asking them to write one on
each piece of paper. These pieces of paper are then shuffled up and dealt out in each group. Students
take turns trying to get the responses on their pieces of paper from their partners,
Example Student 1 asks student 2 What time do you usually eat lunch? while holding a card with 12
oclock on it. If Student 2 answers with 12 oclock then student 1 can discard the card.
The student to get rid of their cards first is the winner.
There are so many uses for this game. Here are some examples:
Short answers Yes I do, No I wont, maybe etc...
Adverbs of frequency Usually, sometimes, always etc
How do you feel about? I love it/ dont mind it/ cant stand it
How does make you feel? sad, happy, angry etc
Numbers
58 | P a g e

86. KEY WORD warmer/speaking/listening
Summary: Students listen for key words from
the other team
Theme:
Anything

Skills:
Speaking, listening
Materials: -
Time:
10-20mins
Put the class into 2 teams and give each team several pieces of scrap paper. On the paper make them
write random words or phrases the stranger the better.
To start the game 2 students from 1 team go up to the front and are given one of the slips of paper from
the other team. To give the game a little bit of direction the teacher can also give the students a topic on
which to speak although this is not essential. The 2 students must have a conversation for 1 minute
while their team listens and tries to guess which word is the key word. If the team can guess the word
then they get a point.
59 | P a g e

87. SELF TRIVIA review/question formation
Summary: Students create their own trivia quiz Level/age: Intermediate-advanced
Theme:
Any learned language and facts
Materials:
Skills:
Time:
30-40mins
Have students think about several categories such as; sports, entertainment, current events, geography,
history etc. and write 1 question for each category. When everyone is finished go around the class and
students ask their questions while the other students answer. Check the answers and the student with
the most correct is the winner.
88. THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE Speaking/Comprehension/Active
Summary: Students pass on vital information
through memory
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Speaking, listening, comprehension
Materials: -
Time:
15-30mins
First explain the idea of rumors to the students. You can do this by explaining the origin of the idiom
through the grapevine.
Put the students into teams of 4 or more, order each person in the team and then split them up around
the class. 1s with 1s, 2s with 2s etc. Have a list of prepared rumours to give to the number 1s in each
team. I usually have something funny or unusual about students in the class (but be careful with this.)
The rumour should contain several pieces of vital information.
E.g. Did you hear about Steve he went to a nightclub last weekend, he drank too much and then fell
asleep in the nightclub!!
I emphasize the fact that there are 5 pieces of vital information in this rumour ... Who Steve, where a
nightclub, when last weekend, what he fell asleep in a nightclub, why because he drank too much.
Tell your rumour to the number 1 students who must then go to the number 2 students in their team
and transfer the story to them. The story travels around the class until the last students relay it back to
the teacher. If the details are incorrect they must go back and find out from each link in the chain.
First team finished gets the point.
60 | P a g e

89. STRIP STORIES Speaking/Q&A
Summary: An interactive story ordering activity
Theme:
Skills:
Indirect questioning, speaking
Time:
20-30mins
Anything
Materials:
Select a story and break it up into sections/lines so that there is one section for each student/team. Each
section should have enough information in it so that it can be connected to the next or last sequential
section.
Print each section onto a strip of colored paper and make enough copies of each strip for each
student/team in the class.
So if there are 6 students or teams you should have a story with 6 sections/lines each student/team
gets 6 pieces of paper on it with the same section/line.
Each team/student gets one section and then they must go around the class trying to find the students
whose section connects with their own. The students are not allowed to directly read their sentence.
They can only give indirect information about the section and what happens in it. If the students
sections are sequential then they can give one another a strip. The idea is to get all the different colored
strips and then put them together to make the full story. The first team/ students to do so are the
winners.
Strip Story Example Toms adventure
Start: Tom is a student from New Zealand. He is studying interior design at University.
He has many friends in his interior design class and they often go out to eat Vietnamese food.
When they are at the restaurant they love to eat pho soup because Tom really loves noodles.
He first ate the soup when he traveled to South East Asia in 2008.
While he was there he visited many beaches and swam a lot.
He loves swimming because it is really good exercise and he likes to keep in good shape.
He also usually plays tennis with his girlfriend, Susan.
Susan is a receptionist in a local business and she loves cats.
Tom and Susan have 2 cats called Lulu and Gandalf.
They play together and sleep in the sun. Finish.
61 | P a g e

90. QUICK REPLIES Speaking in casual situations
Summary: Students work on casual replies
Theme:
Informal situations
Materials: -
Skills:
Speaking, informal language
Time:
15-25mins
Tell the students that they are with friends in, say, a cafeteria. It is a cloudy day outside and there is a
lull in the conversation. The teacher will then say something to get the conversation going. The students
should try to reply as casually and quickly as possible students get points for the first correct response
and the most natural response.
Situation and Statement examples:
Hey! It's the end of the month!

Ouch! I've cut my finger on this page.
Someone looking at a newspaper: You know guys, this town we live in really IS a beautiful place.
Someone looking at a holiday photo of himself: Jeez, I look awful here.
Someone who is broke: I'd have another coffee, only I don't have any money left.
Someone looking at a newspaper: That was a terrible accident in X, wasn't it?
Someone looking towards the street: It must be raining, I see an umbrella up outside.
Someone whispering: See that man over at the counter, he's just put a cake into his pocket.
Someone looking at a newspaper: Actors are lucky people, aren't they?
Someone looking at the TV in the cafeteria: People watch too much TV.
Someone watching a mother/father with young children: They shouldn't allow kids in here.
Notes:
The teacher can say the spontaneous comments and then get the students to reply spontaneously.
You can change the setting to, say, a meeting, a hospital, a school ...
I found that students tended to take too long, and ended up constructing wonderful, logical,
grammatical sentences (not to mention polite). For example, to "Ouch! I've cut my finger", I got: "You
must go to hospital"! and "Cover it" (?)
Fair enough, you can also opt to just practice simple, correct sentences, but what the activity wants to
encourage is realistic, fast replies, which are elliptical in many cases like in native-native exchanges.
You could even allow the students to give their long-pondered sentences, and then remind them that
they are with friends, that people in real-life don't normally wait 20 seconds for a reply to a spontaneous
remark. I actually did this, and found that people understood the point, accepted it and enjoyed thinking
up more CASUAL replies.
62 | P a g e

91. VOCAB 369 vocabulary/sentence formation
Summary: Students compete to make the
longest sentence using the vocab.
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Materials: -
Time:
20-30mins
Firstly, on the board, elicit all the vocab for the topic you are studying. This can be a mixture of learned,
assumed and unknown words and make sure the vocab list includes a variety of nouns, verbs and
adjectives.
Put the students into small teams and start the game
Students start with 3 words to make a sentence they can use any words they want but they get 1 point
for every word from the vocab list that they incorporate into the sentence. Give them a minute or 2 to
come up with their sentences and total the points.
Students get 6 words in the 2nd round and 9 in the 3rd The team with the most points at the end is the
winner.
NB - You can change the amount of words you give them to anything, the point being to try and get the
students thinking about how the topics words operate in a sentence.
92. I LOVE MY LOVE Vocabulary/Writing
Summary: General vocab activity
Level/age: high beginners advanced
Theme:
Skills:
Brainstorming vocab by letter
Time:
15 min +
Vocab
Materials: -
Give the students each a piece of paper with the following paragraph on it:
I love my love with a __ because s/he is _______ and ________. His/her name is _________, s/he lives
in _____________ where she works as a ____________. His/her favorite food is _________ and in
his/her spare time s/he likes ____________.
The students must then take turns saying the paragraph out loud, going through the alphabet filling the
blanks with words starting with the appropriate letter. For example, I would start with something like:
I love my love with an 'A' because she is adorable and attractive. Her name is Anne, she lives in America,
where she works as an actress. Her favorite food is apples, and in her spare time she likes archery.
The first student would then say:
I love my love with a 'B' because he is boring and bigoted, his name is Boris etc.
63 | P a g e

93. COMMUNICATION RACE Warmer/Energy Boost
Summary: A non-verbal communication
activity
Theme:
Basic instructions
Skills:
Comprehension skills and vocab.
Materials: Action forms printed for students
Time:
15-20min +
Divide the group into pairs and give one person in each pair a card with a set of simple tasks that they
must make their partner do. They can communicate in any way but they cannot use any major related
words. The first pair to get through all the tasks is the winner.
Variations include allowing only body language and/or not allowing students to say the words.
Actions 1
Partner 1
Partner 2
A. Scratch my back
B. Pick up the pen
C. Stand on the chair
D. Smile
E. Close the door
F. Say Hello
G. Jump 3 times
H. Touch the desk
I. Wave your hand
J. Sit down
A. Shake my hand
B. Nod your head
C. Pick up the book
D. Touch your stomach
E. Say Goodbye
F. Write a letter
G. Run in a circle
H. Look at the teacher
I. Do a dance
J. Clap your hands
Actions 2
Partner 1
Partner 2
A. touch the wall

B. Hit the table
C. act cute
D. dance
E. bow
F. say nice to meet you
G. play baseball
H. drink something
I. snap your fingers
J. hop
A. Give me a high 5
B. swim
C. Pick up a chair
D. clean the desk
E. cry
F. touch a window
G. brush your teeth
H. wash your hair
I. whistle
J. act angry
64 | P a g e

94. KEEP YOUR DISTANCE Warmer/Speaking
Summary: Moving warmer for 8+ students
Level/age: High beginner-advanced (adult)
Theme:
Distance and personal space
Materials: Ruler for every student
Skills:
Speaking, question making, answering
Time:
25-40mins
Give each student a ruler and a set of tasks

Tasks
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Tell another student a secret.

Tell another student something personal and confidential.
Tell another student something confidential.
Tell another student something personal.
Tell another student something general.
Tell another student something public.
Tell another student something trivial.
Extra Vocab whisper, close friend, confidant, colleague, full voice

You will probably have to explain the task and the vocab first. Once that is done, tell them to go around
the classroom talking to whichever student they want to complete each task with. Once they have
asked and answered a question with a student get them to measure the distance between each of them
the goal is to find out how much personal space people create when talking about various situations
AND who they choose to tell.
Once the students have a variety of measurements run through the following relationships and ask the
students how close they think people usually stand together for each task.
Now have participants compare their responses to the averages. Most of your participants should have
a response that is close to this model. Have group discuss incidences when they felt someone stood too
close. What feelings does this evoke?
Here are the average American distances for these activities:
1. Very close___________ (tell a secret to a friend or close family member) - Average American distance:
3 to 6 inches.
2. Close ____________ (Whisper, its a confidential matter with a close colleague) - Average American
distance: 8 to 12 inches
3. Near_____________ (Whisper, its a confidential matter with a colleague of the opposite sex) Average
American distance: 12 to 20 inches.
3. Personal ____________ (Normal conversation with any colleague) Average American distance: 20 to
36 inches.
4. Neutral____________(Normal conversation when person is not well known to you; subject matter is
general and you are speaking in a full voice) Average American distance: 4 1/2 to 5 feet
6. Public_____________ Loud conversation; subject matter is general and you are speaking in a slightly
voice) Average American distance: 5 1/2 to 8 feet.
7. Across the room_____________(Loud voice; talking to a group): 8 ft to 20 feet
65 | P a g e

95. SILENT COMMUNICATION Warmer/Comprehension
Summary: Intro/warmer for 4+ students
Level/age: High beginner-advanced (adult)
Theme:
Communication
Materials: Pencil and paper
Skills:
Time:
Comprehension, acting, writing

sentences
25-40mins
Put the students into partners preferably students that dont know each other very well.
Students think of things about themselves that their partners would be unlikely to know. Neither person
can talk. Students then convey the message to each other using only gestures or drawings. He/she is not
allowed to write words or numbers. Students have paper and pencil to write down the message they
think is being conveyed. (It is important that the other student not see this message).
At the end of the exercise all participants come back together. Go around the group and each student
reads what they thought the message had been.
Very few messages are correctly interpreted. Most will understood a few central ideas or words but
misinterpret the full message. As a follow up you can ask students to describe how it felt to describe an
event this way.
This game can be played with several variations one involves students rotating around all students and
trying to guess the messages.
Ideas for messages are as follows:
Last year, I was sick. I had surgery on my .......... I hurt myself....
During the vacation I went to .........
A funny thing happened in my class the other day.......
It makes me feel uncomfortable when people................
Last night I dreamt that................................
Something I really like to do in my spare time is............................
66 | P a g e

96. 1 MINUTE SPEECH Speaking/Listening
Summary: Students make spontaneous
speeches
Theme:
Anything
Level/age: Advanced
Skills:
Speaking
Materials: -
Time:
10 -20 mins
Divide the class into 2 teams and have them write random speech topics for the other team. Choose a
student and have them choose a topic. They must then spontaneously talk about that topic for 1
minute. The teacher can rate their performance on fluency, content, grammar and dead speaking time.
97. FINISH THE SENTENCE Reading Review/Critical Thinking
Summary: Vocab trading game to make full
sentences.
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Sentence formation
Materials: Post-its
Time:
10-15mins
This activity requires some logistical planning to start with first, look at the numbers of the class and
see how many equal teams you can create, i.e. 12 students could make 4 teams of 3.
In this example, you would write 4 sentences on the board, but remove 3 words from each sentence.
If there were 6 teams of 5 you would write 6 sentences with 5 words removed from each.
Remember, the difficulty/length of this activity depends on the difficulty of the passage so keep that in
mind.
Write the correct words for the blanks on post-it notes then randomly distribute the cards amongst the
students.
Students must first determine where their word fits into the blanks. and then determine what the other
missing words in that particular sentence might be. They then try to find other students who they think
have the missing words in their sentence and then get their post-its up on the board first. The team to
successfully find each other first and finish the sentence is the winner.
67 | P a g e

98. PICTURE VOCAB ROTATION RACE Warmer/Vocab/Review/Energy Boost
Summary: Active vocab recall race
Theme:
Anything
Materials: paper
Skills:
Time:
20-30mins
Put up pictures of certain vocabulary around the classroom then put students into teams. The teams
must rotate around the pictures with one student labeling one thing on one picture as they go around.
The fastest team is the winner.
99. SENTENCE GRIDS Warmer/Review/Filler
Summary: Grid based sentence formation
Level/age: beginner advanced levels
activity.
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Sentence formation, idea connection
Materials: -
Time:
25-35mins
Draw a 6x6 grid on the board with whatever vocab you want to review going vertically and horizontally.
Verbs and nouns work well, e.g. play, dance, sing, eat, run, give + ball, car, game, song, steak, shoes.
The students roll 2 die to get their combination of words so 1+1 would be play and ball...I am playing
with a ball. If they can make a sentence using those 2 words then they get the grid. Alternatively you
can let the students choose the grid and try to get a bingo/tic-tac-toe/connect 4.
You can also introduce a 3rd dice for tenses 1-2 past tense, 3-4 present and 5-6 future.
100. KILLER Warmer/Review/Fun
Summary: Killers try to kill students while
asking questions
Theme:
Anything.

Skills:
Q&A
Materials: -
Time:
20-30mins
Have all the students write their own questions reviewing any of the grammar you have studied.
Once this is done you must choose some killers (maybe 2 for every 12 students.) Have the students all
put their heads down/eyes closed as the teacher comes around and taps 2 students on the shoulder.
These students are now the killers and they must try to kill as many students as possible during the
game by making direct eye contact and winking at them.
Without letting the other students know the identity of the killers get them all to stand up. Give them 510 minutes to go around the class asking their questions. The student who asks the most questions in
this time will be the winner but they must try and avoid the killers. Students can only ask 1 question to a
student at a time and then they must change. If they meet the killer and get winked at then they are
killed and the must quietly go and sit down.
When time is up count up how many questions students were able to ask and the one with the most is
the winner.
68 | P a g e

101. THE MESSAGE KING - Review/Technology
Summary: Students race to text each other
English sentences.
Theme:
Technology/telephones/modern life
Skills:
Comprehension, spelling
Materials: Cell phones.
Time:
20-30mins
Divide students into pairs and make sure they have each others phone numbers. Bring one of each pair
to the front and make them put their phones out in a row on a desk at the front of the class. Write down
a pre-taught sentence for those students and show it to them. They must memorize it and tell it to their
partner who must then text it in English to the original partners phone. The first phone to buzz (with the
correct sentence) gets the point for their team.
102. STORY TELLER Speaking/Writing/Sentence formation/Creative Thinking
Summary: A sentence formation and vocab
identification activity
Theme:
Story Telling
Skills:
verb usage and sentence formation
Materials: Paper
Time:
25-40mins
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 review.)
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.
Alternately, this can be done as a writing activity.
69 | P a g e

103. OUTBURST Warmer/Vocabulary
Summary: Vocab shouting activity
Theme:
Skills:
Speaking
Time:
20-30mins
Anything
Materials: Outburst categories + lists
Prepare a list of categories (perhaps related to what you have been studying.) Along with 10 words that
are related to that category.
When it is a teams turn give them a category and 1 minute to yell out (or write down) as many words
that they can that are related to the category. They get 1 point for each answer they get that is the same
as your list. The team with the most points when all the categories are finished is the winner.
104. ROTATION REVIEW BOARD GAME Review/Speaking
Summary: board game review
Theme:
Mix of grammar and vocab
Materials: The Handout Board in the SM Book
Skills:
Sentence formation
Time:
20-30mins
Divide the class into small groups of 2 4 students and have them get a marker of some sort. An eraser
works well. Students start at the first square and have to make as many true sentences as you can about
the topic in the box your counter is on. After each sentence your group will tell you if the sentence is
true or not. If your sentence is wrong, stop speaking and move on one square for each correct sentence
you said, for example:
Student A To get to your office go out of this door
Student B Thats right, one square
A Then turn left
B Thats correct, two squares
th
A Then go up to the 7 floor

th
B Sorry, thats not right. My office is on the 8 floor. You can move 2 squares. Now its my turn
Play then passes to the next person.
When you reach the Special Challenge square, stop there until you next turn (you can never go
straight past). When your turn comes again, your group must ask you any question about a classmate,
for example How old is she? If your answer is correct, you can move back to the Start square, score
one point for a complete circle, and continue the game. If your answer is wrong you have to stay on the
Special Challenge square until your next turn.
Continue playing until your teacher tells you to stop. The person who has the most points (has been
around the board most times) is the winner.
70 | P a g e

105. WHISPERS Warmer/Review
Summary: Whispering message transfer game
Theme:
anything
Materials: Prepared sentences
Level/age: beginner advanced (Good for

younger ages)
Skills:
Speaking, listening, writing
Time:
30-40mins
Have students line up in their teams with the student at the front nearest the board. The teacher goes
to the back of the line and gives a word or sentence to the students at the back of the lines. That
student must then whisper the word to the next student in the line. The word makes its way down the
line until it reaches the student at the front. That student must write the word on the board. The first
team to correctly write the word gets 1 point. The students then rotate with the student at the front of
the line going to the back. The team with the most points after all the students have had a turn is the
winner.
106. WHISPER/DRAW/WHISPER/DRAW Warmer/Review
Summary: writing and drawing activity
Theme:
Minorities, being marginalized,

opinions
Skills:
Time:
20-30mins
This activity is similar to whispers except it includes drawing into the activity.
Have the students line up in 2 teams (sitting.) Give the word or sentence to the first student who must
then draw a picture of it to the next student, that student then whispers what they believe the picture
to be to the next student who then draws and so on until the last student who should say the word out
loud or write it on the board. First team finished correctly gets the point.
Alternate how you begin the game (whispering or drawing) so that all the students get a turn doing all
the actions.
71 | P a g e

107. CONNECTIONS Warmer/Review
Summary: Students try to make connections
between different vocab
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Materials: -
Time:
30-40mins
Put students into teams and have them write down a series of 20 words on individual scrap pieces of
paper, 1 word per piece. The pieces of paper then get given to another team and placed face-down on
the desk.
The starting student must choose 2 pieces of paper and try to establish a connection between them by
any means necessary. This could include the letters in the word, the meaning, the category they belong
to any meaningful connection is acceptable. They must explain the connection to the rest of their
group who will decide if its okay. If it is then that student keeps the cards and the next student goes if
they cannot make a meaningful connection then they must replace the cards and the next student goes.
Once all the cards are gone the student with the most cards is the winner.
108. VOCAB DOMINOS Warmer/Review
Summary: Students connect domino words
together.
Theme:
Anything
Materials: Vocab dominos cards in the SM
Book

Skills:
Sentence formation
Time:
30-40mins
Create sets of domino vocab cards where by each card is divided into 2 spaces with a word in each one.
There should be a variety of words so students can make sentences. You can add pictures to make the
words more identifiable. Deal out the cards to the students and they have to play the game like dominos
whereby they match up their cards to another on the table. If they cant make a match then they must
take another card from the pile. Cards can go vertical or horizontal but obviously the grammar has to be
correct.
The first team to get rid of all the cards is the winner.
Here is a basic set of domino cards but you can add in any that you have been teaching.
72 | P a g e

109. RE-REPORTING 3rd person/speaking
Summary: Students practice changing person
by re-reporting the 1st sentence.
Theme:
Changing person, past tense

Skills:
Speaking, grammar
Materials: -
Time:
10-15mins
Have the students re-report events to the class to practice the use of changing person and past tense.
The teacher starts with I like chocolate... and then throws the ball to another student who has to say
The teacher said that he liked chocolate... They then throw the ball to another student who says The
first student told me that the teacher said that he like chocolate... The activity can be done with the
whole class or in smaller teams.
110. SOLUTION RACE would you like
Summary: Students offer solutions to various
problems.
Theme:
conditional clause - would you like,
Time:
Skills:
problem solving, vocab
First you will need to teach the idea of feelings and needs with the grammar point of would you like...
You can model the dialogue
I am hungry (I feel hungry)
Would you like some water?
Yes please/no, thanks
Here you go...
Thank you.
Youre welcome.
Then youll need to elicit solutions for the various feelings, so you can say to the class something like I
feel hot... and the students have to yell out a solution e.g. use a fan. There are many feelings you can
run through with answers I feel sad I am bored etc
As you elicit responses you should have a student recording them on individual cards.
Divide the class into teams. Put all the cards in the back of the room and stand in the front. The first
member of each team comes up. I call out, "I'm hungry." The students race to the back, find the right
card, bring it to me and ask, "Would you like a cake?" I say, "Yes, I would like a cake." "Here you go."
"Thank you." to which they must respond, "You're welcome." Their team gets two points. If I say I'm hot
and someone brings me a fan and another person brings a glass of water, I'll accept both. If they bring a
reasonable item back, but not what I intended or can't complete the dialogue, that's one point. As the
game progresses, I will call out two things, emotions or states-of-being that might go together or
feelings that could have more than one answer.
73 | P a g e

111. WANT/HAVE/NEED STRIKEOUT warmer/grammar
Summary: Students play tic-tac-toe with
Level/age: High beginner - advanced
grammar
Theme:
Want/need/have
Skills:
Grammar, speaking
Materials: This handout
Time:
15-30mins
Write your answers in any order in the boxes below, make sure that you only write nouns.
Condition
1. Something you want
2. Something you have.
3. Something you need.
4. Something you had, but don't have any more.
5. Something you have, but don't have any more.
6. Something you don't have and don't want.
7. Something you have, but don't need.
8. Something you have, but seldom use.
9. Something you have and often use.
You
Other students
Now talk to your classmates and try to guess 3 of their items. If you guess 3 you get 3 points.
You can ask 1 yes/no question for each guess.
The student with the most points is the winner.
Try to use sentences like I think you have a teddy bear, but don't want it anymore."
"I'll bet you have a bicycle, but seldom use it."
I guess you have an Iphone but dont need it.
74 | P a g e

112. NEGATIVE/POSITIVE GIFTS like/dont like
Summary: Teams battle to make sentences
Level/age: Modified for all ages
using positives and negatives
Theme:
positives, negatives, likes, dislikes,
Skills:
sentence formation
must etc
Materials: Time:
20-30mins
On the board draw a square and divide it into 4 boxes. In the two left hand boxes write the requests. In
the two right hand boxes write the replies with opposites matching each other...
Questions/Requests
Responses
I like ___________Can I have ___________?
NO!! Because_________________
I dont like ________ Please dont give me _________
YES!! Because________________
Divide the class into two teams and have one student come up from each team. They play rock, paper,
scissors to decide who will question and who will answer. The winner decides who will start with a
question while the losing team decides if the question will be negative or positive.
The questioning team must make a sentence (through the student at the front) in line with the grammar
in the negative request box, if positive then positive. The reply team then has a short time to reply to
the request (through the student at the front) but it must always be opposite, so if the request team
asks for Ice cream then the reply team must say no and give a reason why not. If the request team says
they dont want a punch in the face then the reply team must say why it would be good for them. If the
reason is valid then the reply team gets a point and two more students come up the front.
The team with the most points at the end is the winner.
113. GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS TENNIS speaking/idiom
Summary: Students use the Good news, bad
Level/age: high intermediate advanced
news idiom to get points
Theme:
The good news/bad news is...
Skills:
creative thinking
Materials: -
Time:
15-30mins
First off give the students examples of good news and bad news. You can get as extreme as you like
depending on your classs comprehension level. Bad news: extra homework, bad weather, car accident,
deathbasically whatever gets the point across. Good news: less homework, class finishing early,
wedding, etc After these elicit more ideas from the class. Teach them sentence: The good news is...,
however, the bad news is... After all or most of the students understand split them into two teams. One
team will write good news on strips of paper, while the other team writes bad news. Give them a few
minutes for this.
One team will start by serving and will read out one of their news items. To return the hit the other
team must think of an opposing news item. They get a certain amount of time to do this and if they can
75 | P a g e

do so successfully then the ball goes back to the other teams court where they must think of something
to reply with. When a team cannot think of something the opposing team is awarded points.
114. VOCAB SCAVENGER HUNT vocabulary/comprehension
Summary: Students search for words they
think other students wont know.
Theme:
Vocab
Skills:
Comprehension
Materials: Area that has written vocab
Time:
20-40mins
Put the students into small teams (2 or 3) and tell them that they are going to go out of the classroom
and find 3 words that they think the other teams will not know. For each word they find that another
team doesnt know they get 1 point. If they find any words that the teacher doesnt know they get 5
points.
Give them 5-10 minutes to walk around and find vocab and then come back to the class to test the other
students.
Write 1 teams words up on the board and give the other teams 1 minute to discuss what they think
they meaning may be. If they know the meaning they get a point, if not the team who found the word
gets the point.
76 | P a g e

115. AGREE TO DISAGREE speaking/opinions
Summary: Debating based activity
Theme:
Debating language such as In my

opinion... I tend to think... etc.
Materials: Prepared marginal statements
Skills:
Speaking, presenting
Time:
20-60mins
The teacher divides the room into four corners: agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, and
disagree.
Then the teacher makes a statement like "Movie stars deserve to be paid huge sums of money for what
they do." The students move to the corner that best depicts 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.
116. Q&A ROTATION - speaking
of students
Theme:
General
Level/age: high intermediate-advanced

Skills:
Speaking
Materials:
Time:
30-40mins
Have all the students lined up with one another in even pairs with a set of questions. When the teacher
says go the students must talk to their partner about the first question. When the teacher says stop 1
half of the students rotate around giving everyone a new partner. They then talk about the second
question and so on.
1- My favourite possession is .........................................................................................
2- When I was in primary school I ..........................................................
3- One of my best friends in high school...................................................
4- Once I fell in love with ...............................................................................
5- My first boyfriend/girlfriend.......................................................................
6- The subject that I liked a lot ....................................... because..................
7- The subject that I hated was .........................................because.................
8- In the past I never .........................................................................................
9- One of my worst character traits is ..................................................................
10- One of my best character traits is ....................................................................
11- My friends like/dislike me because...........................................................
77 | P a g e

Theme-Focused Activities
117. MURDER speaking/indirect questioning
Summary: An indirect Q&A game
Theme:
Skills:
Speaking, indirect questioning
Time:
40-60mins+
Crime
Materials: -
Divide the class into teams. The teams should have at least 2 people in them but more is fine.
Begin the game by eliciting vocab in these 3 categories; Murder Weapon, scene of the crime and suspect
(with suspects occupation.) You may have to explain these categories first but once thats done I
encourage the students to be as colorful as they like in coming up with items for these categories.
As you are getting ideas from the students write them up on the board also have a student or students
writing each individual idea down on pieces of scrap paper. Depending on how many teams you want
will depend on how many items youll need to elicit. If you have 3 teams youll need 10 items in each
category, if you have 4 teams youll need 13 items in each category basically each team will take 3
items from each category so if you have extra teams then add on 3 extra items.
When you are finished eliciting the ideas collect the pieces of paper with the ideas on them (separated
in their individual categories) and randomly choose 1 item from each category. Do not show these items
to the students these are now the actual murder details and its each teams job to discover what
those 3 pieces of paper are.
Now divide the remaining pieces of paper between the teams each team should get 3 items from each
category so each team will have 3 murder weapons, 3 suspects and occupations and 3 places. They must
look at their items, make sure they know them and then memorize or write them down, making sure
not to show the other teams their items.
Game play now the game is ready to begin. You should explain to the students that they must go to
the other teams to find out what items they have so that they can eliminate all the items off the lists
and uncover what the 3 items were that the teacher chose...BUT they cannot ask the other teams
directly, they must use indirect questions...so a student cannot go to another student and ask Does
your team have a hammer? they must ask indirectly, for example Does your team have an item that
hits nails? In this way students broaden their understanding of the items without saying it explicitly.
The students from the other team must answer truthfully when asked a correct question. That student
can then cross that item off the list.
Give the students 10-15 minutes for their initial round of questioning then stop them and tell them to go
back to their teams. You will find that in the first phase of questioning it will be chaotic students will be
asking about the same items to the same students and a team may not have got anywhere, however
when they meet again tell them to compare notes and then come up with a strategy for the second
round of questioning in the second round most students will be far more organized and will try and
root out certain items. Only give them 5-10 more minutes the second time around. When that time is up
call them back to their groups and get them to collaborate and try and guess what the items are. Write
their guesses up on the board and then go through and eliminate the incorrect answers from the
original lists. The team that has the closest answers to the correct one is the winner.
78 | P a g e

118. SPEED DATING speaking/Q&A
Summary: Students question each other as if

speed dating
Theme:
Relationships, introductions
Level/age: High beginner - advanced (adult)

Skills:
Speaking
Materials: -
Time:
30-40mins
This is a fun activity that can be used on older students to practice discussion skills.
Firstly, introduce the question What do you look for in a boyfriend/girlfriend?
Elicit ideas from the students about what they look for in an ideal partner as well as eliciting how you
would ask somebody about this...
The students will come up with things like good job, similar interests, handsome etc so you should
write these up on the board along with the questions they would need to ask to get this information
from someone e.g. What do you do? What are your hobbies? etc
Choose some of these things and then tell the students that they are going to write a dating profile for
themselves. There are 2 ways you can do it either have them write a made-up profile or have them
write about themselves for real. If there are students in the class who are self-conscious then its a good
idea to just have them make up profiles they can get creative this way too. If the students are more
mature they can write their own profile. (I find that a lot of students actually like being more selfreflexive, but it can backfire so be weary.)
Once they are finished tell them that they are going to do speed dating. Explain the process and then
organize the class into 2 rows. A good way to do this is in 2 circles that rotate around one another.
Tell the students that they have 3 minutes to have a date with the student opposite them and they must
ask as much information about the student as they can in that time. They should try to remember it or
write it down for later when they decide who they want to date.
Once the 3 minutes is up everyone rotates onto a new student and this continues until everyone has
rotated through everyone.
Once its all finished bring the students together and either discuss together or in teams about who they
would want to date.
79 | P a g e

119. MYSTERY BOX Speaking/Senses
Summary: Students describe mystery objects.
Theme:
Skills:
description and comprehension
Time:
15-20min+
Senses
Materials: A mystery box with objects.
Bring a mystery box to class with various objects in it. The objects should have completely different
textures and shapes. Choose 1 student to come up and put their hand in the mystery box. The students
must describe the feeling to the other students and they have to try and guess what the object is.
120. PERSUADE ME Warmer/Speaking/Persuasion/Marketing
Summary: Students become marketers for the

Level/age: Intermediate +
worst products
Theme:
Marketing/advertising/shopping/buying Skills:
Speaking, Listening
& selling/language of persuasion
Materials: Persuade Cards from the SM book
Time:
Firstly, you will need to print about 6-10 copies of the persuade me product cards (below) and have
them cut out. You should also prepare something to use as money. Printed money from a dollar store
works well.
You can introduce the activity by having the students discuss What is the worst product you have
ever bought and why?
Divide the class into 2 teams the marketers and the consumers or buyers and sellers. Give each
consumer a set amount of money and each marketer 6 or so copies of the same product card.
Give the marketers a few minutes to come up with some marketable points for their product. While
they are doing this the consumers can talk together about what new products they might need or want.
Once this is done, have all the marketers stand up and go to the consumers to try and sell their products
using persuasion. Tell the consumers that they are looking to buy 3 xmas presents and they have to
spend all their money.
Give them a set amount of time and the marketer who sells the most of their product is the winner.
You can then play again by reversing all the roles and giving the new marketers new sets of product
cards.
80 | P a g e

121. LYRIC RELAY GRAB Listening/Music
Summary: Song lyric grab game
Theme:
Skills:
listening
Time:
15-25mins
Comprehension
Materials: Strips of paper, MP3 player
This is a wonderful activity if you think your class needs waking up a little.
Choose a song that the students have or have not heard before. Choose 10-15 pieces of vocabulary from
the song and write them on separate pieces of paper. With lower level groups you may want to
pronounce the words with the students first. Stick each word to the board with putty (blue tack). Put the
students into 2 teams each one in a line before the board. Play the song. When the 2 students at the
front of their line hear a word in the song that is on the board they must race each other to grab that
word from the board (this can get quite violent!). They then go to the back of the line and it's up to the
next pair. The team with the most words wins.
I don't usually stop the tape so don't choose words that come one after the other. If you want to make it
more difficult you can put red herrings up. You can usually play the song a couple of times until they get
all the words.
122. THE LOVE TESTER Comprehension/personality/relationships
Summary: A personality quiz focused on love
Theme:
Skills:
Comprehension
Time:
20mins
relationship vocab and personality

traits
Materials: The quiz
The answers given to the questions have been shown to have a relevance to values and ideals that we
hold in our personal lives. The analysis follows:
1. You are walking in the woods with someone. Who is it?
This person is the most important person in your life.
2. You see an animal. What is it?
The size of the animal is representative of your perception of the size of your problems.
3. What is your interaction with the animal?
The severity of the interaction you have with the animal is representative of how you deal with your
problems. (passively/aggressively)
4. You walk deeper in the woods. You enter a clearing and before you is your Dream House. What size is
it?
The size of your dream house is representative of the size of your ambition to resolve your problems.
5. Is your dream house surrounded by a fence?
No fence is indicative of an open personality. People are welcome at all times. The presence of a fence
indicates a closed personality. You'd prefer people not to drop by unannounced.
81 | P a g e

6. You enter the house. You walk to the dining area and see the dining table. What is on the table and
what is around the table?
If your answer did not include food, people, or flowers, then you are generally unhappy.
7. You exit the house through the back door. Lying in the grass is a cup. What is the cup made of?
The durability of the material with which the cup is made of is representative of the perceived
durability of your relationship with girlfriend. For example, Styrofoam, plastic, and paper are all
disposable, Styrofoam, paper and glass are not durable, and metal and plastic are durable.
8. What do you do with the cup?
Your disposition of the cup is representative of your attitude towards girlfriend/boyfriend.
9. You walk to the edge of the property, where you find yourself standing at a body of water what kind
of water is it?
The size of the body of water is representative of the size of your sexual desire.
10. How do you cross the water?
How wet you get in crossing the water is indicative of the relative importance of your sex life.
82 | P a g e

123. THE LOVE TESTER 2 - Comprehension/Personality/Relationships
Summary: Another personality quiz focused on

love
Theme:
relationship vocab and personality
traits
Materials: The quiz

Skills:
Comprehension
Time:
20mins
1. You are walking to your boy/girlfriend's house. There are two roads to get there. One is a straight
path to take you there quickly, but is very plain and boring. The other is significantly longer but is full of
wonderful sights and interesting things. Which one do you take to get your significant other's house,
short or long?
2. On the way you see 2 rose bushes. One is full of red roses, the other full of white. You decide to pick
20 roses for your boy/girlfriend, of any color combination. What number of white and red do you pick?
(you can pick all of one or any combo of the two).
3. You finally get to their house. A person you dont know answers the door. You can have them get your
boy/girlfriend or go get them yourself. Which do you do?
4. You go up to you boy/girlfriend's room, but nobody is there. You decide to leave the roses. Do you
leave them by the windowsill or on the bed?
5. Later, it's time for bed. You and your boy/girlfriend go to sleep in separate rooms. In the morning
when its time to wake up you go in their room and check on them. When you arrive, are they awake
or asleep?
6. Now it's time to go back home. Do you take the short, plain road or the longer, more interesting
road?
NOW THE ANSWERS
1. The road represents your attitude towards falling in love. If you take the short road, you fall in love
quickly and easily. If you take the long road, you take your time and do not fall in love as easily.
2. The number of red roses represents how much you give in a relationship, while the number of white
represents what you expect in return. For example, if you chose 18 red and 2 white, you give 90% and
expect 10% in return.
3. This question represents your attitude towards handling relationship problems. If you asked the
family member to get your significant other, then you like to avoid problems and hope that they will
solve themselves. If you went to get them yourself, then you are a more direct person and like to work
out problems immediately.
4. The placement of roses determines how much you like to see your boy/girlfriend. Placing them on the
bed means you like to see them a lot, while placing them on the windowsill means that you are
alright with not seeing them as much.
5. This is representative of your attitude towards their personality. If you find them asleep, you love
your boy/girlfriend the way they are. If you find them awake, you expect them to change for you.
6. The road to home tells how long you stay in love with someone. If you chose the short road, you fall
out of love easily. If you chose the longer one, you will tend to stay in love for a long time.
83 | P a g e

124. HELLO VAN GOUGH Art/Giving Directions/Prepositions
Summary: Students must give drawing

directions to other students
Theme:
Vocab, prepositions, art

Skills:
Speaking, drawing
Materials: Large paper, drawing materials
Time:
40mins+
Put the Ss into pairs and then line up a single row of desks in front of the board have one set of the
paired students sit at the desk facing the board and one set of students facing away from the board.
Give the students facing away from the board a large piece of paper and something to draw with.
To start the game either have a set of large pictures prepared (or draw them yourself) of vocab and
grammar you have been studying. Put the pictures on the board and the students facing the board must
describe the pictures to the students facing away who must draw them.
Give them a set amount of time to describe everything while the other student furiously draws. When
time is up collect all the pictures and put them up on the board next to the actual picture. Write the
pairs up on the board and have them vote for which picture is the most accurate and/or best. They
cannot vote for their own picture. Switch the partners around and do it again the team with the most
votes at the end is the winner.
Alternatively you can pre-teach Art vocab e.g. realism, surrealism, abstract, depicts etc and then when
the pictures are finished have all the students come up to the board and use their language to critique
the pictures using the vocab they have learnt.
125. CLASSROOM ART GALLERY Art/Speaking/Comprehension
Summary: An art discussion/critique activity
Theme:
Skills:
Time:
30mins+
ideas and language about art

critique
Materials: Art photocopies
Before class, put up modern art print photocopies all around the classroom.
As students arrive they will notice the art on the walls and will be intrigued. It is best to say as little as
possible at this point. To begin the class, ask everyone to get up and have a more careful look at all of
the prints. Have students sit down and talk with their partners:
Some ideas for discussion include:
The price of these works and why they are so expensive.
Is it art? Why or why not? What is art? What's the point?
Is it worthwhile?
How do these paintings compare to art in the students' own cultures?
Which ones do students like? Dislike? Which are the strangest?
What do they mean?
84 | P a g e

126. SCAVENGER HUNT Warmer/Review/Active
Summary: Students race to find various things
Theme:
Skills:
Time:
30mins
following instructions/directions
Materials: Scavenger hunt list
There are several ways to do the scavenger hunt that will focus on different areas. If you want to focus
on following directions then you should prepare a set of instructions that the students can follow to find
various objects. You can focus on lots of different language e.g. Turn right and take 15 steps...the object
is next to the blue sign.
Alternatively you can get the students to find various objects such as something purple or a warning
sign. This gives them a little bit more freedom and is less prep but is less structured also.
So once youve set out some instructions, put the students into teams (2-4 works best) and send them
out. The first team to get back with the answers is the winner. Also these days most students will have
some form of camera so you can get them to take photos as proof of their answers.
127. THE NEWLYWED GAME Warmer/Speaking/Question Formation
Summary: Students quiz couples on their

habits
Theme:
Marriage, life
Materials: -
Time:
Skills:
Speaking, comprehension, question

formation, recall
30-40mins
Choose students from the class to make four sets of newlyweds. There will be four husbands and
four wives.
Choose a theme, such as food, work, weekends, or relatives, to give the couples a focus in preparing
their marriage.
Have the newlyweds go out of the classroom to talk to each other about their habits in the topic they
have been given. Give them a short amount of time in which they should try to get to know about their
partner. Have the remaining students come up with a list of questions (based on the theme) that will be
asked to the couple.
Possible questions:
What does your wife put in her coffee?
What is her favorite fruit?
What food does your wife hate?
Where does she like to go for dinner?
How does she like her eggs/steak cooked?
When you have four or five questions and the students have had about 10 minutes to get the necessary
information, recombine. Have the husbands and wives sit on opposite sides of the room, facing each
other. Write the couples names on the board to record points.
85 | P a g e

Both husbands and wives should write down their answers as other students read their questions.
(Other students watch to make sure there is no eye-contact or hand signals between them.)
When all the questions have been asked and the answers written read the questions again, but this time
the couples show what they have written. If the answers match the couple gets points.
128. MAFIA warmer/speaking/reasoning/crime
Summary: Role-play activity in which students

try to find the mafia members.
Theme:
Crime

Skills:
Speaking, comprehension, reasoning
Materials: Role-play cards
Time:
40mins+
To prepare this activity write one of 4 roles on enough pieces of paper so that each person gets one.
Depending on numbers 3/4 will be Mafia, 1 Policeman, 1 Doctor and all the rest will be citizens. Give
each group member a part and explain that no one else is to know who is who as the aim of the game is
to root out the "mafia. Explain that at night the mafia will kill someone, the doctor will save someone
and the policeman will investigate/ find out about someone.
Next, tell everyone to close their eyes. Say something like: "Citizens of ___ go to sleep". Next invite the
mafia, and only the mafia to wake up. Between them the members of the mafia will "kill" one of the
group. Get them to agree on and point to their victim. Tell them to go back to sleep. Next ask the doctor
to wake up. Ask him who he wants to save, again asking that it be communicated through gestures.
Should the person being killed and the person being saved be one and the same, the murder will have
been averted and so the process will have to begin again. Finally wake the policeman up. He will point
to the person he's investigating and you will either nod indicating yes that person is mafia, or shake your
head, no they're not.
Finally ask them all to wake up. Say something like: "Last night in ___, there was a brutal and bloody
murder and _____ was killed. We know that 4 people among you are members of the mafia and
responsible for this murder. Citizens who do you want to accuse?"
It'll take a few minutes to catch on that it could be anyone and the accusations will begin. "I accuse X
because he has a wonky moustache" or some such. X will then have to defend himself. Nobody is to
admit to being mafia and they will soon catch on that it is either the loudest people who are accusing
everyone, or the quietest that don't want to draw attention to themselves, that are guilty. As each
accusation is made and the individual makes his defense a group decision will need to be made on
whether or not to send that person to prison. Ask everyone to vote and the majority decision sticks.
Once they get sent to "prison" ask them if there were in fact mafia or not at which point they must tell
the truth. As each person gets sent down or at appropriate intervals, stop the proceedings as another
day ends, and a new night and a new murder occur...Explain that both the Policeman and Doctor are
allowed to tell what they know, but also explain that a crafty mafia member might lie and say he's the
policeman to try to point the finger away from himself. The Mafia may also accuse one another, as each
person is only really concerned to keep themselves out of prison. Also one a person is dead, or has been
sent down they are no longer permitted to participate as they may know, or think they know things. The
mafia are likely to kill anyone they feel is on to them. There's no set pattern to how
the discussion should go just let them argue it out among themselves, giving advice if and when you feel
it's necessary.
86 | P a g e

129. TRAVELOCITY Travel/comparative-superlative/money/presentation
Summary: Quiz and creative presentation

activity
Theme:
Travel, money
Materials: Fake money, questions below
Time:
Skills:
Answering questions, speaking,

creating
50mins +
To prep this activity photocopy a bunch of money (the more the better) and come up with a range of
geography/travel trivia questions ranging from easy to difficult in a series of different categories (a bit
like Jeopardy) There are questions and categories below (or make your own.)
Put the students in teams and write up your categories with money values on the board.
Then start the game. Teams choose a category and money value to try and win that amount by
answering the question corresponding to the amount.
As they win give them the actual photocopied cash which gives them more of a sense of ownership for
what they will do later in the activity.
Once all the questions are answered and all the cash is doled out tell the students that they are going to
use the money they have won to plan their own vacation. They may only use the amount they have
earned and they must include everyone in their team. Have them present their vacation plans to the
rest of the class.
Easy - $20
Cities: What is the capital city of England? London
Landmarks: In what country can we find the Eiffel tower? France
Nature: What is the highest mountain in the world? Mt Everest
Countries: What is the largest country in the world? Russia
Languages: What is the most widely spoken language in the world? Chinese (Cantonese & Mandarin)
Other: What continent is the EU in? Europe
Medium $40
Cities: What is the capital city of Germany? Berlin.
Landmarks: In what city would you find the great pyramid? Cairo.
Nature: What is the longest river in the world? The Nile.
Countries: Name 3 countries that begin with the letter A?
Languages: What language is spoken in Ireland? English
Other: What is the currency in England? The Pound.
Difficult $60
Cities: What is the biggest city in Canada? Toronto
Landmarks: In what city would you find the Mona Lisa? Paris.
Nature: In what 2 countries would you find Niagara Falls? Canada and America
Countries: Which country lies between Finland and Norway? Sweden
Languages: What country uses the Cyrillic alphabet? Russia
Other: Which country has a red star in a white circle on its flag? North Korea
Really difficult $80
Cities: What is the capital city of Mongolia? Ulaan Bataar.
Landmarks: In what city would you find the Blue Mosque? Istanbul.
Nature: What is the worlds largest ocean? Pacific
Countries: What country used to be called Kampuchea? Cambodia
Languages: Which country has Hebrew as their official language? Israel.
Other: What is the name of the currency in Italy? The Euro.
87 | P a g e

130. VENUS AND MARS Gender Differences/Q&A
Summary: Girls and boys try to outsmart each

other.
Theme:
Gender knowledge
Skills:
Speaking, comprehension, Q&A
Materials: -
Time:
20-40mins
I start this quiz game for intermediate to advanced secondary school to adult students with a 15-20
minute conversation about differences between men and women. Specifically, I try to elicit whether
women and men are interested in different things in life, talk about different subjects, learn different
things as they grow up. Students are often quite opinionated on this subject!
Next, I ask all the women in the class to form a group at one end of the classroom and all the men on the
opposite side. It doesn't matter that there are the exact same number of men and women, but it should
be close. Then I ask each group to come up with ten questions that they believe most people of the
same sex could answer, and most of the opposite sex couldn't. The main criterion is that they believe at
least 75% of people of their own gender would know the answer. Of course, the questions also have to
be grammatically correct.
Finally, each team takes turns asking the other the questions -- with really surprising results! For
instance, as a female teacher, I could not believe that not one man in my class knew what Louis Vuitton
makes, and we all had a good laugh when the men asked the women which direction was north and
they pointed to all 4 corners of the room.
131. DETECTIVE Creative Thinking/Speaking/Crime
Summary: Students try to find the guilty party

Theme:
Crime
Materials: Strips of paper, one with an x on it
Level/age: Intermediate-Advanced (Better for

older students)
Skills:
Speaking, Question Formation
Time:
30mins+
At the beginning of the class, discuss different crimes with the class and then elicit one interesting
crime that has happened in the school.
Choose five students to be suspects. The five draw slips of paper from a bag. Four are blank. The
student who chooses the one with an X is the criminal The five do not tell the rest of the class
who the criminal is.
Divide the rest of the class into groups of four or five and have them brainstorm questions to ask
the suspects.
While the rest of the class is brainstorming, take the five suspects outside. The four without the X
should think of answers or an alibi for the questions they will be asked. Work with the criminal to
help him/her to look or sound evasive and give contradictory answers.
Reassemble the class with the five suspects sitting in front of the room. The groups take turns
questioning the suspects. After a time limit or when they have run out of questions, the groups
decide who the criminal is.
88 | P a g e

132. CULTURAL EXPLORERS cultural differences/speaking/comprehension
Summary: A creative culture exploration

activity
Theme:
cultural differences, exploring and
reporting
Materials: Cultural rules below

Skills:
Following cultural rules, Q&A
Time:
40-60mins
To set up this activity it makes sense to do a class on cultural differences. You can teach and explore the
differences between several different cultures in terms of sign or body language, greetings, customs etc.
A good lesson plan for this is showing students various cultural customs and having them try and guess
which country that custom comes from.
After this tell the students that they are going to become cultural explorers.
Divide the class into 2 (or more) groups and separate them so that they cant see each other. At this
point you can either give them their own customs or you can have them make up their own things to
focus on could include;
How do they say hello?
How do they say goodbye?
Expressing yes/no/I dont know/what?
What body language do they commonly use?
What do they eat?
Differences between men and women communication
Any different language/conversation rules
In the next stage, explorers from each culture travel to the other culture with instructions to interact
and observe the foreign group's body language, conversation rules, sex roles, etc... During this stage
each group has foreign guests. Give them three to five minutes to interact. Then the foreigners return to
their home cultures and report their observations to their partners. After this, a new group of explorers
leaves for the foreign culture and the process is repeated until all students have spent time exploring
and observing the foreign culture. Each group discusses how the two cultures differ and what they share
in common.
In the last step, all members of the two cultures come together in one class. Representatives from each
culture express their assumptions about the other culture. Each group tells the other group if the
assumptions are correct. If the assumptions are incorrect, the groups teach their rules of social
interaction.
To start with students can be given the pre-made cultures below and act out the roles. The other team
has to figure out the rules of the culture.
In the 2nd part the teams can invent their own cultural rules and in the same way the other team has to
guess what those rules are.
The cultural rules for the CHISPA & PANDYA cultures are below
89 | P a g e
You are a Pandya:

1) You prefer to talk to people from your own culture instead of people from other cultures.
2) You only speak when spoken to. You do not like to start conversations with outsiders.
3) You are always very formal. You say sir or madam and never use first names only. You always use
please thank you excuse me and so on.
4) Women have more status than men. Women should always accompany men.
5) Men do not talk directly to women from another culture. They talk through the woman who is with
them.
6) Men also do not make eye contact with women from other cultures and if a women touches a man, it
is scary. Your woman companion should take you away quickly.
7) It is scary when a woman from another culture tries to talk to you.
8) Men do talk to other men.
9) Among your own people, you can speak to men and women freely.
10) You like to have very short conversations. You do not like to talk for a long time. If someone tries to
talk to you for a long time, you will walk away.
You are a Chispa:

1) You are an informal and friendly culture. You like to talk to new people.
2) You call everyone by their first name.
3) You use a lot of slang and informal expressions.
4) Men and women are equal in your culture and there are no separate roles.
5) You are very outgoing. You like making friends and talking to people from other cultures.
6) You like to talk for a very long time. If someone walks away, you follow them and keep talking.
7) You believe it is good for women to talk to men and men to talk to women, especially from outside
cultures. That way everyone learns something.
8) You like to touch people, shake hands, touch the shoulder while you are talking to someone.
9) You have no problem talking to anyone.
10) You laugh loudly a lot.
90 | P a g e

133. TRAVEL THE WORLD travel dialogues/Role-play game
Summary: Students try to plan trips while

travel agents try to make money
Theme:
travel language, dialogues
Skills:
Q&A, bargaining
Materials: Travel schedules, maps in the SM

Book
Time:
40mins+
Students are split into either travelers or travel Agents. The travelers must travel all the way around the
world from their current city and back while the travel agents must try and make as much money off
these travellers as possible.
Travellers can go West or East but they must try to find the fastest and/or cheapest way to complete
their voyage. There are 2 winners the traveller that spends the least money in the quickest time and
the agent who makes the most money.
Materials
1) It's good to give each traveler (or traveling pair/team) a route map.
2) You will also need the fake money.
3) Ensure that you make enough travel tickets for each traveler/team.
Post up the different schedules and travel companies advertisings around the room.
There are 2 flight schedules (A and B) Give out one of these to each travel agent or team of travel
agents. If there are travel agent teams they only get a copy of one of the flight schedules. This way they
have different flights to offer, making the game competitive. Also, give the travel agents lots of plane
tickets, a fixed amount of money (change) and an advertising brochure.
Explain to the travelers that they:
Sell tickets to travelers at a negotiable price.
Can't change the times/dates listed on the schedules.
Can't make a mistake writing out tickets.
CAN'T SPEAK their native language!
Travelers/traveler teams are given the route map and money. Tell the travelers to plan their
route first by using the map and looking at the posted flight schedules.
Explain to the travelers that they:
Must travel from their home city and back as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Tickets (travel time/dates) must connect. (This depends upon teacher/level)
Must look at all the agents to find the best prices (Bargaining).
Basically, after this, it's a race to see who can make it around the world first. Winners can be judged by
speed and also by who traveled the cheapest. Travel Agents/teams are judged by how much money they
make.
91 | P a g e

134. WHAT WILL THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE? Speaking/Drawing/The Future
Summary: Students describe and draw the
Level/age: Intermediate Advanced (All ages)
future
Theme:
The future, technology
Skills:
Speaking, Comprehension, Drawing
Materials: Pieces of A4 paper
Time:
30mins+
Give students a question card and a piece of paper and then give them 10mins and have them meet
another student in the class. They should ask their question to their partner and then draw their
response. When time is up, have them rotate to another student and repeat.
At the end of the activity , collect the pictures and go over some of the interesting ones with the class.
Ask your partner and draw
What will the cars look like in
3000?
amount of wheels
colour
material
engine
names of brands
fuel
What will the clothes look like
in 3000?
colour
fabric
design
names of brands
way of distribution

What will women look like in
2050?

What will houses look like in
3000?
amount of eyes/ears/noses
hair colour and length
body parts
language
amount of floors
material
windows
architecture

What will the computers look
like in 3000?
design
brands
software
keyboard/mouse
monitors

What will men look like in
3000?
body parts
language

What will the clothes look like
in 2020?
colour
fabric
design
names of brands
way of distribution
What will the cars look like in
5000
amount of wheels
colour
material
engine
names of brands
fuel

What will the computers look
like in 2020?
design
brands
software
keyboard/mouse
monitors
What will women look like in
5000

What will men look like in
2020?
body parts
language
body parts
language
amount of floors
material
windows
architecture

What will houses look like in
5000
92 | P a g e

135. PUSH & PULL Speaking/Influencing/Q&A
Summary: Students try to find their influencing Level/age: High intermediate - advanced
style.
Theme:
Influencing people
Skills:
Speaking, Q&A
Materials: Paper and pen for recording
Time:
30mins
This is a good exercise for practising influencing and negotiating. Participants will also get an insight into
their influencing style. Participants work in pairs and take turns to be the influencer. You also need an
audio recorder for each pair.
The influencers should choose something that they believe the other person should do. It could be an
activity such as:
taking up some form of exercise
giving up smoking
joining a club or society
or buying a product such as:
a 3-D television
a hot tub
a tablet computer
or agreeing with a strong opinion such as:
politics
education
environmental issues
The influencers try to influence the other person in a manner that they would normally use. The other
person should be moderately resistant to persuasion. Record the exercise.
After 5 minutes, the exercise should stop and the participants should reverse roles. Again, record the
exercise for 5 minutes.
After exercise the participants should listen to the recordings and note how many times the influencer
made a statement (gave information) and how many times they asked a question (sought information).
If the influencer gave information more than 5 times as seeking information, the influencer has a strong
push style. A ratio of between 35 to 1 indicates a moderate push style, and a ratio of between 13 to
1 is an average level. If the influencer sought information more times than giving information, then the
influencer is said to have a pull style.
93 | P a g e

136. CAN YOU FOLLOW DIRECTIONS? Reading Comprehension/Following Directions
Summary: Students get a lesson in following
directions
Theme:
Directions
Skills:
Reading
Materials: Test below
Time:
15mins
Give students the following directions and tell them to read them extremely carefully before they follow
the instructions.
Three minute test:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
Read everything before you do anything.

Put your name in the upper right hand corner of this page.
Circle the word 'name' in sentence two.
Draw five small squares in the top right-hand corner.
Put an X in each square you have just drawn.
Put a circle around each square.
Sign your name under the title of this page.
After the title write 'yes yes yes'.
Underline sentences number seven and eight.
Put an X in the lower left-hand corner of this page.
Draw a triangle around the X you have just made.
On the back of this page multiply seventy by thirty.
Draw a circle around the word 'top' on sentence four.
Loudly call out your first name when you reach this point in the test.
If you think you have carefully followed these directions, call out 'I have carefully followed the
directions'.
On the reverse side of this paper add 107 and 278.
Count out in your normal speaking voice from one to ten.
If you are the first person to get this far, shout out loudly 'I am the first person to get this far
following these instructions.'
Punch three small holes in your paper with your pencil here . . .
Now that you have finished reading carefully, do only sentences one and two.
94 | P a g e

137. WEEKLY BUS Time/Active
Summary: Students practice days by lining up.
Level/age: beginner
Theme:
Skills:
Time:
10-20mins
Materials: -
This game works best when reviewing days of the week so I will model it in this way.
Firstly, set up 7 chairs (one for each day of the week) in a vertical row similar to what a bus would look
like. If you are doing it in teams then you will have to set up 2 rows of 7 chairs.
Next give each student a day of the week. Tell them that the chairs represent the rows of a bus and the
first one is the driver. Now, the teacher yells out a random day and this student becomes the driver.
That student must sit in the drivers seat and the rest of the students must line up sequentially. If you
are playing with 1 team then the last student to sit down is out. If you are playing as teams then the first
team to have everyone sit down in correct order gets a point.
138. THE LOVE DOCTOR Warmer/Speaking/Relationship Problems
Summary: A Q&A advice activity
Theme:
giving advice for relationship

problems
Materials: -
Skills:
Time:
20-40mins
Before the activity starts it is relevant to do a class on advice columns and giving relationship advice. You
can have students read columns and summarize them and then answer questions such as;
Is this good advice? Would advice in your country be different? What advice would you give? Have you
ever had a problem like this?
Then, have students write out a love/relationship problem. They have to come up with something but in
no way should they feel obligated to reveal anything of a personal and private nature. On the contrary,
should be inventive in dreaming up situations.
Set up the class with pairs of desks in various locations. Allocate half the class as doctors and half the
class as patients and tell the students that they will now be going to various clinics to get advice for their
problems. The doctors should give any advice they feel pertinent. After a short while have the patients
go to another doctor to get second opinions. You can rotate around as much as possible and at some
point swap the doctors and the patients.
Afterwards you can call the class together and discuss some of the more unusual problems together and
what is the best advice for these problems.
95 | P a g e

139. CRIMINAL INTENT Writing/Crime/Speaking
Summary: Students play both criminal and
criminal investigator.
Theme:
Crime
Skills:
Creative thinking, speaking, Q&A
Materials: Worksheet in the SM book
Time:
40-60mins+
To start off as a class, elicit different types of crime asking all the WH questions like what kind of crimes
are there? Where would it be committed? Who would do it? When? Why? How? Write the students
answers up on the board.
Once you have a good collection of options the teacher chooses a random crime selecting from the
varying details from the board but keeps it secret from the rest of the class.
Then, put the students into pairs and have them create their own crime organization and crime using
the information on the board.
Each pair must come up with gangster names, a criminal gang, a low down on their criminal activities
including places, weapons, equipment, what they steal/do etc and a story on their most recent crime.
Encourage them to be creative, crazy criminals are fun.
The teams must also create criminal investigator for their team and a series of questions that they think
a criminal investigator might ask a criminal when investigating a crime.
Once this is finished, give each student a certain amount of fake money with which they can bribe
criminals with.
The teams then split up and go around the room to meet other student from other teams. The students
are given about 5 minutes to both answer questions (as a criminal) and ask questions (as an
investigator) with another student. When you are the investigator the money is used to bribe the
criminal for more information. Obviously the more money you offer the more info the criminal should
offer.
The idea is that the students rotate around the room finding information and giving out information.
Once the students have gone around most of the students the teams come back together and pool their
info. At this point the teacher reveals what the crime details they chose from the board were. The
students must talk together and decide (based upon the info they have got from the other students)
which criminal organization is most likely to have committed this crime. Everyone presents their
information saying who they suspect and why. The team that comes out as the most likely suspects get
arrested and the team that has the most bribe money is the winner.
Follow Up Discussion Questions:
1. Who was the worst criminal? Why?
2. What was the worst crime? Why?
3. Which criminal was the pettiest?
4. Which criminal was the smartest? Why?
5. What are good/appropriate sentences for each of the criminals? Why?
96 | P a g e

140. PEOPLE WHO Speaking/Opinions
Summary: A relative pronoun activity for giving
opinions
Theme:
Opinions

Skills:
Speaking
Materials: People who topics
Time:
20min+
Hand out the following sheet and tell the students they have to complete the sentences with their
opinions not just adding on a grammatically correct ending. They can give advice, or their feelings about
those people. The idea is to get personal, individual endings. E.g. "People who eat crisps in the
cinema
Annoy me...
Should eat them before the show...
Make a lot of noise...
Have a right to do so!
As you can see, everybody has a different answer-and opinion. The latter is what generates talk.
PEOPLE WHO...
PARK THEIR CARS ON THE FOOTPATH ...
WHO DON'T PAY TAX ...
WHO THROW LITTER ON THE GROUND ...
WHO GIVE MONEY TO CHARITIES ...
EAT CRISPS AT THE CINEMA ARE ...
WHO DRINK AND DRIVE ...
WHO TRAVEL A LOT ...
WHO SAVE LOTS OF MONEY ...
WATCH TV ALL DAY ...
GO TO THE OPERA ...
EAT FROG'S LEGS ...
CLIMB EVEREST ...
HUNT WHALES ...
EAT TOO MUCH ...
DRIVE TOO FAST ...
JUMP QUEUES ...
WHISTLE AT GIRLS ...
SMOKE IN PUBLIC SPACES ...
EARN A LOT OF MONEY ...
THROW THEIR OLD COOKER INTO A FIELD ...
SNORE ...
SPIT...
DO VOLUNTEER WORK...
GO TO A NIGHTCLUB...
SING IN THE SHOWER...
97 | P a g e
98 | P a g e

141. PERFECT MATCH dating/speaking
Summary: ESL activity based on the TV show
Perfect Match.
Theme:
Love, dating
Level/age: Intermediate advanced (Older

students)
Skills:
Speaking, writing,
Materials: paper
Time:
30-40mins+
1. First explain idea of perfect match, telling them that this game will tell them who in their class would
be their ideal boy/girlfriend. Then get everyone in the class to write 3 questions they would like to ask a
potential boy/girlfriend e.g. what would be your ideal date? What kind of things would you do to make
me love you?
2. Pick a boy or a girl and tell them to hide behind the doorif you are able to have a screen this game
works better. If it is possible to divide the class without any students being able to see then you can put
all the girls on one side and all the boys on the other.
3. One sex will chose 3 students to be suitors while the other will chose 1 student to be the questioner.
The teacher acts as host, and asks the 3 students the questions the person behind the door has written.
Suitors write their answers down and the teacher relays the information back to the student. Once all
the questions have been asked and answered the questioner choses either student A, B or C.
142. EASY PERSONALITY QUIZ comprehension/reasoning/personality
Summary: Personality test
Theme:
personality types and character

vocabulary
Materials: The quiz questions
Skills:
Comprehension, reasoning
Time:
15-20mins
First write down you three favorite animals in order of importance. Next write down three adjectives for
each animal that reveal something about their character/personality. Students need to be encouraged
to seek positive adjectives.
The first animal--for example mine is dog and I wrote down--loyal, friendly, intelligent--Interpretation-This is how I view myself.
Second--Horse--beautiful, strong, smart--This is how others view me.
Third--Cat--funny, clever, mischievous --This is how I really am.
99 | P a g e

143. FLAWS AND QUALITIES intros/speaking/writing
Summary: Students guess what other students Level/age: high intermediate advanced
flaws and qualities are
Theme:
personality traits
Skills:
Writing, speaking, reasoning
Materials: Slips of paper
Time:
20-40mins
Ask each student to write, on separate pieces of paper, one of their qualities and one of their flaws. Put
all the papers in a bag. Now, one after the other they will pick a piece of paper from the bag, read its
contents to the other students. The next step is to discuss and decide as a group who gets the qualityflaw, and what makes them say that. Don't hand the paper to anyone before you reach unanimity. After
this first round some people will end up with 2 qualities and no flaws, or vice versa, some people have
nothing. When all the papers are handed out, help them discuss so that each person has one quality and
one flaw. Once this is done, have each student make a short speech about why he doesn't have the
qualities-flaws the others attributed him-her. During the last round the class will make the last changes.
At the end ask the students to raise their hands if they have the 2 pieces of paper that belonged to them
originally. Them ask them to raise their hand if they only have 1 of the original papers.
This game can last a very long time, but it never gets boring. I've even done it with beginner adults and it
was a great experience. It's good for people who work together because it might be too personal for
people who don't want to disclose during their classes!
144. CELEBRITY PAIRS Speaking/Listening/Entertainment
Summary: Students find their celebrity partner Level/age: High intermediate advanced
with indirect questions.
Theme:
Celebrity couples
Skills:
Indirect questioning, speaking, listening
Materials: Cut out celebrity photos
Time:
10-20mins
Before class cut out photos of celebrities but cut them in two. When you want to do your activity tape
the half celebrities to the students backs and make them go around finding their partners. The students
must describe the celebrity to the other person without mentioning their names. The students must find
their partners based on description alone. When the pairs come together they tape their celebrity
together and that is their team name.
The activity can be modified to review previous classes or any vocab you want e.g. have half a lion or an
apple.
100 | P a g e

145. FEMININE OR MASCULINE Gender/Personality/Speaking
Summary: Personality test focusing on the
difference between men & women.
Theme:
Differences between
Skills:
Comprehension, reading, reasoning
communication styles of men and
women.
Materials: Statements below
Time:
20-30mins
The following activity is loosely based on Conversation Analysis readings, so nothing is hard and fast
doctrine. It seeks to be thought-provoking and there may be a grain of truth in some of the statements
below. Remember also that men and women express themselves differently according to the make-up
of the conversation group. That is, the group may be mixed gender, all male or all female, hence the
type of exchanges will be different-the atmosphere too. Furthermore, the group may be friends, workmates, academics, a meeting etc.
If nothing else, it should generate chat.
Put yes (Y) or no (N) for the sentences below.
Generally speaking, when I converse with people I know:
I am a blunt person.
I criticize people.
I am a little sarcastic.
I ask a lot of questions in a conversation, to find out about people, their thoughts, etc.
I rarely admit I am wrong about something when I am in a conversation.
I make eye-contact and use body language in conversations.
I generalize.
I get personal with people in conversations; I may even gossip about a mutual friend.
I compliment people spontaneously.
I use four-letter words, coarse language.
I like to talk about myself.
I am a good listener.
I prefer to talk about non-personal topics, such as unemployment, the economy, current affairs ...
I usually talk about personal problems, people, their way of being, hopes, desires, my family ...
I get personal when I write a letter to someone, but not face to face in a conversation.
I help to keep a conversation flowing, I am not provocative, controversial, confrontational ...
I like to get my say, get in a few comments, no matter what the topic.
I don't assert something, but I might preface a comment with "I think, I suppose, perhaps."
I talk a lot.
If I ask a question, it is generally a yes-no answer I am looking for.
I don't mind talking about a situation where I was embarrassed, humiliated and so on.
** Results **
Men, it is said, are more assertive, sarcastic, long-winded, non-personal and so on, while women are
more collaborative, personal and happy to take a back seat in many chats-it is said. So, working on the
previous assertions-and more-you can score the test the following way:
4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 21 would be more feminine traits-generally speaking The rest, male.
Once again, the activity should not give rise to aggressive exchanges.
101 | P a g e

146. WORLD CONQUEST speaking/strategy game/positives & negatives
Summary: ESL activity based on the game
Risk
Theme:
World conflict
Skills:
Speaking, strategy, sentence formation
Materials: World map, white board
Time:
1hr+
This game is based on the popular board game RISK and is a lot of fun for smaller groups.
Firstly, divide the class into teams (2 or 3 to a team is preferable) or if you have a smaller class you can
do it as an individual activity.
You will need to prepare a map of some sort. A multimedia projector onto a magnetic whiteboard is the
best way but if you dont have that then you can just draw a basic map on the board.
102 | P a g e

Placing Armies
1. Put students into teams and tell them that they are going to grow their armies by making positive
sentences about the countries they want
Give them a few minutes to think about what countries/territories they want and then start the army
placing.
2. To choose a country the team must make a positive sentence about that country with each student
saying 1 word in the sentence consecutively. They get 1 army for each word in the sentence so for
example;
Team 1 will say We want Canada because Canada has many trees for building houses. (1 word per
student.) There were 11 words in the sentence so that team would get 11 armies on Canada.
3. Give each team an army limit, so they can only have say 30 armies total, this means students have to
be careful about which countries they want and how many words they will use in each sentence.
4. At this point the game is a free-for-all so if the sentence is incorrect then its a fail and any other team
can jump in and take that country with a correct sentence.
Once all the teams have put armies on various countries it is time to start the game.
Game play
1. When it is a teams turn they can choose to either build more armies (by making a positive sentence)
or to attack another country and killing their armies (by making a negative sentence.)
2. If a team chooses to continue building armies then they get one chance to make a sentence (as
above) and they can place the armies they build on any territory they want. If the sentence is incorrect
they lose their turn and it goes to the next team. If they choose to build then they cannot attack and vice
versa.
3. When a team chooses to attack they can only attack another country that borders one of theirs.
2. Once this is decided a representative from each team will play rock/paper/scissors and the winner can
choose to go first or last.
3. When attacking the teacher gives the teams a topic to make a sentence about (perhaps about the
countries involved or reviewing something youve been studying) and then those 2 teams must come up
with a negative sentence to kill the other teams armies.
4. Each word in your teams sentence kills one army from the other teams but it must be a correct
sentence, it must be delivered 1 word per student at a time and it must be delivered within the time
limit.
E.G. Student 1 Canada Student 2 isnt Student 3 very Student 4 warm. This would kill 4
armies from the other team, however if the sentence is incorrect it kills none and the other team goes.
5. The teams battle it out killing each others armies by making sentences. When a team has no armies
left the other team can take over that country.
6. Give each team 1 turn to take over a country and then go onto the next team so that students arent
waiting too long to have a shot at making sentences.
7. Once a team kills everyone else they are the winners. Or if you have limited time, the team that has
the most remaining armies is the winner.
103 | P a g e

147. BUILDING THE EEMO Culture/Problem Solving/Team Work/Speaking
Summary: An interactive problem solving
activity
Theme:
Culture, problem solving
Skills:
Speaking, Q&A,
Materials: Information cards in the SM book
Time:
40mins+
This is an interactive game where students have to distinguish relevant information from irrelevant and
then co-operate with each other to share info and solve the question. You can divide the class into small
teams or do it with individuals, but you should divide the information cards evenly between everyone. If
you want to make the task quicker and easier then take out some of the erroneous information cards.
INTRODUCTION (To be given or read aloud to participants)
Let me tell you about the House of Ee'aloro! Every ten years, the people of the small planet Ee'aloro'ala,
build a great stone 'house' in honour of their god Ee'aloro. The house must be rebuilt every ten years
because the winds on the planet are powerful enough to knock it down in that time! The formal name
for this house is 'Ee'aloro'moo', but in everyday conversation people call it the 'Ee'mo'.
The Ee'mo is solid, with no empty space inside, and in shape it is almost, but not quite, a cube. It is a
great honour to be allowed to help build the new Ee'mo, and the construction teams are chosen mainly
by a lottery, although for religious reasons some of the workers are selected from special groups in
Ee'aloro'alan society. The House of Ee'aloro is constructed by manual labour, without any machines, and
according to tradition is must be completed within two Ee'aloro'alan weeks.
The questions you have to answer:
On which day of the week is the construction of the Ee'mo completed?
What is a te'rappa?
Which way up does the Ee'mo stand?
Does the Ee'mo face east, or west?
You may tell other people the information on your cards, but you must not show your cards to anyone
else.
104 | P a g e

148. SOCIABILITY PERSONALITY TEST speaking/personalities/comprehension
Summary: A yes/no question based personality Level/age: intermediate advanced
test
Theme:
personality types, characteristic
Skills:
Comprehension, listening
language
Materials: Test below
Time:
20-40mins+
This activity is designed to get the students talking, and so should not provoke moments of tension or
embarrassment. It should be done with humour.
To introduce the test - elicit and talk about types of personality. You can introduce the following terms
and see what students associate with them;
The star
The prankster
The complainer
The pedant
The shy boy/girl
The flatterer
The serious person
The cultured person
Get the students to define, in their own way, each of these arbitrary names. They are supposedly, the
main types of characters. Are there any more types of people? The extrovert? The introvert?
Here are some definitions of the above terms:
The star: Always tries to talk about himself, and hates it when the chat moves into unknown
territory.
The prankster: Great fun, but a bit tiring after a while, especially if the conversation is serious.
The complainer: Never happy, always giving out.
The pedant: Pretending to know more, and shows it off. In the end, people avoid rather than
admire him.
The shy boy: He can make those who don't know him feel uncomfortable, and trigger sympathy
in others. A complicated social animal.
The flatterer: Manipulates people. At first, we like it, but in the end ...
The serious person: No visible sense of humor. Makes others uncomfortable, seems to set the
pace sometimes. However, he doesn't have to be boring, and can make a good friend.
Trustworthy.
The cultured/learned person: Usually, a highly valued person, because we like to be with people
who know more than us. Once he doesn't show it off!
105 | P a g e

Discussion
Get your students to select the heading, or their mix of headings, which most fit(s) their personality.
Which trait predominates most?
Have they parents or work-mates who conform to one or more of these headings? Their boss? Their
partner?
Are there any other categories not mentioned here?
Are there any gender-based differences?
Are people a mix of all of these notions?
Once you have had a thorough discussion its time to test the students have them answer these
questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
When you are introduced to a stranger, do you normally become tense?

Do you try to be the centre of attention of groups?
Do you consider yourself a successful person, socially speaking?
Do you find it difficult to demonstrate in public some of your personal skills (such as telling
jokes, dancing, singing ...)?
Do you have problems when speaking in public?
Are you happy/satisfied with your own image?
Would you eat alone in a crowded restaurant?
Do you feel quite skilled at socializing
Do you accept praise gracefully and naturally?
During meetings/encounters with strangers, do you listen more than speak?
Do you show your feelings to friends you don't know very well yet?
Do you go red when someone shouts after you in public?
Do you feel inferior when introduced to an important person?
Do you often think that your contributions to a debate can be relevant?
When you are going to be presented in public, do you sweat, shake a bit, and feel insecure...?
Would you be able to imitate a famous person?
Calculate your score.

If you said YES to questions 1, 5, 10, 12, 13 and 15, give yourself a point for each YES.
If you said NO to questions 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14 and 16, give yourself a point for each NO.
If you scored less than 6, your ability to make friends is acceptable.
Between 6 and 10, you have/have had difficulty relating to other people socially.
More than 10 points, new situations and getting to know new people is hard for you.
106 | P a g e

149. WHAT KIND OF STUDENT ARE YOU? study styles
Summary: A true/false personality test
Theme:
Ideas and language for different

types of students, learning
strategies, motivation
Materials: Questions below
Skills:
Comprehension, self reflection
Time:
20mins
Answer the following questionnaire by putting a True (T) or a False (F) after each sentence.
1. I often study English, at home, in a library, on the train.
2. I need English for my work, to pass an exam, to get a job.
3. I don't like making grammar mistakes when I speak English.
4. I began learning English because my parents felt it was necessary for the future.
5. I love speaking English with other learners of the same level.
6. I go to English conversation classes because I simply want to, not because I have to.
7. I think my teachers should force me to speak more in conversation class.
8. I would love to go on a year-long world tour, even if I had little money.
9. If I don't speak in conversation class, it is because the topic/task is bad.
10. I watch English-language TV and films in English-even though I understand nothing!
11. I hate it when one person does all the talking in conversation class.
12. Quite often, I am happy just to listen to the teacher.
13. I often feel a little stupid when I talk in conversation class.
14. I think the teacher is what motivates a student most.
15. I prefer learning grammar, vocabulary, etc to speaking English.
16. I wish I could go to a conversation class every day instead of just twice a week.
17. Basically, I think a conversation class should be for practicing the grammar you have just learnt.
18. I regularly ask the other students questions and comment on what they say in conversation
class.
19. I am a woman.
Interpretation
A, E, F, H, J, P, R = True. This, basically, indicates a self-motivated, hard-working learner. It also indicates
desire to socialize, to meet other races and cultures. This is what language is for. The perfect student: A
talker and a worker!
B, D, G, I, K, N = True. There is a strong sense of being "obliged" to learn, which is not self-motivation.
Not a crime, but the learner must want to achieve for himself. Also, this type of learner blames his
performance on others/external factors. This may not be the ideal ingredient for a good
communicator/worker.
C, O = True. This can mean that you are a perfectionist. You pay attention to formal detail. Can be good,
but it can also be an obstacle to communication. An anxious talker.
G, I, K, L, N = True. This implies a degree of passiveness. If you want to talk, don't think about it-act! This
learner could also lack self-motivation. A sporadic talker.
M = True. It happens everybody at the beginning. But you must get over this after a few classes. You will
Q = True. This is a big issue. But how can you talk about the world with a few set phrases? You may be a
traditional learner expecting a traditional class. Remember, the ultimate aim of English is to
communicate.
107 | P a g e

S = True. Bingo! It is said that women work harder-at languages too. They also miss fewer classes than
men.
As with everything related to motivation, it is impossible to be categorical, i.e. seemingly negative
factors can end up motivating some learners. Also, some of the above statements may apply to several
interpretations.
150. ZOOM Information Gap/Speaking
Summary: Students try to find a sequence by
asking for information
Theme:
Art, sequences
Materials: Zoom book or pictures from the SM
book.
Level/age: Intermediate-Advanced
Skills:
Speaking, Critical Thinking
Time:
25mins+
This problem solving activity requires the wordless, picture book entitled, Zoom by Istvan Banyai. This
book features 30 sequential pictures that work together to form a narrative. The book should be fairly
easy to find, as its been published in over 18 countries. The pictures can even be laminated to prolong
their usage. Hand out one picture to each participant, making sure a continuous sequence is being used.
Explain to the participants that they can only look at their own pictures and must keep their picture
hidden from other participants. Time should be given for the participants to study their pictures because
each picture will contain important information that will help the participants solve the problem of
putting them into order. The ultimate goal is for the group to place the pictures in sequential order
without looking at one anothers pictures. The participants can talk to each other and discuss what is
featured in their picture. This activity brings coworkers together and gets them communicating with the
common goal of solving a problem, but it also allows for leaders to emerge and take control of the task.
151. GREEN CARD speaking/questioning/Q&A/dating
Summary: Students question details of
Level/age: Intermediate advanced (adult)
imaginary 1st dates.
Theme:
Dating, immigration
Skills:
Question/sentence formation
Materials: -
Time:
30mins
This is a more romantic version of The Alibi Game where students pretend to be a couple and make up
the story of when they first met. The other students then question them separately on the details of
that first moment, e.g. what perfume she was wearing and who was standing near them.
Put the students into boy-girl pairs and tell them to invent a story of how they met and their first dates.
The students then come in front of the rest of the class one at a time. The class questions them to see if
their stories match the other student. The class then decides whether or not they will grant the green
card or not.
108 | P a g e

152. TOUR GUIDE speaking/tourism
Summary: Visual comprehension activity
focused on being tour guides
Theme:
Culture
Skills:
Materials: Photos of tourist destinations
Time:
20-30mins
Give out photos of various cultural oddities from the country in question explaining to the students that
you have a friend that wants to know what each thing is. The students must explain and define the
photo acting as a tour guide. Get students to give as much information as possible including the use of
the photo, the context, history and similar items.
153. VALENTINES personality/writing/speaking
Summary: Students try to guess who the
Valentines card is for.
Theme:
grammar - like/looks like,
Skills:
Writing, speaking, comprehension
personality vocab and appearance
vocab
Materials: Paper or cards
Time:
20-30mins
Have the students write their own Valentines cards by writing 4 sentences describing another students
physical appearance on the front of the card and then 4 sentences on the inside describing their
personality. One student then comes up and reads the description allowing the other students to try and
guess who it is.
154. INTERVIEW GAME - Q&A/speaking/jobs
Summary: Interview based Q&A activity
Theme:
Skills:
Speaking, Q&A
Time:
30-40mins
creating interview Q&A, jobs
Materials: -
Pre-teach the students the vocab related to interviews e.g. dedicated worker, personal skills etc or if its
schooling teach them SAT score etc.
With the students make a series of lists (half as long as the number of students you have) including:
The best schools or companies...

Whats good about them...
Whats bad about them...
What those places would be looking for in potential applicants...
Positive skills/character traits...
Negative skills/traits...
109 | P a g e

Divide the class into 2 applicants/interviewees and interviewers.
Secretly give each applicant a number which corresponds to a set of skills/talents/lack of and give each
interviewer a card which has a company or school and the things that they are looking for at that school.
The applicants then go around trying to get into the best company/school while the interviewers try to
get the best applicants. No one knows who is who but when they have finished doing the mock
interviews they must choose who they want.
155. WE ARE THE WORLD warmer/active/geography
Summary: Students locate themselves in a
Level/age: intermediate advanced (works better
classroom microcosm
with multi-cultural class)
Theme:
Geography
Skills:
Comprehension, geographic knowledge
Materials: -
Time:
10-15mins
This works better in a bigger space, but if you dont have one then the classroom works. Pretend the
space is a map of the world and the students are going to geographically represent it. You as the teacher
choose where you will be located you can say something like I am in Vancouver and tell them to
position themselves in a spot that represents where their country would be in relation to where
Vancouver is.
Give them a certain amount of time and if they are not in position when the time is up they are out.
Make sure to give them directional instructions so they know which direction North, South, East and
west are.
156. CALENDAR PUZZLE Problem Solving/Time
Summary: Visual comprehension activity
focused on being tour guides
Theme:
Culture
Skills:
Materials: Photos of tourist destinations
Time:
20-30mins
Give out photos of various cultural oddities from the country in question explaining to the students that
you have a friend that wants to know what each thing is. The students must explain and define the
photo acting as a tour guide. Get students to give as much information as possible including the use of
the photo, the context, history and similar items.
110 | P a g e

157. STAND UP AND BE COUNTED Advanced Warmer
of students
Theme:
Minorities, being marginalized,
Skills:
opinions
Materials: Time:
30-40mins
This activity is designed to demonstrate how we are all members of a minority at one time or another.
At the end of this exercise I often ask participants which items they were reluctant to stand up for and
why. We also discuss how it felt to be standing with only a few other people.
It must be emphasized that this activity will not work if the items are not changed to meet the needs of
your training program and your geographical location.
Stand up if.....
you speak another language
one of your grandparents speaks another language.
you consider yourself old.
you feel your profession is respected by others.
you consider yourself a member of a minority group.
you see yourself as disabled in any way.
someone in your extended family has an alternate
sexual orientation.
you think you are really good at your profession.
you consider yourself well educated.
you consider yourself financially secure.
one of your parents came to the U.S. from a foreign
country.
one of your(great) grandparents graduated from
college.
you have traveled outside of North America.
111 | P a g e

158. REAL LAW/FAKE LAW Creative/teamwork/reasoning/laws
Summary: Students choose whether laws are
real or fake
Theme:
Laws
Skills:
Comprehension, reasoning
Materials: List of laws
Time:
20-30mins
Firstly, prepare a list of silly, but real laws (http://www.dumblaws.com) Print out this list and cut the
individual laws into strips.
Divide the class into however many teams and appoint captains or "group speakers." Then, instruct
them to think of some fake laws (typically in the format: of "It is illegal to...") and write the laws on strips
of paper you have given them.
Collect the strips of paper from the class, but before you do so, check for correct format and grammar.
Then, mix them together with your own laws. Randomly choose a law and read it out to the class.
Give the class a few moments to decide on whether the law is real. Then, have the captain of each group
impart upon you a group-decision.
If you selected one of your own laws and a particular group guesses that it is true, then that group is to
be awarded a point. If that group feels it is fake, then you - the teacher - award yourself a point. If you
selected a law composed by one of the groups and a particular group guesses that it is fake, then that
group receives a point. If, however, that group guesses that it is true, then the group who composed it
receives a point for fooling that group. A group who fooled, for instance, three other groups would,
thus, receive 3 points.
At the end, tally each team's total number of points and declare the winning team.
112 | P a g e

159. CONVINCE ME Warmer/Speaking/Persuasion
Summary: Students convince the teacher to
give them a prize.
Theme:
Persuasion
Skills:
Speaking
Materials: -
Time:
10-25mins
Tell students that you are going to give them a present. However, only one student will receive the
present. In order to receive this present, the student must convince you through his / her fluency and
imagination that he or she deserves the present. It's best to use a wide range of imaginary presents as
some students will obviously be more attracted to certain types of presents than others.
Examples:
A computer, a gift certificate for $200 at a fashionable store, a bottle of expensive wine, a new car.
Students can bargain and give any reason for them to get the prize including rubbishing other students
reasons.
160. PROVE IT warmer/speaking/Q&A
Summary: Students prove or disprove the
teachers theories.
Theme:
Finding info about other students
Skills:
Speaking
Materials: -
Time:
20-30mins
Give your students one or more statements to prove or disprove. The statements can tie in with the
topic or the grammar point of the class. Examples: Nobody in this class likes winter. Everyone here can
drive a car.
Students talk to as many other students as possible to prove/disprove the statements. Then they give
feedback to the class: 'This statement is not true. There are at least 5 people in this class who like
winter.
161. WEEKLY BUS Time/Active
Summary: Students practice days by lining up.
Level/age: beginner
Theme:
Skills:
Time:
10-20mins
Materials: -
This game works best when reviewing days of the week so I will model it in this way.
Firstly, set up 7 chairs (one for each day of the week) in a vertical row similar to what a bus would look
like. If you are doing it in teams then you will have to set up 2 rows of 7 chairs.
113 | P a g e

Next give each student a day of the week. Tell them that the chairs represent the rows of a bus and the
first one is the driver. Now, the teacher yells out a random day and this student becomes the driver.
That student must sit in the drivers seat and the rest of the students must line up sequentially. If you
are playing with 1 team then the last student to sit down is out. If you are playing as teams then the first
team to have everyone sit down in correct order gets a point.
162. HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING Hypothetical Choices/Speaking
Summary: A theoretical Q&A activity
Theme:
hypothetical situations and what

other students would do
Materials: Cards in the SM book.
Skills:
Time:
20-30mins
Divide the class into teams of 3-5 students and give the group a set of situation cards. When it is a
students turn they must choose a situation card and read the question and possible answers to the
group. Before the students answer the student asking the question must secretly choose which option
they think the other students will choose by writing it down on a piece of paper. The students then talk
together to get a majority decision. If they are undecided students must try to persuade and convince
the class of their answer.
The questioner gets 1 point for each guess they get correct. The student with the most points at the end
is the winner.
163. ALIBI Warmer/Speaking/Crime
Summary: Students try to mismatch other
teams alibis.
Theme:
Questioning stories

Skills:
creative thinking
Materials: -
Time:
30-40mins
Divide class into two teams 4 investigators and the rest suspects, then team the suspects up into
groups of 2. One team of two is given a card which means that they are the criminals, they have a set
and quite vague alibi.
On the board show the class various parts of information that an alibi could consist of:
*where were they...
*what were they doing...
*how long were they doing it for etc
Tell the students to be specific then give the class 10 minutes exactly to come up with either for the
suspects an alibi story, or the investigators a set of questions to ask the suspects.
The suspect teams then have to split up with 1 student going out of the room while the investigators
question them looking for inconsistencies in the two stories .
114 | P a g e

164. VIDEO MATCHUP Visual Comprehension
Summary: Students match onscreen actions to Level/age: Intermediate
prepared sentences
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Visual comprehension, speaking
Materials: Video
Time:
As long as your video
Students watch a video and shout out if they see anything that is exactly the same as what is written on
their worksheet or the whiteboard, e.g. Mr Bean is putting his head into a turkey. This can be
combined with practice of typical confusions by some of the sentences being slightly different from
whats on screen (into a chicken).
165. ENGLISH POKER warmer/vocab/sentence formation
Summary: Students use a poker format to
make sentences
Theme:
Grammatical sentences and vocab
Skills:
Grammar, sentence formation
identification.
Materials: English poker cards in the SM book
Time:
30mins +
This game is basically the same as poker except the winning hands of poker are replaced by the ability to
make pairs/trips/quads as well as the most complex sentence using the words that are on the cards.
First you must make a set of 40 or so cards each of which have 3 words on them from different
grammatical groups (pronouns, articles, link words, verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, different tenses
etc.) You will also have to make some fake money to bet with.
Each student gets 2 cards that have various words on them. They may be able to make a sentence right
away which is good for them its like holding a pocket pair and they can bet on that accordingly.
Now comes the turn cards in this version only 3 cards are turned total, 1 at a time. After each card is
turned the students can check to see if they can make a sentence and then bet on their sentences
accordingly obviously the longest sentence that can be made is the best hand so students really have
to search for more complex sentences to have a better hand. At any time they can raise, call, fold and
bluff just like in real poker. These are words you will probably have to teach them before you start.
Ascending English Poker hand order:
Pair of nouns or verbs
Pair of adjectives or adverbs
3 of a kind nouns/verbs
3 of a kind adjectives/adverbs
4 of a kind nouns/verbs
4 of a kind adjectives/adverbs
3 word sentence
4 word sentence
5 word sentence
6 word sentence
115 | P a g e

166. THE FORTUNE TELLER future tense/review/vocab/want to
Summary: Students discover what their futures Level/age: Beginner intermediate (better for
will be like.
younger ages, older students might
find it a little immature.)
Theme:
Future life
Skills:
Vocab, future tense grammar.
Materials: -
Time:
40mins +
To prep this activity you can start by getting the students to discuss:
What do you want to have in the future? and What dont you want to have? Have the students
think of the following categories - Car/house/job/husband/wife/money/children/country etc
Once this is done you can model the use of want to will etc you can even get into things like
probably and other adverbs of probability which can be fun in itself.
Once this is done you are ready to start.
Write the categories up at the top of the board;
Car
House Job Country Husband
Wife
Money Children...
Beneath each category you will need to elicit and write 4 good things and 4 bad things (of that
category.) So for house you may have Palace, mansion, penthouse, country house... and cardboard box,
studio, under the bridge, and in a car. Coming up with the lists is actually a lot of fun and the students
love it but make sure for the bad lists you choose some real bad ones this makes the game more
exciting later.
Once this is done, tell the students that they are going to have their fortune told by simply choosing a
number between 2-9. Choose a student and make them choose a number between 2-9. Once the
student has chosen you go through the complete list and cross off the items that occur on that number.
For example if a student chose 3 then you would eliminate items like this;
1. Palace
2. Mansion
3. Penthouse
1. Country house
2. Cardboard box
3. Studio
1. Under the bridge
2. In a car
And then the first item of the next list...I usually count as I do it to help the students understand that it is
not the first item chosen but the one remaining that they will be their future - this gives them a great
deal of anticipation as the items whittle down and great amounts of joy as one of their fellow students
discovers that in their future they will be living in a cardboard box. The last item in each category is the
future of the student who chose that number.
116 | P a g e

167. EASY QUIZ QUESTIONS trivia/comprehension
Summary: Trivia game
Theme:
Comprehension and general

knowledge.
Materials: Questions
Skills:
Time:
20-30mins
Students should listen and answer the questions, either by putting their hands up or by writing the
answer. It can be done in teams or as individuals.
Art and Literature:
1.Who wrote Julius Caesar, Macbeth and Hamlet? (Shakespeare)
2.Who cut off Van Gogh's ear? (he did)
3.Who painted the Mona Lisa? (Da Vinci)
4.What's the most important book in the Muslim religion? (The Koran)
5.Who painted the Sistine Chapel? (Michelangelo)
Entertainment:
1.Name one American rap singer
2.What is the name of Harry Potters school? (Hogwarts)
3.In which city is Hollywood? (Los Angeles)
4.Who is the main character in The Lord of The Rings (Frodo)
5.Name two of the Beatles (Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Paul Mcartney, George Harrison)
Geography:
1. Name one American city and one American state.
2. What's the highest mountain in Africa? (Kilimanjaro)
3. Which country has the largest area: Australia, Brazil or India? (Brazil)
4. Which is the largest ocean? (Pacific)
5. What's the smallest country in the world? (Vatican City)
History:
1.Who is on the one dollar bill (George Washington)
2.Who was the first man on the moon? (Neil Armstrong)
3.When did the First World War start? (1914)
4.Who did Lady Diana Spencer marry? (Prince Charles)
5.Who is the prime minister of England (Tony Blair)
Wild Card:
1.How many colors are there in a rainbow? (7)
2.What language has the most words? (English)
3.What are the four top teams from the World Cup 2002 (Brazil, German, Turkey, Korea)
4.What's the fastest passenger plane in the world? (the Concorde)
5.Who invented the electric light bulb? (Thomas Edison)
Bonus Round Questions (if needed, each one 500 pts)
1.Which planet is nearest the sun? (Mercury)
2.Who said E=mc2 (Einstein)
117 | P a g e

168. STRATEGY AUCTION Speaking/Reasoning/Art
Summary: Students bid to get their top 3
paintings
Theme:
Art, auctioneering
Skills:
strategic bidding
Materials: Painting images
Time:
30mins+
First, gather about 20 or pictures or postcards of famous paintings. SECOND, print a bunch of money in
large denominations. THIRD, title the pictures on the back.
Next, divide the class into partners or small teams. This exercise works best with about 4 to 6 teams. Tell
the teams that they have about 10 minutes to agree on one top 6 list for their team. When they are
finished that, they then have to pick their least preferred painting. Once the teams are finished they
each get the same sum of money. (I usually give 2,200,000 dollars.) Then they are told that the auction
will begin and it will be a maximum of 10 or 15 minutes. This time limit is important because it is not
possible to auction off all the paintings in that time period.
The object of the game is for each team to attempt to buy three paintings on their top 6 list. They are
disallowed from buying the one on their least favoured list. The top bidder gets each painting. The rules
are simple, but the strategy can get complex, leading to bidding up, or bluffing. Other teams don't want
you to get three. Start the bidding at any price you want. The first painting usually goes cheap, but then
they catch on that time is fast running by and the bids get more wild. At the end, the gavel falls and the
auction is over even there are many paintings left.
118 | P a g e

Problem Solving & Creative Thinking
169. SURVIVAL ISLAND Creative Thinking/Reasoning/Speaking
Summary: Students prepare for being stranded

on an island
Theme:
Reasoning
Skills:
Materials: -
Time:
30-40mins
Tell your students that they are going to be going on a cruise, however the boat is going to crash and
they will be left stranded on a desert island they will only be able to take 5 items with them. They must
choose their items from this list;
a pencil, a radio, a knife and fork, a metal bowl, a towel, a sewing kit, a camera, a miniature bottle of
whiskey, a map of the world, a box of matches, a toothbrush, a mirror, a novel, some antiseptic
ointment, a compass, a magnifying glass, an axe, a rope, a cellphone, a teddy bear, sunglasses, a hat and
a baseball bat.
As you tell them the list you should elicit the uses of these items.
Then, individually the students have to come up with a list of the 5 items they would take. They can ask
the teacher questions about the island before they decide what items they are going to take.
Once they are finished, divide them into teams and have them come up with a team list. Once all the
teams are finished get all the answers and discuss which team has chosen the wisest.
A variation on this game would be to do it geographically by teaching the geographic differences
between several different islands in different places and then getting the students to make their lists
based on the island.
170. SURVIVOR NASA speaking/reasoning
Summary: Students debate the merits of
various jobs and people
Theme:
Survival

Skills:
Speaking, reasoning
Materials: -
Time:
15-30mins
Start with this story: An asteroid is coming to hit planet Earth and all life will be destroyed. NASA is
sending a spaceship to colonize and inhabit another planet. The spaceship has space for 3 extra people.
The directors of NASA are holding interviews with possible candidates to join the new civilization.
Write down different professions on a pieces of paper and distribute to your students. (don't choose
obvious professions such as doctor or engineer) The most fun professions are those that make the
students work on their persuasion skills. Some of the ones that worked well were: baker, karate expert,
gardener, English teacher, dentist.
The students have a few minutes to prepare their argument, and then plead their case. The other
students listen and then ask questions to the one making the presentation. (such as: 'what exactly is a
119 | P a g e

gardener to do in space?) They can use their imagination, perhaps they could say that Aliens live in the
new planet.
After the students make their presentation and have answers questions, have them vote on who they
would select to go to space.
171. WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Visual Comprehension/Speaking/Future Tense
Summary: Students discuss what could happen

next
Theme:
Future tense, giving opinions
Skills:
Speaking, visual comprehension
Materials: Suspenseful Video or photos
Time:
30-40mins depending on how many

things you prepare
Get a series of action photos or videos that have a strange action or event happening in them. Divide the
class into teams and with each shot get them to discuss together to figure out what happened next. Get
each teams answers, correct any grammatical problems and then the closest team gets the point. Team
with the most points is the winner.
172. WORD PUZZLES Parallel Thinking/Warmer
Summary: Students try to solve the word

puzzles
Theme:
Puzzles
Level/age: Low intermediate advanced

Skills:
Parallel/creative thinking
Materials: Word puzzle handout in the SM

book
Time:
20-30mins
Give the students the sheet in teams or by themselves and have them solve the word puzzles. First one
to finish is the winner.
Puzzles in the SM book...
173. PARALLEL THINKING Speaking/Comprehension/Question Formation
Summary: Students try to solve parallel

thinking problems in groups.
Theme:
Parallel thinking
Level/age: High Intermediate-Advanced
Materials: Parallel Thinking Problems Below
Time:
Skills:
Speaking, comprehension, Question

Formation
40mins+
Put students into small teams and give them the problem. Give teams 3-4 minutes and have them
discuss the problem to find the answer. Once time is up, teams can ask 1 yes/no question each, they
then get another 3-4 minutes to figure it out, then more questions until the answer is found.
120 | P a g e

174. PARALLEL THINKING #2 Creative Thinking/Speaking/Comprehension
Summary: Students try to solve parallel
Level/age: High Intermediate-Advanced
thinking problems in groups.
Theme:
Parallel thinking
Skills:
Speaking, comprehension, Question
Formation
Materials: Parallel Thinking Problems Below
Time:
40mins+
Put students into small groups, cut the questions up into strips and give one out to each group. Give
each group about 3 minutes to solve the problem and write their answers on a piece of paper. When
time is up, teams pass the question onto the next team. Rotate through as many questions as you have
time for and then check the answers as a group.
Alternately, you can just give the teams all the questions and have them discuss.
Score
Over 35. You are a true lateral thinking Guru. 28 to 34. Very good.
21 to 27. Quite good.
15 to 20. Average.
Under 15 - Watch The Matrix, The Simpsons and Dr Who a few more times.
121 | P a g e

175. APOCALYPSE Creative/Critical Thinking
Summary: Students discuss what they would
Level/age: Intermediate-advanced (older ages)
save from modern society
Theme:
End of the world
Skills:
Speaking, Critical Thinking
Materials: -
Time:
20mins
The Apocalypse is near and the ministry of the Apocalypse have built an ark that is big enough to save
some people as well as some world-wide valuables that will help the survivors start civilisation in the
new world. It is up to you and your friends to decide what precious creatures and treasures will survive
to the next world.
Have students discuss in groups, 6 occupations that would have to go on the ark, 6 types of animals, 6
things in general, 6 seeds for food you would grow you would put in the ark that will survive the
Apocalypse.
176. BLUEPRINTS Creating & following directions/comprehension/should
Summary: Students create directions for other Level/age: intermediate advanced classes
students to follow
Theme:
Creating directions
Skills:
Sentence formation with should,
comprehension, teamwork
Materials: Lego pieces
Time:
30mins
Divide the class into teams or 3 or 4 and give them 6-10 pieces of lego. The students must design
something from their lego pieces it doesnt have to be wonderful or amazing but it must resemble
something that most people would know and recognize. As they are building their project they must
keep detailed instructions of what they are doing.
When they are finished they will give their instructions to another team without the title of their
project.
The other team must follow the instructions and try to guess what the other team made.
122 | P a g e

177. THEMS THE RULES permission/speaking/brainstorming
Summary: Students brainstorm different rules
Theme:
Permission/regulation - you
can/cant... its okay/legal to...
Materials: -
Skills:
Speaking, writing, team work
Time:
30-40mins
Model the use of permission language and show how it is used.

Put the students into small teams and have them come up with as many rules as they can from the
following situations. Give them a short amount of time and the team that comes up with the most gets
the point.
Rule situations:
Driving rules in your home country/other countries
School rules
Your family house rules
Hospital rules
Gym/swimming pool rules
Movie theater rules
Library rules
123 | P a g e

178. PAPER AIRPLANE PREPOSITIONS creating instructions/comprehension
Summary: Students give instructions on how to Level/age: high intermediate advance
build planes
Theme:
Creating and following instructions. Skills:
Materials: paper
Time:
40mins+
Print out a step by step diagram explaining how to make a paper airplane. Have a different design for
each group. The ones I used were fairly complex, but you could go simpler if needed. Put students in
groups and have them write directions corresponding with the pictures (for example: Step one-fold the
paper in half vertically. Step two-make two triangles out of the top corners...)
It gets them to work on directional words, spatial prepositions, shapes, phrasal verbs, imperatives, etc.
Then have them swap papers and follow another team's instructions. Knowing that someone else has to
read it and understand and follow their directions forces them to be really clear and descriptive. Then
have a contest to see whose plane flies the farthest...
179. PLASTIC CUP PYRAMID warmer/team work
Summary: Students must make cup pyramids
Level/age: Beginner to advanced
by directing each other.
Theme:
Team work
Skills:
Directing
Materials: Cups, rubber bands
Time:
10-20mins
Take a bunch of plastic cups, rubber bands and pieces of string...

If you have 4 to a team you should have 1 rubber band, 6 plastic cups and 1 length of string (10 inches)
for each student.
Instruct the students to tie their individual lengths of string to the rubber band at regular intervals
they are then ready to begin.
The students must work together to stack the cups into a 3 tier pyramid. They do this by pulling their
individual lengths of string to stretch the rubber band around the cup and then using team co-ordination
to move the cups into position.
124 | P a g e

180. RIDDLE ME THIS - Parallel Thinking/Comprehension/Riddles
Summary: Problem solving quiz using riddles.
Theme:
Parallel thinking
Materials: Riddles below
Skills:
Listening, comprehension
Time:
20-30mins
Divide the class into teams and give them the following riddles. The team who can get the most answers
is the winner.
1. Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain on Earth?
Mount Everest (it just hadn't been discovered).
2. Clara Clatter was born on December 27th, yet her birthday is always in the summer. How is this
possible?
Clara lives in the southern hemisphere.
3. In what years do Christmas and New Year's fall in the same year?
They fall in the same year every year. New Year's Day just arrives very early in the year and Christmas
arrives very late in the same year.
4. A farmer has 17 sheep and all but 9 die. How many are left?
9
5. There were an electrician and a plumber waiting in line for admission to the International Home
Show," One of them was the father of the other's son. How could this be possible?
They were husband and wife.
6. A butcher in the butcher shop is 5' 10" tall. What does he weigh?
Meat.
7. A woman shoots her husband. Then she holds him under water for over 5 minutes. Finally, she hangs
him. But 5 minutes later they both go out together and enjoy a wonderful dinner together. How can this
be?
The woman was a photographer. She shot a picture of her husband, developed it and hung it up to
dry.
8. What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and gray when you throw it away?
Charcoal
9. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday?
Sure you can: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow!
10. This is an unusual paragraph. I'm curious how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It
looks so plain you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is unusual
though. Study it, and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit,
you might find out. Try to do so without any coaching!
The letter "e," which is the most common letter in the English language, does not appear once in the
long paragraph.
125 | P a g e

181. DROP THE EGG Fun/Active/Team Work
Summary: Students come up with a method to Level/age: Beginner advanced (older is better to
avoid breaking an egg
avoid mess)
Theme:
Team work
Skills:
creative thinking, problem solving,
team work
Materials: balloons, eggs, string, A4 paper,
Time:
20-30mins
sellotape
First divide the class into small teams. Give each team two balloons, a ball of string, two sheets of A4
paper, a roll of tape and a raw egg.
Using only the materials provided they must figure out how to drop the egg from a standing position on
a chair without it breaking on the floor. They can protect the egg in any way they want but the only
thing they cannot do is lower the egg with the string.
Give them 15 -20 minutes. They must of course only speak English. This is a great way to lead into a
decision on teamwork and problem solving skills. They constantly have to listen and give instructions.
Leaders will rise and job sharing will have to take place to complete the task. With a competitive group
reward the most creative. After 10 minutes have them demonstrate their creations. I have them act like
a research team that need to name their project and create a team name pushing the team spirit thing.
182. RANSOM NOTE sentence formation/creative
Summary: Students create a ransom note using Level/age: Beginner - advanced
magazines
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Sentence formation
Materials: Magazines, scissors, glue, paper
Time:
20-30mins
Put the students into small teams and give them random magazines and a time limit within the time
they have to cut out random words from a newspaper or magazine to make coherent sentences.
To make the game more interesting you can give them different themes to make sentences about.
126 | P a g e

183. ASSOCIATION PUZZLE word connections/vocab
Summary: word association puzzles
Theme:
any taught vocab
Skills:
Materials: The graph below
Time:
Making associations/connections
between words
15-25mins
Tell the students to think of any word you have been studying. In the example I have used the word
punishment.
Students must fill in the graph using any words they can think of associated with the center word much
like brainstorming. The tricky part comes, however, where the students must make sure any connected
boxes must also contain associated words (which they should be able to justify.)
Afterwards you can have a general discussion with each group justifying their choice of words.
ANY THEME
127 | P a g e

184. VACATION CARDS Story Telling/Speaking/Comprehension
Summary: Students create a story following
card based prompts
Theme:
Story telling
Skills:
Identifying and using adjectives,
creative thinking.
Materials: Cards
Time:
30mins
For this activity you will need a deck of cards, and an imaginative theme that could be crafted into some
sort of story. For example, I chose "send the teacher on a vacation".
On the board or overhead projector make a list like the following. (You could ask your student for input.)
Ace - exciting
2-depressing
3-expensive
4-heroic
5-romantic
6-fantastic
7-sad
8-almost fatal
9-cheap
10-dramatic
Jack - happy
Queen - weird
King - change one option
Prompt the students a little to get them started; perhaps offer a beginning to the story. They then must
continue making an oral story by drawing one card and continuing the story along those lines. For
example, if they get 4, then the teacher/protagonist must do something heroic or some kind of heroic
event must occur. If the students draw a K (or whatever card you stipulate), then they can change one
option. This seems to help keep the momentum in the game. Continue through all cards, with the
stipulation that the story must be concluded by the end of the deck. Obviously there is a lot of room for
variation here. Your word list and theme could be related to your unit of study.
128 | P a g e

185. 3 PICTURE STORY story telling/team work
Summary: A creative story telling activity
Theme:
Story telling
Materials: Magazine
Skills:
Time:
creative thinking, sentence formation

and situational language
30-40mins
Choose three pictures from a magazine. The first picture should be of people that are in some sort of
relationship. The other two pictures should be of objects. Have students get into groups of three or four
students to a group. Show the class the first picture and ask them to discuss the relationship of the
people in the picture. Show them the second picture and tell them that the object is something that is
important to the people in the first picture. Ask students to discuss why they think that object is
important to the people. Show them the third picture and tell them that this object is something that
the people in the first picture really don't like. Ask them to once again discuss the reasons why. After
you have finished the activity, have the class compare the various stories that they came up with in their
groups.
186. ANIMALS FOR A DAY Creative Thinking/Schedules/Writing
Summary: A creative writing activity
Level/age: high beginner advanced
Theme:
Animal lives
Materials: -
Skills:
Creative thinking, writing, presenting
Time:
30-40mins
Make a list of animals with the students eliciting both well-known animals and prompting exotic ones
too. Write them up on the board as you go and make sure everyone knows what they are. As you list
them you can ask questions such as Where does this animal live? What does it eat? Is it
dangerous? etc. Once you have a comprehensive list tell the students to choose an animal they would
like to be for a day. Once they have chosen, tell them to write 5-6 sentences about the day they just had
as that animal. What did they do? Where did they go? What other animals did they meet? Let them be
creative and you will be surprised with some of the things they come up with.
When they are finished writing have them present their sentences to the rest of the class. The other
students must listen and then ask a question about that students day. The teacher can interject with
questions at any time too.
129 | P a g e

187. MY WIKIPEDIA Writing/creative thinking
Summary: Students predict what Wikipedia will Level/age: High intermediate - advanced
say on a subject.
Theme:
Anything, countries
Skills:
Writing, reading
Materials: Internet connections
Time:
30-40mins
This is an activity 'about' the internet, but it doesn't start online. In fact it has to start offline: the idea is
that students try and predict the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry for their town, region or country.
Before the lesson, make sure there is a Wikipedia entry in English for the place you're going to talk
about. During the lesson, access to the internet in class is useful, though not essential; you could use
print outs at the comparison stage.
Ask students to work in pairs or groups. What facts would they include? What are the important things
to say it? One way to do an activity like this is to start with students working on their own, then ask
them to compare with a partner and agree a shared text, then get into small groups and make a further
draft. They can share these drafts before the next stage.
If you can go online, do it now. Invite the learners to compare their own entries with the actual
Wikipedia entry. What similarities and/or differences do they notice? What language features do they
recognise in the 'official' text? What are the organising principles behind the Wikipedia entries?
If you like, you can add an element of competition by awarding a point for everything they correctly
predict.
Extension:
Change the task to focus on different Wikipedia entries. In each case the task is the same, to predict and
compare their paragraph with the real thing. For example:
a favourite singer
an actor
a sportsman or football team
a character in a film or story
Ask them to write an 'imaginary' Wikipedia entry. These can't be compared with a real one, but can be
displayed around the class or shared on a blog. Here are some ideas for an imaginary Wikipedia entry:
my family
our school
someone they know and admire (this could be someone in their family, or a friend)
me at the age of 50 all the things I've achieved
130 | P a g e

188. HEROES AND VILLIANS creative/speaking/reasoning/superheroes
Summary: Students make and battle with their Level/age: High Intermediate-advanced
own heroes and villains.
Theme:
Superheroes, good and evil
Skills:
Speaking, presenting, reasoning,
Materials: Worksheet in the SM book
Time:
40-60mins
Teach vocab and idioms then go through the rest of the first page with students. The alter egos are
Batman, Spiderman, Superman, Ironman and Captain America.
Give out pre-prepared slips of paper to each student that say either hero or villain on them. The
students must keep this secret as it will be their team later in the activity.
Elicit super powers from the students writing them on the whiteboard. You will need around 15
different powers. Make sure none of the powers are too omnipotent. Try and direct the answers to
more of the minor powers that super heroes have like x-ray vision and flight. Later students will have to
explain and justify how one power can beat another.
Next instruct students to create their own super heroes (or villain). They can do this as individuals or in
small teams. They can only choose 1 of the elicited powers for their hero and must come up with the
following things:
A super hero name.
An alter ego what is their occupation? Personality?
A costume, catchphrase and weakness.
A heroic (or villainous) act they performed.
Students should keep their heroes powers and weaknesses secret from other students.
Now students or teams need to find their sides Hero or Villain. Everyone gets up and walks around the
classroom asking the other students questions about their character. The students cant ask directly
about the heros powers but they can ask about their heroic or villainous act. Obviously the members of
the villain team will do bad acts and the heros good acts. Once students find all the members of their
team the battle is set to begin.
The teacher announces that the teams are battling for power of New York city.
Villains always go first. The first villain comes up and explains their super powers and how it can be used.
The hero team then gets a chance to send up a hero to battle the villain. The hero team should choose a
student that has a hero with the powers able to beat the villain.
Once both students have explained their powers and how they could beat the other student the teacher
decides which one is the winner. The winner stays at the front of the class and the villains get to send up
the next student they think can beat the hero.
If one team thinks they cannot beat the other team then that team gets 1 point.
The team that has the last remaining character gets 2 points and the team with the most points is the
winner.
131 | P a g e

189. CLASS ELECTIONS politics/creative thinking/writing
Summary: A creative thinking campaigning
based activity
Theme:
Politics
Skills:
Speaking, writing, creative thinking
Materials: Drawing materials & Worksheet in
the SM book
Time:
40mins+
With the class you should first decide where the elections are taking place and what the problems are
with this city/country. You can lead into this activity by talking about electoral processes in different
countries and the various discussions that arise from elections.
Put the class into teams of at least 3. Tell them to choose one student as their class president candidate,
at least one student as a campaign manager and at least one student as a citizen. If you have more than
3 per group those extra students can choose between being campaigners or citizens.
The objective is to get other students to vote for your candidate.
Give the teams the worksheet and have them come up with a campaign strategy that is going to appeal
to the other citizens in the class and get that student elected.
How will they solve the problems of the city/country?
What campaign promises will they make?
What would they change?
How are they better than the other candidates?
What scandals have other candidates been involved in? (Be careful with this objective.)
What is the campaign slogan/theme?
Once this is all done, it is time to campaign which is done in 2 parts firstly, the campaign managers and
candidates go around the class to the citizens and outline why they should be elected and tell other
students about the above information the campaign managers should take the lead on this.
The next part is the debate the candidates will come to the front and the citizens will ask them
questions about anything they want. The candidates will debate and argue over the issues giving the
citizens a better idea of who they want to vote for.
Once the debate is done it is time to vote. Citizens will anonymously put their ballots into a box and then
the votes will be tallied. The only rule of voting is that you cannot vote for the candidate from your
team.
Once the president is chosen you can have a class discussion on why they chose that candidate and
what the potential advantages and disadvantages of this selection will be.
132 | P a g e

190. MAKE YOUR OWN COMPANY Creative/Team Work/Q&A
Summary: Students create their own
companies and hire employees
Theme:
Business, interviews
Skills:
Creativity, speaking, interviewing
Materials: Create a company handout in the
SM book
Time:
60mins+
This lesson works great when studying business English.

Put the students into small teams and have them come up with a company. They will have to come up
with all the info for the company:
Name?
Where is it based?
How many employees?
What do you make/do?
How do you do it?
Who buys your product?
How do you market it?
Business hierarchy?
Students can use the handout below to make their companies and once that is finished the students
should present their companies to the class.
At that point it is time to hire people for their company. Give the students some time to both create
questions that they will use in the interview process as well as a fictional work persona that they will use
to be interviewed with.
Once all this is finished tell the students that the interviews are going to begin. Divide the existing
company teams into 2 interviewers and interviewees. The interviewers will stay at their company and
interview people to work at their company. The interviewees will use the persona they have created to
go for interviews (in case their company goes bankrupt.) The interviewers should take note of the
students they think will be good for their company because they will choose people to hire at the end.
The interviewees should take note of which companies offered the best deal they should ask about
wages, benefits, perks, working hours etc. Make sure to tell the students this because they often will not
take the initiative.
Once the students have seen 4 or 5 people swap them around so everyone has a chance to interview
and be interviewed.
At the end bring the company teams back together and give them some time to talk together and decide
on who they want to hire. All the students should also say which companies they want to work for. If
there are companies and employees who choose each other they are the winners.
133 | P a g e

191. MAKE YOUR OWN COUNTRY Creative/Team Work/Presenting
Summary: Students create a new society
Level/age: Advanced
Theme:
Law, Society
Materials: Handout from SM book
Skills:
Speaking, critical thinking
Time:
50mins+
Put students into small groups and have them follow the handout to create their own country. This
activity is a good follow up to a lesson on society, laws, demographics, equality etc.
When students are finished, have them present their new country to the class.
192. MAKE YOUR OWN GAME Creative/Team Work
Summary: Students create their own game
Theme:
Sports, games

Poster paper, writing materials
Skills:
Writing, planning, presenting
Time:
50min
Put students into small groups and have them follow the handout to create their own game. This activity
is a good follow up to a lesson on sports & hobbies.
When students are finished, have them present their new game to the class and then have other teams
come in and actually play the game to see if its any good.
193. MAKE YOUR OWN NEWS CAST Creative/Team Work/Role-Play
Summary: Students create a TV News cast
Level/age: Advanced
Theme:
News, Media
Skills:
Speaking, critical thinking, presenting
Time:
50mins+
Put students into small groups and have them follow the handout to create their own news cast. This
activity is a good follow up to a lesson on news, media etc.
When students are ready, have them play out their news cast to the class. Each student should play a
different role.
134 | P a g e

194. MAKE YOUR OWN RESTAURANT Creative/Team Work/Role-Play
Summary: Students create a new restaurant
Level/age: Intermediate- Advanced
Theme:
Food, Cooking, restaurants
Skills:
Speaking, critical thinking, presenting
Time:
50mins+
Put students into small groups and have them follow the handout to create their own restaurant. This
activity is a good follow up to a lesson on food, cooking, going out etc.
When students are finished, customers are going to come to their restaurants and they must serve
them.
Split each team up into servers and customers. Have the servers stay at their desk and rotate the
customers around to the next restaurant.
Customers will be given a limited amount of money and they must go to the restaurants to find the best
food and service. The customers can choose the food they like from the menu and they must also give a
tip. The tip is based on how good you think the service is. The team with the most money at the end is
the winner.
135 | P a g e

195. MAKE YOUR OWN NEWSPAPER Creative/Writing
Summary: Students create a full newspaper
Level/age: Advanced
Theme:
News, media
Skills:
Speaking, Interviewing, Writing
Materials: Handout in the SM book
Time:
Several classes
This activity should follow a lesson about newspapers and the media in general. Make sure to look at
the different kinds of newspaper section.
As a class, have the students decide what kind of journalist they would like to be and what kind of story
they want to focus on. On the board write:
community & local news
world news
sports
human interest
business
horoscopes
weather
advice column
editorial
Have each student choose a section and then with the class, brainstorm ideas that each student could
write about and students they could interview for that story. It is a good idea at this point to match
students up with interviewees so that everyone is being interviewed.
Have students plan out their stories, do some research and interview the appropriate people, then write
their articles. They should submit it to the teacher for editing first and then have a rewrite.
There are lots of online templates for newspapers, so if you have time, you can organize their writing
into the real deal. It adds a lot to their satisfaction in completing the task and gives them a good
souvenir of that class.
136 | P a g e

196. CREATE A FACEBOOK GROUP Writing/comprehension
Summary: Making and maintaining a facebook Level/age: High Intermediate-advanced (adult)
group for class students
Theme:
IT - Facebook
Skills:
Reading comprehension
Materials: Access to internet
Time:
Give students Multimedia instruction on how to create a group on facebook.

A virtual tour of your own page is quite engaging. Obviously, you should make sure your FB photos are
appropriate for students and also feel comfortable giving students a lot of info about yourself.
The class (or larger teams) should talk together to find common threads for creating their group, the
main one - for improving your English.
Students then create the pages with various students assigned to taking care of the tasks involved i.e.
writing info, uploading photos, inviting others to the group etc
Tasks _
post a short random writing assignment to the wall of the group.

Post a photo of you and explain what is happening in it.
Look at other students photos comment or ask a question about the experience.
Create an event invite that will go out to the group.
Post a link in the group to:
Your favorite website
An interesting article you found
Youtube clip
Good English learning websites
137 | P a g e

Grammar Focused Activities
197. SENTENCE AUCTION error identification & correction/grammar
Summary: Students bid on correct sentences.
Level/age: Modified for all levels.
Theme:
Skills:
Error correction
Time:
30-40mins
Grammar.
Materials: List of correct and incorrect

sentences in the SM book
Write up 15 sentences some correct and some with mistakes. Give a sheet of paper with the sentences
to teams of students and let them look at the sentences. The worth of the sentence is based on how
many mistakes are in it. If there are many then the sentence is worth very little but if it is perfect then it
is worth a lot. Give the students fake money and allow them to bid on each sentence as they come up.
Then go through and check the sentences with the students who see how much hidden value they have
accrued.
There is a list of sentences in the Supplementary Materials Book, but really it should be modified for
your level and lesson plan
198. OBEY MY ORDER Time Phrases/Writing/Speaking
Summary: Students make directions for other

students to follow using time
phrases.
Theme:
Until, before, after, as soon as
Level/age: High beginner-advanced
Materials: paper
Time:
Skills:
Sentence formation, speaking,

comprehension
20-40mins
Firstly, model the use of the time clauses until, before, after and as soon as. You can give the students
examples of orders such as Everyone stand up as soon as I say GO!
Then have students write their own orders 1 order for each time clause. Write the names of the
students on the board and you are ready to start.
To play - One student reads out one of their directions and the other students must follow the direction.
If a student following the direction makes a mistake or is the last student to follow the order then they
get an x against their name on the board. Everyone reads out their orders and at the end the student
with the least xs is the winner.
138 | P a g e

199. COMPARATIVE DICE Comparatives/Sentence Formation
Summary: Students roll die to make

comparative sentences.
Theme:
comparative language

Skills:
Comparing, sentence formation
Materials: 2-4 die
Time:
20mins
Elicit sets of nouns on the board that students can compare. You could include the following categories:
Countries
Cities
Celebrities
Animals
Students
Try to get 6-12 nouns for each category.

Next, put the students into teams and have die to pass around. One team must choose a category and
then roll the die to get the specific nouns to compare. Then you can play that either that team has to
make a comparative sentence with those nouns to get a point, or the first team that makes a
comparative sentence gets a point.
200. I HAVE NEVER Present Perfect/Speaking/Comprehension
Summary: Students win chips by learning

about others experiences
Theme:
Experiences, present perfect
Skills:
Present perfect sentence formation
Materials: Chips or cards
Time:
30mins
Have the students sit in a group and give them a certain number of chips or cards. On the students turn
they must tell the rest of the group one thing they have never done. If another member of the group has
done that thing then they must give one chip to the student who made the sentence. If no one has done
the activity then the student making the sentence must give everyone else in the group a chip.
After a while the students will start to understand the game and start targeting other students i.e. one
of the boys will say I have never worn makeup to get chips from all the girls.
The student with the most chips at the end of the game is the winner.
139 | P a g e

201. DILEMMA Would you rather/Reasoning/Speaking
Summary: Students propose conditional

situations and guess the responses
Theme:
conditional clause would
Level/age: advanced
Skills:
Materials: -
Time:
20mins
First put the students into teams and then choose one student from each team to come to the front give them a would you rather dilemma such as would you rather fight Mike Tyson or fight a dog - the
student has to read the dilemma and then choose which option they would take. The rest of the
students in the team then discuss amongst themselves as to which choice they think he would do. If
they guess correctly then their team gets a point.
There is also a board game called Zobmondo that works on this premise and has some truly disgusting
would you rathers.
140 | P a g e

202. PAST TENSE ACCUSATIONS Past Progressive/Speaking
Summary: Students make past progressive

accusations which must be rebuffed
Theme:
Past Progressive, making questions

Skills:
Materials: -
Time:
20-40mins
Students are given a list of strange actions and ask their partners to come up with innocent reasons why
they were doing those things, e.g. When I saw you, you were painting over your windows. Why were
you doing that? I was turning my whole house into a big flag to celebrate Independence Day. It is
important that they say the When I saw you part each time, to make the use of the Past Continuous
realistic.
Some actions...
When I saw you...
you were patting your boss on the head

you were flirting with a stranger on the bus
you were wearing a shabby tracksuit and other casual clothes at a wedding
you were beating a pensioner up
you were hanging out with a group of 11 year old kids
you were writing insults on the board
you were bumping into lots of passers-by
you were pouring ink into your line managers coffee
you were peeling a potato with a pair of scissors
you were playing wheelchair basketball in a hospital ward
you were breaking pieces of coral off the Great Barrier Reef
you were upsetting a hospital patient
you were blaming your cousin for breaking your aunts vase (even though you broke it)
you were sitting on the edge of a cliff
you were taking the wheels off your grans wheelchair
you were standing in a line to receive free meals for homeless people
you were shouting rude words at your next door neighbour
you were climbing over the fence into a closed fairground
you were being arrested
you were wearing your mp3 player at a gig
you were struggling to pick up a 5kg weight
you were calling one of your siblings names
you were flirting with someone elses spouse
141 | P a g e

203. ADVERBS OF FREQUENCY CALLOUT grammar/review
Summary: Students try to get other students to Level/age: intermediate advanced
use the grammar on their cards
Theme:
Adverbs of frequency
Skills:
Speaking, Q&A, grammar
Materials: Cards with frequency adverbs on
them
Time:
20-30mins
Make two teams of students, each person has cards from a set with adverbs of frequency (sometimes,
never, only once, etc.) Nobody knows who has which kind of card. One person from team A asks person
on team B a question, trying to get them to respond with the adverb they have on their card. So, if I am
on team A and have the card NEVER, I will ask a student from team B: "How often do you speak English
at home?" Hopefully they will say "never" and I will get a point for my team. If not, OH WELL! Then a
person from team B repeats process and so on.
204. PRESENT PERFECT REPAIRS Modeling present perfect/review
Summary: Students practice present perfect
using a broken down house.
Theme:
House repairs
Skills:
Present perfect sentence formation
Materials: Drawing
Time:
20-30mins
On the blackboard draw a house, for example, with a broken window, a broken window, with graffiti on
the wall etc... Make your students draw it on their notebooks and then, when finished, start asking
questions:
What changes/repairs does the house need?
Show your students how to answer "The fence needs to be repaired / the grass needs to be cut"
After that, ask your students to draw another house but now with all the necessary changes in other for
the house to look tidy and pretty according to them.
Now, after finishing, pick one of your students' "master pieces" and show it to the whole group and ask
them What has been changed in the new drawing? Give an example of the answer
E.G. The walls HAVE BEEN PAINTED.
Continue picking your students works and asking questions.
142 | P a g e

205. 3 PART SENTENCES sentence formation/review/grammar
Summary: Students make sentences using
Level/age: Beginner - Intermediate
random words
Theme:
Tenses, pronouns, positive/negative Skills:
Sentence formation
and basic grammar forms.
Materials: 3 boxes, slips of paper
Time:
You need three boxes. The first should be labeled Tense, the second labeled Pronouns and the last
labeled Positive/Negative.
In each box have slips of paper related to the label. For instance, in Tense - have future, past, present. In
Pronouns - I, you, he, she, they, we. In Positive/Negative you will have one with positive and the other
with negative.
Each student comes up to the front of the classroom and pulls out one slip of paper from each box. The
teacher then calls out an infinitive verb and the student must say a sentence for the class using that verb
with the Tense, Pronoun and Positive/Negative slips they pulled.
If they get it correct - that student gets 2 points. If it is incorrect, another student can steal. I usually play
that the first hand I see up gets to try. If they get it correct - they get one point. After each correct
sentence is said aloud by a student - all students must write it down on a piece of paper to turn in at the
end of class. This way, they are practicing written and oral grammar.
206. CRAZY COMPARATIVES Grammar/ Comparatives/Speaking
Summary: Quick thinking comparative activity
Level/age: beginner intermediate
Theme:
Comparisons
Materials: Flashcards
Skills:
Comparative sentences, speaking
Time:
10-20mins
Similar to Comparative dice but with flashcards.

Have flashcards with nouns on them and two lines of students. The first two students in each line must
come up and pick up a card and the first student to make a comparison of the two is the winner and gets
1 point for their team.
143 | P a g e

207. ENGLISH RUMMY Vocab/sentence formation
Summary: Students use the rummy format to
make sentences
Theme:
grammar vocab groups nouns,
Skills:
Sentence formation.
verbs, adjectives etc
Materials: English Rummy Cards in the SM
Time:
30-40mins
book
To play this game you will need to prepare a set of cards (40-50) with 3 words on each card. (For this
game you can use the English Poker cards.)
The words will be a mixture of words from the various grammatical categories nouns, verbs,
adjectives, pronouns, adverbs etc.
Give each student 6 cards each which they can look at. Set the rest of the cards (face down) in the
center with 1 card from the top next to the pile face-up, this will be the discard pile.
At the beginning of each turn the student must pick up 1 card which they can choose from either the
discard pile or the store (the face down pile.) Once they have done this they are ready to play. The aim
of the game is to get rid of your cards by making sentences. The student will look at their cards and try
to make the longest sentence possible using only 1 word from each card. They then lay the sentence
down for everyone to see. In future turns students can change and add to their sentences using new
cards that they get.
They can make or change 1 sentence per turn and at the end of the turn they must discard 1 card.
The round stops when a student gets rid of all their cards, at this point everyone counts their points. You
get 1 point for each word in a sentence and if they can make a 6 word sentence then they get double
points. You are minused 1 point for each card you still hold in your hand. The student with the most
points is the winner and you can usually play multiple rounds.
144 | P a g e

208. COMPARATIVE CLUES grammar/ comparatives/speaking/comprehension
Summary: Students must give comparative
clues to their team
Theme:
Comparative adjectives
Skills:
Comparative sentence formation
Materials: Prepared comparable nouns.
Time:
20-30mins
Prep about 10-20 pieces of paper that have 2 comparable nouns on them i.e. Korea/China.
Divide the class into 2 teams and have one student from one team come to the front of the class and
choose a piece of paper. That student must choose one of the nouns and then try to get his team to
guess the other noun by using comparisons. For example if the student chooses China then he must get
his team to guess china (he obviously cannot say the word China) by comparing it to Korea e.g. it is
bigger than Korea. It can be turned into a comp by giving points to the first team to get the answer or
by timing the speed of the answer.
Include yourself and a famous star to get some laughs.
209. CONDITIONAL SENTENCES If I was I would/sentence formation
Summary: Students must continue the chain
using the If condition
Theme:
If conditional
Skills:
Materials: -
Time:
10-15mins
The teacher starts by introducing the conditional If I was rich... The next student then has to continue
the sentence If I was rich I would live in France. The next student then has to continue the game
with a conditional based upon the last sentence; If I lived in France... and onto the next student and so
on.
210. CONDITIONAL SENTENCES 2 - If I was I would/sentence formation
Summary: Students try to match If and I
would clauses
Theme:
If conditional
Skills:
Writing, Speaking, comprehension
Materials: Paper
Time:
30-40mins
Give students 2 pieces of paper. On 1 piece have them write some if conditions;
E.G. If I was rich If I had 3 arms
On the other piece have them write some I would sentences (not related to their if sentences)
E.G. I would play the guitar. I would shout loudly
Once this is finished have the students circulate around the class talking to other students trying to find
the most sensible match for their conditions. If they find a sensible match they get 1 point.
145 | P a g e

211. CONDITIONAL SENTENCES 3 - If I was I would/sentence formation
Summary: Students create conditional
Level/age: beginner - intermediate
sentences using crazy nouns.
Theme:
Conditionals
Skills:
Materials: -
Time:
20mins
Write several different crazy nouns on the board (the same amount as the students) i.e. monkey, the
president, a killer, Tom Cruise etc... Then have the students make a sentence using If I were and one of
the nouns. E.g. If I was a monkey I would throw my poop. Once it is used it cannot be used again so
students end up competing for the word.
212. PASS THE COUNTABLES Count/Non Count
Summary: Students try to collect all of one
Level/age: beginner high intermediate
category.
Theme:
count/non count nouns
Skills:
Comprehension, identification
Materials: flashcards
Time:
10-15mins
Have a large collection of count and non-count flash or word cards. Give them out randomly to the
students so they have an equal amount each (maybe 6 each.) The teacher then says pass and the
students must quickly pass one card to the left. The object of the game is to get all countables or all non
countables cards in your hand. When one student has all of one category they yell stop and they get a
point.
This game can be modified using any kinds of flash cards e.g. animals/food/jobs etc...You can also put
the class into teams and have them group-decide which cards should be given away.
213. ERASER MADNESS Grammar/Sentence Structure Review
Summary: Students compete to accurately
Level/age: Low intermediate advanced
change a sentences meaning.
Theme:
Sentence structure
Skills:
Comprehension, vocab
Materials: -
Time:
15-30min +
On the board write Subject modal adverb of frequency verb object with a sentence to
demonstrate e.g. Children should never eat candy. (Or any grammatical structure.)
Divide the class into teams and then as you go around each team they can change any word they like
from the sentence. There are several ways to play...
1. Students can race each other in a relay style to make changes to the sentence the first team to
change the sentence fully (and have it make sense) is the winner.
2. Students race against the clock everyone plays as 1 team and you go around the class 1 student
changing 1 word at a time. The teacher gives the students a set amount of lives and if they take too long
to change a word or change one incorrectly then they lose a life.
146 | P a g e

214. PERMISSION CARD GRAB Grammar/Specific Language
Summary: Language review of asking
Level/age: pre intermediate advanced
permission
Theme:
Permission language - would you
Skills:
mind, is it okay if I, do you mind if I,
can I, could I etc.
Materials: Cards
Time:
30-40mins
Put students into teams of at most 4 (each student being one suit in a deck of cards.) Give each team a
certain amount of playing cards which they must randomly arrange in pile on the desk. They must try to
pick up their own cards and if there are other players cards on top of theirs they must ask permission
from that player to move it.
The number of the card will correspond to what permission sentence that have to use to move that card
but if they make a mistake they lose their turn. Give the class a certain amount of time to play the game
and at the end the student with the most cards is the winner.
147 | P a g e

215. PRESENT CONTINUOUS MIMES Present Continuous/Active/Comprehension
Summary: Students mime present continuous
Level/age: Beginner - intermediate
sentences
Theme:
Present continuous
Skills:
Comprehension, acting
Materials: Prepared continuous sentences
(examples in SM book)
Time:
10-20mins
Students mime whole Present Continuous sentences until the other students say the whole correct
sentence. It is important they dont stop until people guess to give the idea of an action in progress.
216. PRESENT CONTINUOUS SOUNDS present continuous/active/comprehension
Summary: Students guess present continuous
sentences
Theme:
Present continuous
Skills:
Comprehension, sound effects
Materials: Prepared continuous sentences
Time:
10-20mins
Choose any one of the sentences below and try to make the sound. Can your partner guess which sound
you are making without opening their eyes?
You are knocking on the table

You are opening and closing your book/ some papers
You are hitting the lenses of your glasses
You are hitting a ballpoint pen on the table
You are clapping your hands
You are shaking your ballpoint pen
You are shaking some paper
You are kissing/ air kissing
You are sneezing
You are shaking your chair
You are kicking the table
You are punching the chair
You are moving your chair
You are dropping your book/ some papers on the floor
Choose any one of the sentences below and try to make the sound effects using your mouth. Can your
partner guess which sound you are trying to make without opening their eyes?
You are drinking soup

The telephone is ringing
You are using an air conditioner remote control
You are playing a computer game
You are crying
148 | P a g e

217. PASTCONTINUOUS FREEZE past continuous/active/review
Summary: Students try to guess what other
students were doing
Theme:
Past continuous
Skills:
Speaking, acting
Materials: -
Time:
20mins
Have 1 student come to the front and put on a blind fold once it is on, all the other students have to
do some kind of continuous action. When the teacher says stop all the students must freeze in the pose
that they are in. The student at the front takes the blindfold off and tries to guess what one of the
students was doing.
E.G. He was playing soccer.
If they get it, they swap with the student they guessed, if not they stay up and continue.
218. SUBJUNCTIVE ASSOCIATIONS Warmer/Speaking/Grammar
Summary: Students try to guess who students
Level/age: intermediate to advanced
are by using subjunctives.
Theme:
Subjunctive Tense
Skills:
creative activity, speaking, subjunctive
mood
Materials: Time:
20-30min
All your students take part in this game. One of the students goes out of the room. All the rest think of
one student (he or she should be present). The student who went out of the room comes in and asks "If
this person were a vegetable (fruit, sweet, animal, car, nature, flower, city etc) what vegetable (fruit,
sweet, animal etc) would he be?"
One of the students answers in a full sentence: "If he were an animal, he would be a dog" for instance
After some questions and answers the student who is asking the questions should guess who it is and
the game begins again with another student going out of the room.
149 | P a g e

219. PRESENT CONTINUOUS SHOUT OUT Brainstorming/present continuous
Summary: Students compete to say continuous Level/age: Beginner - intermediate
sentences.
Theme:
Present continuous
Skills:
Speaking, sentence formation
Materials: Pictures of busy scenes
Time:
10-20mins
For this activity the teacher can use any scene they think appropriate the classroom, outside, a busy
picture etc. The students compete to say or write as many things that are happening in that scene. Each
correct sentence gets 1 point.
Wheres Waldo scenes work well for this activity.
220. PRESENT CONTINUOUS ARTIST Present Continuous/Comprehension
Summary: Students race to draw a picture of a Level/age: Beginner - intermediate
Present Continuous sentence
Theme:
Present continuous
Skills:
Comprehension/drawing
Materials: Board, markers
Time:
10-20mins
Put the class into 2 teams and bring 1 student from each team to the front. Give them equal board space
and a marker. Give the students a present continuous sentence and have them race to draw a picture of
it, e.g. Two men are dancing on a table. The first team to guess the sentence gets one point.
221. SUBJECT-VERB-OBJECT ARTIST Comprehension/Sentence Formation/Review
Summary: Students draw parts of a sentence
and the others have to put the
sentence together
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Comprehension/drawing
Materials: Board, markers
Time:
10-20mins
Put the students into teams. Get one student to come up from each team and give them a different
word from a sentence.
E.G. The policeman/is chasing/the ugly/criminal
If you divide it up into 4 parts then you will need 4 students. Give each one a part of the sentence (not
necessarily in order) and make them draw their picture on the board. The other students have to look at
the pictures and try to put the sentence together. The first team to get it gets the point.
150 | P a g e

222. PRESENT CONTINUOUS MAGAZINE SEARCH Present Continuous/Listening
Summary: Students race to find a present cont Level/age: Beginner - intermediate
picture
Theme:
Present continuous
Skills:
Listening, comprehension
Materials: Magazines
Time:
10-20mins
Students race to find a picture matching the Present Continuous sentence they hear as quickly as
possible, e.g. A man is wearing sunglasses or Some animals are running. This can be done with
students have the same or different magazines; with flashcards, photos or other loose pictures; or with
pictures in the textbook.
223. NOT GETTING THROUGH Present Continuous/Speaking/Making Appointments
Summary: Students give excuses using present Level/age: Modified for all levels
continuous.
Theme:
Present continuous
Skills:
Sentence formation
Materials: -
Time:
10-20mins
For this activity divide the class into 2 groups people trying to make appointments at the doctors
office and the office receptionists.
The problem is that there is only 1 free appointment time for all of next week the doctor is busy at
every other time. The receptionist has to choose what time the doctor is free and for all other times
they will have to make an excuse I.E. He is meeting a client or He is flying to New York in 5 minutes.
The student making the appointment gets 3 chances to get the correct time and if not they have to
rotate around to the next receptionist.
Once everyone has rotated around the room see if anyone found a free appointment time the student
with the most appointments is the winner.
This can be used for present and/ or future uses of the Present Continuous tense.
224. PREFERENCE BINGO I prefer
Summary: Preference language bingo activity
Theme:
Skills:
preferences language e.g. I

prefer/like..., comparatives.
Materials: Bingo boards
Grammar, comprehension
Time:
Firstly, the teacher reads the question on the preference card Do you prefer Brad Pitt or Leonardo
DiCaprio? At which point the students write their choice in a random blank space on the card.
Read all the cards until all the blanks are filled then fold the preference cards and put them into a can or
bag.
Pick random students to draw cards, read the question and then state their preference. "I prefer Brad
Pitt." The first student to get a bingo is the winner.
151 | P a g e

Notes: You can get several phrases to state preferences so the students can choose. "I like Brad Pitt
better than Leonardo DiCaprio" etc.
225. PRESENT CONTINUOUS DIARIES Speaking/Making Appointments
Summary: Students must find time to meet
Level/age: Beginner-intermediate
other students
Theme:
Making appointments
Skills:
Speaking, sentence formation
Materials: Paper, diaries
Time:
20-30mins
Students try to find a gap in their diaries when they can meet. This can be done with real diaries with
imaginary arrangements added to fill it up and make the activity more challenging, or with role-play
diary pages. It can also be done as a mingling task, or as emailing or telephoning practice.
Have the students walk around the class talking with other students and making times to meet.
In an easier but less realistic task than Present Continuous Diaries, students are given two slightly
different diary or schedule pages and have to find the differences between them by asking and
answering questions with the Present Continuous for future arrangements.
226. TIME ZONES Present Continuous/Listening/Comprehension/Speaking
Summary: Students make sentences about
Level/age: Intermediate
what people are doing in other
countries
Theme:
Present continuous
Skills:
Speaking, listening, comprehension
Materials: -
Time:
10-15mins
A student secretly chooses a country and describes what (most/some/a few) people in that country are
doing now until someone guesses where it is. A map with time zones drawn on can help for this.
That student then makes a sentence for other students to guess. You can make it competitive by putting
them into teams.
In a similar way to Time Zones, students describe what one of their family members is (maybe) doing
now until the others students guess what the relationship is. To make it more challenging, they can start
off with vague clues (This person is breathing) and the people guessing can have a limited number of
guesses.
152 | P a g e

227. GAMBLING GRAMMAR Error Identification
Summary: Students identify incorrect
sentences and lay down bets
Theme:
Any taught grammar
Skills:
Error identification, correction
Time:
20-30mins
Divide the class into teams and give them a certain amount of copied money each. This can be done for
correct answers whilst teaching the initial grammar.
Write 3 sentences on the board (1 correct and 2 incorrect) and have them bet on which one they think is
correct. 1 student in the team should choose the answer and the rest should bet the amount of money
to promote conversation within the group. The only rule is that you cannot bet all of your money on one
sentence. It may be a good idea to set betting limits depending on how much money each team has.
The winning teams have the bet money divided between them and the team with the most money at
the end of the game is the winner.
228. LOST AND FOUND Possessive Pronouns/Sentence Formation/Speaking
Summary: Language repetition activity
Level/age: beginner intermediate
Theme:
possessive pronouns
Materials: Personal items, bag
Skills:
Possessive sentence formation
Time:
10-20mins
After modeling the grammar for possessives, ask the students to empty their pockets or purses and
choose 2 items (keys, wallets, phones, cosmetics, etc) to put in an empty bag. Make sure that everyone
knows the name of the item.
Firstly, model the activity by pulling out one item at a time and asking "Hey! Whose pen this?" The
owner must yell out "That's my pen." Then ask again "Whose pen is this?" The class must point to the
owner and say "It's his/her pen." Ask the question again. The class must respond with "Its Toms pen" or
"It's his." then ask Tom "Is this yours?" Tom must answer "Yes, it's mine."
153 | P a g e

229. PRESENT PERFECT SCAVENGER HUNT Active/comprehension/present perfect
Summary: Students race to complete tasks
Level/age: Low Intermediate-advanced
Theme:
past participle/present perfect
Materials:
Skills:
Comprehension,
Time:
After explaining how the present Perfect works, show your students a list of tasks. E.G.
Putting 3 chairs upside down.

Opening the windows,
Collecting 10 coins,
Writing some sentences on the board.
Collecting some cell phones, etc...
Now divide the class in pairs and tell pairs they'll have 1 minute to do the list of tasks, explain they must
decide who's doing what. Set the time and everybody starts the race! After the minute you say Stop
and now the SS have to say what they've been able to do. E.g. "WE have collected 7 cell phones, we
have written 2 sentences on the board, etc."
The group that completes the list of tasks is the winner.
230. THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT - Sentence Formation/Vocab Association
Summary: Students link nouns together in
sentences
Theme:
Linking words
Skills:
Sentence formation, linking words, past
tense.
Materials: Time:
20mins
This is a game based on the old tune This is the House That Jack Built...this is the dog that chased the
cat that chased the rat that ate the straw that lay in the house that Jack built."
Divide the class into small teams and give them a certain number of nouns to link together, for example
hat, horse, car, beer, dad... So their answer maybe
This is my dad who drank the beer that sat in the car that raced the horse that wore a hat... or
something to that effect.
Once the students come up with an answer correct any grammar mistakes and give points for creativity
and logic.
154 | P a g e

231. ADVERB CHARADES Adverbs/Comprehension/Sentence Formation
Summary: Students guess what adverb from
Level/age: Beginner low intermediate
the action
Theme:
Adverbs and verbs.
Skills:
Comprehension, miming
Materials: Adverb cards
Time:
10-20mins
Each student is given an adverb --i.e. quickly, angrily, loudly, happily. Then the class tells the student to
do something so they can guess what adverb it is. They can say any action, like drink a bowl of soup, or
really do it in class, like open a door or take a book from the teacher. First team to guess the correct
answer gets the point.
232. GO/PLAY/DO grammar/speaking
Summary: A verb identification game
Theme:
various sports, places
Skills:
Materials: Cards in the SM Book
Time:
20-30mins
Give out one pack of cards to each group of two or three students and ask them to spread the whole
pack across the table face down, so that no cards are on top of one another. The first person should turn
over two cards face up. If they can say how the two things shown are similar in some way (e.g. You use
a racket in both sports or They are both places with water) they can keep the cards and score two
points. Each explanation can only be used once during the game (so that they cant just say They are
both sports each time).
If they cant find a connection between the two cards they have to turn them back over and put them
back in the same places they came from, then play passes to the next person.
Discuss some of the similarities they came up with. Useful ones to mention for the later stages are ball
sports, team sports, places and words ending in -ing. If they dont mention which verbs are used with
these nouns, bring up the subject and ask them to work together to put the activities that are used with
play + noun, go + noun, go to + noun and do + noun into these four columns.
Once this is established have them play the game again but this time using the verb as the connector
between the words.
When the first team finishes stop the game and go through each teams connections making sure they
have them correct. The team with the most points wins.
155 | P a g e

233. BOUNCE Future tense/Speaking/Review
Summary: Students ask risqu questions about Level/age: Intermediate-advanced (adult)
others futures
Theme:
Future life
Skills:
Speaking, comprehension, question
formation
Materials: cards
Time:
30-40mins
Set the students out in a circle and put a set of cards in the middle facedown.
Give students a list of topics and/or vocabulary that is related to the future, e.g. retirement and
ambition. You should also include some that are a bit more risqu like remarry, bet and holiday
romance. When it is their turn a student picks one word or topic (either their own choice or random,
depending on how you want them to play the game) and then makes a future question from it. They can
make any question they like, e.g. What would you do if your husband lost all your money betting on the
horses? The student must also choose another student that they want to answer the question that
student then turns over the top card from the pile if the card is red then they must answer the
question and the questioner keeps the card (worth 1 point.) If the card is black however the questioned
student has the choice to either answer the question and keep the card or make the questioner answer
the question themselves (in which case the card goes back in the pile.)
The student at the end of the game with the most cards is the winner.
Note; This game can be changed to any grammar point but works well with the more risqu topics of
future life.
156 | P a g e

234. PERSONAL PRONOUNS BATTLESHIP pronouns/introductions/review
Summary: Students use the battleship format
to practice personal pronouns.
Theme:
Personal pronouns, personal info
Skills:
Speaking, Q&A, sentence formation.
Materials: Battleship board in SM Book
Time:
40mins +
1. First, the students must make sentences about themselves using possessives.
E.G. My name is John, my favorite sport is soccer, my hometown is Seoul etc.
2. Then, go around the class and have the students read out their sentences. As they are doing this the
other students must listen and remember the information to use later in the game.
VARIATION you can start this off as a survey where students must walk around finding out the
information about the other students by asking questions. When students meet another student they
must tell them something about the last student they met and then ask another question.
3. Split the class into teams and give them the battleship board. Students must write the names of the
students in order in the numbered spaces at the top of the board and then place their battleships in
various places around the board.
4. Battleship placement Each team can place 5 boats on the grid either vertically or horizontally.
Type of ship Grid Size
aircraft carrier 5
battleship
4
submarine
3
destroyer
3
patrol boat
2
5. Then the game begins. Teams can talk together to see which squares they are going to attack, then
they must make a possessive pronoun sentence to attack that square.
E.G. Team 1 Johns favorite sport is soccer or His favorite sport is soccer.
The sentences must be grammatically correct in order for the turn to count and if the sentence correctly
corresponds to a grid square that the other teams boat is in, then that counts as a hit to the boat. Once
all the squares for that boat have been hit then the boat is sunk.
The first team to sink all the other teams boats is the winner.
6. Students can also use plural possessives e.g. our/your/their if they can remember common threads
between students. E.G. Students can say John and Sallys favorite sport is soccer OR Their favorite
sport is soccer, which would take up two grids and give the students extra sinking power.
157 | P a g e

235. WORD CONNECTORS - Grammar/Connecting Words
Summary: Students explain connections
between objects using connecting
words
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Vocab, Speaking, Comprehension
Materials: Connection Handout in the SM
book.
Time:
Put students into teams of 4-5. Write connecting words on individual strips of paper and give one set
out to each team. Connecting words could include:
and but or so neither either because although even though too
Give each team the picture handout. One student in a group starts by choosing a word slip and trying to
make a relationship sentence linking the first pair of pictures. This activity requires great creativity and
lateral thinking, and even students who randomly pull the same word for the same pair of pictures
wont come up with the same relationship.
158 | P a g e

Pronunciation & Intonation
236. TOUNGE TWISTERS speaking/pronunciation/fun
Summary: Students try to say the tongue

twisters correctly
Theme:
Speaking

Skills:
Speaking, pronunciation
Materials: Twisters below
Time:
10-20mins
Tongue Twisters can be used as a warmer or a type of punishment in any game or teaching activity. It is
also a fun way to improve pronunciation.
1) The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.
2) Madame Minnie made a mound of many melons.
3) Nimble Lily never learns. Little Nina knows now.
4) The red bug bled on the black bugs bed.
5) Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers. (Say 3 times quickly. This is a good one to board and
do with the class to intro this activity)
6) What noise annoys an oyster? A noisy noise annoys an oyster?
7) She sells seashells at the sea-shore. Are the seashells she sells, seashells for sure?
8) Silly Sally is shaking some sugar on her shiny shoes.
9) The rat ran through the river with a lump of raw liver.
10) They think that this Thursday is the 30th.
11) Jolly General Jimmy Jones joked with Japanese John.
12) How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A
woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
13) The zoos zebras swam through the zebra zone.
14) Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled
peppers, where is the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
15) Dont dilly dally in Denver or disdain your daily duty. (2 times quickly)
16) Little Luke lost a lot of labeled letters. If Little Luke lost a lot of labeled letters,
where are the labeled letters Little Luke lost?
159 | P a g e

237. NUMBERS PRONUNCIATION pronunciation/comprehension
Summary: Students identify problem

pronunciation
Theme:
Pronunciation

Skills:
Listening pronunciation
Materials: List of problem words.
Time:
15-30mins
Choose 10 words with sounds that the students have been having trouble with. For example if your
students are having trouble with the S and TH sounds then you can use these words
1. Think
2. Sink
3. Thing
4. Sing
5. Thigh
6. Sigh
7. Thank
8. Sank
9. throw
0. Sew
Write the words and numbers up on the board and divide the class into 2 teams.
1 team will choose a student from the opposite team and give them a sequence of words to read out.
For example; 4-1-0-5-8 (sing, think, sew, thigh, sank)
That student then reads that sequence of words to their own team, each of which write down what they
think is the number sequence. That team gets points for each correct number-word.
The teams then swap and you play until all students have had a turn.
160 | P a g e

238. PRONUNCIATION COUNT DOWN Pronunciation
Summary: Pronunciation listening activity.
Theme:
Skills:
Listening comprehension
Time:
5-15mins
Pronunciation
Materials: The worksheet below/digital timer
Print out the work sheet and give one to each student.
The idea of the game is for the students to listen to the teachers pronunciation in order to go down the
list and get to a final number. As the game progresses the teacher reads the sequence of words faster
making it more difficult to distinguish between the words.
Each student is given 2 lives and each time they get the wrong number they lose a life. Once they lose all
their lives they are out, while the student to live the longest is the winner.
In the 1st round the teacher should read all the words in 5 seconds. In the second round it should go
down to 4 seconds, then 3, then 2 then 1 with students being eliminated the whole way down.
Word sequence variations:
Puzzle 1.
Cash say light road rate =32
Cash they light road late = 23
Catch they right load late = 1
Catch say right load rate = 10
Cash they right load late = 17
Puzzle 2.
Think thank cloth dog walk = 1
Sink sank clock duck work = 32
Sink thank cloth duck walk = 19
Think sank clock dog work = 14
Sink thank clock dog walk = 21
161 | P a g e

239. BANANA BANANA Pronunciation/Intonation/Fun
Summary: Students can only speak using the

word Banana
Theme:
Intonation
Level/age: Any level (good for younger students)

Skills:
Intonation
Materials: -
Time:
20mins
Put students into pairs and have 1 student facing away from the board so that they cannot see it. Write
an emotive sentence or phrase on the board and explain to the students who can see the board that
they will have to read the sentence to their partner BUT they can only say the word BANANA.
The idea is that students have to use their intonation and expression to get the message across. The
activity is meant to illustrate how important intonation is in expressing something so that might be
something to touch on before doing the activity.
240. KNOCK ON WOOD PRONUNCIATION pronunciation/reading
Summary: Students identify sounds.
Theme:
Pronunciation identification
Materials: Passage modeling selected

pronunciation problems
Skills:
Listening, prediction
Time:
20-40mins
Choose a passage that is level appropriate for your class and that also has lots of examples of a
pronunciation point you want to go over.
Firstly model the pronunciation for the students and go over some words that might have those sounds.
Once this is done, have the students look over the provided passage and predict which words have this
sound, then start reading.
The class reads the passage one word per student at a time, except when a student comes to a word
that has the sound instead of saying the word they have to knock on the desk the game then moves to
the next student who must decide if the previous student is correct or not by either knocking on the
desk (for approval) or by speaking up to say that theyre wrong. This continues around all the students
so if the initial student who knocked is correct then there will be a round of knocks which goes back to
that student. If the student gets knocks from the whole class then they get 1 point. If a student
challenges that students sound identification correctly then the challenger gets the point.
The student with the most points at the end of the passage is the winner.
162 | P a g e

241. INTONATION FUN warmer/pronunciation
Summary: Students practice saying common
phrases in different tones
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Pronunciation, Intonation
Materials: -
Time:
20mins
Use this activity to underline the importance of intonation when your students, as they often do, talk
like robots. Put them into pairs and have them practice saying the words in quotation marks in the
contexts that follow. When they have had some fun practicing bring the class together and test to see
which students have the most accurate intonation. Model it for them if they are way off base.
Encourage them to be theatrical and exaggerated, this gives them a better feel for the expression
needed.
'Hello'
To a friend.
To a friend you haven't seen for 3 years.
To a neighbor that you don't like.
To a 6 month old baby.
To 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 airport.
to someone who has been annoying you.
to a child starting his very first day at school.
'How are you?'

to someone you haven't seen for 20 years.
to 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 goes to pubs.
as a response to someone who has told you they sometimes go to pubs.
'What have you done?'

to someone who claims to have fixed your television only that now it's worse than before.
to someone who is scolding you for not doing anything when you suspect the same about them.
to someone who has just done something very bad and which has serious consequences.
163 | P a g e

242. THE ACTORS VOICE Pronunciation/Intonation
Summary: Students practice saying common
phrases in different tones
Theme:
Anything
Skills:
Pronunciation, Intonation
Materials: -
Time:
20mins
This activity is very similar to intonation fun, just with a few different examples and tasks. It can be used
as a warmer to inject some life into the class. The teacher can model some of the examples first and
then partner students and have them practice with each other.
1. Say hello:
i) in a happy way
ii) in a sad way
iii) in a bored way
iv) in a sexy way
v) to a friend
vi) to a customer
1. Say a persons name:

i) in an angry way
ii) like you love that person
iii) like you hate that person
1. Say Come here now:

i) to a dog or cat
ii) to a kid who has been naughty
iii) to a very shy person
1. Say So Long or Goodbye:

i) to a person you are happy to see leave
ii) to your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife
iii) to somebody that you will never see again
iv) to somebody you dont know well, or you just met
164 | P a g e

Role-Plays
243. EMOTION/SITUATION MATCH UP Speaking/Role-play/Creative Thinking
Summary: Students create role-plays to

illustrate an emotion in a situation
Theme:
Emotions

Skills:
Speaking, Creative Thinking
Materials: A dice
Time:
30mins+
Put students into small groups. 3 is good.

Write 1-6 on the board and elicit 6 different and interesting situations from the students. Then do the
same again but this time elicit 6 different emotions.
Now, have a student from each team roll the dice twice. The first number will indicate the situation and
the second will indicate the emotion. Once both of those are decided, give each team 5 minutes to
come up with a role-play that illustrates both of their ideas. When time is up, have them come up and
display their role-play.
244. COMPLAINT MENU complaining/role-play/speaking
Summary: Students role-play making
complaints to various people
Theme:
Complaints
Skills:
Speaking, reasoning
Materials: Complaint topics
Time:
30mins+
1. On the board write "NEIGHBOR COMPLAINT MENU" then ask around the class for sample complaints.
Write them on the board. The board might look like this:
NEIGHBOR COMPLAINT MENU
They always have noisy parties.

The dog barks all night.
The children are really naughty.
There is always trash in front of the house.
2. Put students in groups of 3 and have ready an A4 sheet of paper for each group. Each sheet of paper
has one of the following headings:
NEIGHBOR COMPLAINT MENU

BOSS COMPLAINT MENU
BROTHER/SISTER COMPLAINT MENU
HUSBAND/WIFE COMPLAINT MENU
FRIEND COMPLAINT MENU
RESTAURANT MANAGER COMPLAINT MENU
BOYFRIEND/GIRLFRIEND COMPLAINT MENU and so on....
165 | P a g e

Each group of students then chooses one of the complaints topics and begins to write complaints on
their sheet of paper (as you modelled on the board).
3. Rotate the complaint menus every 3 or 4 minutes so each group gets to work on each menu. In this
way they get a feel for the different kind of complaints.
4. Once the menus have rotated right round the class or the sheets of paper are full of complaints tell
the students to stop writing and model the final part of the activity - the role-play. Pick up one menu
(Neighbourhood Complaint Menu) and address a pair of students saying:
"Look, you are my neighbors and I'm not very happy. My first complaint is that you always have
noisy parties."
The "neighbor" students will apologize and try to make excuses and then you continue through the
complaints....
"Also, there is always rubbish in front of your house..."
5. Finally, pair the students up. Give this student one of the complaint menus. The students then begin
to role-play. Be sure to rotate the students and menus around to keep the topic material and responses
fresh.
245. ROLE-PLAYS Role-Play/Speaking/Reasoning
Summary: Students practice speaking in quick
role-play situations
Theme:
Various situations
Skills:
Speaking, Q&A, conversation
Materials: Role-play situations
Time:
30mins
Role play 1 WORLD TOUR

Student A
Youve just arrived in your first country at the beginning of your world tour. Youre worried about
money and so youd like to find a cheap hotel to stay in. Try and convince your friends that this is the
best option.
Student B
Youve just arrived in your first country at the beginning of your world tour. You want to start your
holiday in style and stay in a nice hotel. Try and convince your friends that this is the best idea.
Student C
Youve just arrived in your first country at the beginning of your world tour. Your friends have got
different ideas about where they would like to stay. Listen to them and decide who you agree with.
Role-play 2 ROBBED
Student A
Youre now in your second country but unfortunately youve just been mugged and have lost your bag
with your passport, air tickets and money in it. Youre at the police station to report the theft.
Student B
166 | P a g e

Youre now in your second country but unfortunately your friends bags been stolen. Youre at the
police station to help your friend.
Student C
Youre a police officer. Two westerners are in your police station to report a theft. You dont believe
their story. Ask them a lot of questions to find out if they are telling the truth.
Role-play 3 CALLING HOME
Student A
Because of the mugging you phone home to talk to your parents. You want your parents to send you
some money urgently because you have no money left. Reassure your parents that everything is OK
and get as much money as possible.
Student B
You are Mum. You are upset about what has happened to your child. You dont want to send him/her
any money because you want him/her to come back home immediately.
Student C
You are Dad. You are upset about what has happened to your child. You dont want to send him/her
any money because you want him/her to come back home immediately.
Role-play 4 NEW COUNTRIES
Student A
Youre in Malaysia and youve fallen in love with Asia. Now you really want to go to Thailand because
youve heard theyve got the best beaches in the world. Try and convince your friends to come with
you.
Student B
Youre in Malaysia and feel quite happy. Your two friends have got very different ideas about where to
go next. Listen to your friends and then tell them what you would like to do.
Student C
Youre in Malaysia but you want to leave. You are tired of travelling and you miss your home and your
home cooking. Try and convince your friends to come home with you.
Role-play 5 - LOVE
Student A
Youre ecstatically happy. Youve fallen in love with a boy/girl from the country you are visiting and
youve decided you want to buy a house on the beach and live there forever. Tell your friends about
your big decision.
Student B
Your friend has something important to tell you. Listen carefully and then respond: You think your
friends gone mad and he/she is going to make a terrible decision. Think of all the reasons why his/her
plan is crazy and convince him/her to come back home with you.
Student C
Your friend has something important to tell you. Listen carefully and then respond: You think your
friends gone mad (crazy) and he/she is going to make a terrible decision. Think of all the reasons why
his/her
plan is crazy and convince him/her to come back home with you.
167 | P a g e

246. PLAYING HOUSE Role-Plays/Medicine/Doctors/Symptoms
Summary: Students role-play as patients and

doctors to try and figure out what
the problems are
Theme:
Medicine
Level/age: High Intermediate Advanced
Skills:
Speaking, Listening, reading, Research
Materials: Handouts in the SM book
Time:
1hr+
This exercise is designed for students to explore the vocabulary and ideas of health and medicine
through competitive role playing. If the class is high enough you can introduce this activity by doing a full
lesson on House MD. The ideas work excellently together and then after watching you can offer the
students the chance to be House themselves. For lower levels something like Scrubs might work better.
Firstly, put students into small teams and give them the symptoms handout. Tell students to go through
the list and discuss which symptoms they know and what symptoms and sicknesses they have had
before.
Next, divide the class into 2 even sides Doctors and patients. Hand out the role play cards for doctors
and patients. If you have less students and dont want to give out all the cards then just minus the
corresponding patient doctor cards from the pack.
Tell both sides to read their and discuss with each other the meaning of the vocab on the cards. Make
sure they ask the teacher if they arent sure of anything.
Now the game begins. Students all stand up and the 2 sides mix. The patients are told that they must go
and find doctors who can help them with their problems before they get worse, while the doctors have
to help the patients as well as trying to convince them to come to their hospital for treatment. Doctors
can also recommend other doctors to go to based on the symptoms.
Students mingle for a set period with the teacher calling out for them to change partners every so often.
When the time is up the patients should have a good idea of what doctor they want treatment from
while doctors should have a clue about what patients they will be able to cure. Do a round-up of the
patients choices for doctor and vice versa
When patients have chosen a doctor, the patient and that doctor pair up and they must go and research the symptoms online to see if they can find the matching disease. Doctors and patients then give
a presentation on that disease with diagnosis and treatment plan. Points are awarded for most creative
diagnosis, most accurate and best treatment plan.
Each patient card has a set of symptoms that match to a specific condition/disease as well as the specific
doctor who might diagnose and/or treat the condition.
168 | P a g e

Playing House Answers
Some of the symptoms may lead to different diagnoses but thats ok so long as students are researching
something. At the end there are points for most creative diagnosis, most accurate and best cure.
Patient & Condition
Doctor
Patient 1 Hay fever
Dermatologist
Patient 2 Diabetes
General doctor
Patient 3 Bi polar disorder
Psychiatrist
Patient 4 Retinal Detachment
Optometrist
Patient 5 Pregnancy (girl)
Obstetrician
Patient 6 Carpal Tunnel syndrome
Rheumatologist
Patient 7 Athletes foot
Podiatrist
Patient 8 Heart Attack
Cardiologist
Patient 9 Swine flu
ENT
Patient 10 Parkinsons disease
Neurologist
Patient 11 Kidney infection
Urologist
Patient 12 Bruxism (Teeth grinding)
Dentist
169 | P a g e

247. LISTED ROLE PLAYS Role-Plays/Speaking/Opinions
Summary: Students take on social issues with
role-play
Theme:
Various
Skills:
Speaking, comprehension, debate
Materials: Role play scenarios
Time:
30-40mins
This is an open ended role play where the students are encouraged to take their roles on and expand on
the situation using any language they can. There are conflicting debate topics hidden within the role
plays so students should be able to take sides fairly easily.
The activity can be done as teams or just as individuals with a partner.
PARENTS VS GRANDPARENTS
Role Play A
You are the parent of a six-year-old girl. You are doing your best to bring up your child, and you are
moderately strict. The big problem, you feel, is your own parent (your daughter's grandparent), who
lives with you. He/she is always spoiling your child. You want this to stop, and you will now complain to
your parent. Here are some examples of the behavior that upsets you:
Giving her too much candy & too many sweets in general (cakes, etc.)
Allow her to leave her meals half-eaten.
Letting her watch too much TV
Buying her too many toys
Allowing her to stay up as late as she likes
Buying her whatever she wants in the supermarket
(Think of MORE!)
You remember that your parent was much stricter with YOU when you were a child!
You will speak first. Say, "Mom/Dad, could we talk, please? There's something I've been meaning to
discuss with you." Then listen and respond.
Role Play B
You are the parent of a grown-up child who has a six-year-old daughter. You live together, and these
past six years you have really been enjoying being a grandparent. You feel it's more fun than being a
parent, because you have all of the pleasures of parenthood without the heavy responsibilities. In recent
years, your philosophy of child-rearing has changed.
You now believe:
Children should enjoy food & eat what they like.
Forcing a child to eat can lead to weight problems.
TV helps develop a child's imagination.
Toys & other playthings are essential to a child's development.
Children have lots of energy, and shouldn't be put to bed too soon.
It's best to let children learn to make decisions (about shopping, etc.)
Right now you son/daughter wants to speak with you. He/she will speak first. Listen and respond.
170 | P a g e

DRUNKEN FRIEND
Role Play A
It is late at night. You are at a party with a close friend. He/she has drunk several alcoholic drinks and is
intoxicated. You have not drunk any alcohol yourself, and are sober. Now the party is ending. The
host(ess) is saying goodnight.
Your drunken friend came to the party in his/her own car. It is a twenty-minute drive home. You came
by train, and were planning to return the same way. But now you are worried about your drunken
friend's safety. He/she seems to be in no condition to drive home. What will you do? (you must decide
and do it!!)
You are worried that your friend:
will have an accident
might be arrested by the police
may injure or kill an innocent person
will lose his/her driver's license
will not be covered by insurance
may be hurt or killed
Person B (your drunk friend) will speak first. Listen and respond.
Role Play B
It is late at night. You are at a party with friends. You have drunk several alcoholic drinks and are quite
intoxicated. You are in a very cheerful mood, feeling great. You had a wonderful time at the party. It is
ending, and the host(ess) is saying goodnight. One more close friend is also leaving now. He/she is
sober, and planning to go home by train but You came to the party in your own car.
It is a twenty-minute drive home.
You feel confident that you can drive home, because you:
have done it many times before
know the way home very well
have been much drunker than this before
are sure that the streets are empty now
are a very good driver
YOU WILL SPEAK FIRST. In a slightly drunken voice, say to your host(ess), "Well, goodnight, and thanks a
lot for a wonderful evening." Then listen and respond. Be STUBBORN about wanting to drive home!!
Role Play C
It is late at night. You have been hosting a party at your apartment. Now the party is ending, and you are
saying goodnight to two good friends. One has drunk several alcoholic drinks and is quite intoxicated.
The other has not drunk any alcohol.
Your drunken friend came to the party in his/her own car. It is a twenty-minute drive home. Your sober
friend came by train, and was planning to return the same way. But now both of you are worried about
your drunken friend's safety. He/she seems to be in no condition to drive home. What will you do? You
must decide something and do it!
Person B (your drunk friend) will speak first. Listen and respond.
171 | P a g e

INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGE
Role Play A
You are a young person who has decided to marry someone you love who comes from another country
(for example, America). Today you'll tell one of your parents of this decision, and ask for his/her
approval. Below are some of the reasons why you think your international marriage will be successful
(think of other reasons by yourself):
You feel that in such a marriage, you will:
develop a broader point-of-view
enjoy more straightforward, honest communication
share cultural backgrounds
have a chance to travel or live overseas
be able to raise bilingual children
You will speak first. Say, "Mother (or Father), I have decided to marry a man (or woman) from (name of
country). I hope that you will give your approval."
Act your part!
Listen carefully to your partner!
Role Play B
You are the mother or father of a young person who has decided to marry someone who comes from
another country (for example, America). Today your child will tell you of this decision, and ask for your
approval. Below are some of the reasons why you think this international marriage will not be successful
(think of other reasons by yourself). Argue against the marriage, but in the end, decide for yourself
whether or not to give your approval. Below are some of your concerns (think of others by yourself):
You worry that in such a marriage, your child will:
quarrel too much over different ways of thinking
have a limited relationship because of language barrier
have difficulty with different customs, foods, etc.
risk being separated from family and relatives
raise children who are confused about their cultural identity (which culture they belong to)
Your child will speak first. Listen, then think and respond to what he or she says. Act your part! Listen
carefully to your partner!
172 | P a g e

248. AGATHAS WILL - role-play/creative/speaking
Summary: Students create characters to get in Level/age: Intermediate-advanced
on Agathas will.
Theme:
Wills
Skills:
Creating personas, reasoning
Materials: Role-play cards
Time:
30-40mins
Agatha Rich, a wealthy business woman, has just died. She did not leave any details as to who gets
everything in her estate. All her friends, relatives, and basically anyone who even knew her for a day, are
going to have a meeting with her lawyer(the teacher) to convince him that they should get the goodies.
Write up a list of what is included in Agatha's estate. You can make it as outrageous as you want. The list
I had included things like a cottage in the Rocky Mountains, a mink coat, a luxury yacht, a house in Spain,
a mansion...I had about 14 different things on the list.
Provide each student with a character card that shows how they know Agatha. (i.e. sister, son, exhusband, neighbour, magazine reporter, business partner, crazy man from down the street who is
convinced Agatha loved him, but just never said so...) Either you can create them, or the students can.
Ask the students to be prepared to answer some of the following questions: How are you related to
Agatha? What is your name? Where do you live? Where do you work? Why do you deserve the things
you want from Agatha's estate? What did you do for Agatha in the past? What did you do for her
recently? Basically, they are creating a character with a whole story, and not just a name. I allowed them
to write out their created format on a piece of paper and bring it to the meeting.
On the day of the "meeting" go over the items from the estate with the students. Have them check off
three or four items that they want.
Then the fun begins. The lawyer can ask the questions that were covered in the preparation with the
students, but don't limit it to that! Throw in some other questions to make them think. (ie. How much
money do you make a year? Is Agatha's sister telling the truth?)The other characters can jump in any
time they want to comment on what someone has said. At the end of the meeting, the lawyer will have
to make his decision as to who gets what.
173 | P a g e

249. A SHOPPERS NIGHTMARE Role-play/Shopping
Summary: Students buy and sell goods to win
Level/age: beginner to intermediate
Theme:
Shopping
Materials: Fake money, something to

represent goods
Skills:
Bargaining, speaking
Time:
40mins
Firstly divide the students 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" and randomly 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.
174 | P a g e

Mental Stimulation
250. BRAIN BUTTONS mental stimulation
Summary: Mental stimulation and refresher for
tired students.
Theme:
N/A
Level/age: Any
Skills:
N/A
Materials: -
Time:
5min
This exercise helps improve blood flow to the brain to "switch on" the entire brain before a lesson
begins. The increased blood flow helps improve concentration skills required for reading, writing, etc.
Put one hand so that there is as wide a space as possible between the thumb and index finger.
Place your index and thumb into the slight indentations below the collar bone on each side of the
sternum. Press lightly in a pulsing manner.
At the same time put the other hand over the navel area of the stomach. Gently press on these points
for about 2 minutes.
251. CROSS CRAWL mental stimulation
tired students.
Theme:
N/A
Level/age: Any
Skills:
N/A
Materials: -
Time:
5min
This exercise helps coordinate right and left brain by exercising the information flow between the two
hemispheres. It is useful for spelling, writing, listening, reading and comprehension.
Stand or sit. Put the right hand across the body to the left knee as you raise it, and then do the same
thing for the left hand on the right knee just as if you were marching.
Just do this either sitting or standing for about 2 minutes.
252. REBEL FOOT mental stimulation/fun/warmer
Summary: Students engage brains and body
Level/age: Any
together
Theme:
Body/brain connection
Skills:
Materials: -
Time:
5-10mins
Have the students sit on their chairs, lift their right foot and make clockwise circles with it. Then tell
them to draw a figure 6 in the air with the finger on their right hand. The foot should start going in the
opposite direction. Ask the students what they think this means about your brain and your body. The
main point is that thinking controls behaviour.
175 | P a g e

253. HOOK UPS mental stimulation
tired students.
Theme:
N/A
Level/age: Any
Skills:
N/A
Materials: -
Time:
5min
This works well for nerves before a test or special event such as making a speech. Any situation which
will cause nervousness calls for a few "hook ups" to calm the mind and improve concentration.
Stand or sit. Cross the right leg over the left at the ankles.
Take your right wrist and cross it over the left wrist and link up the fingers so that the right wrist is on
top.
Bend the elbows out and gently turn the fingers in towards the body until they rest on the sternum
(breast bone) in the center of the chest. Stay in this position.
Keep the ankles crossed and the wrists crossed and then breathe evenly in this position for a few
minutes. You will be noticeably calmer after that time.
176 | P a g e

Compiled ESL Activities - Activity Directions - Updated Sept 13th, 2014

Enviado por

Dados do documento

Direitos autorais

Formatos disponíveis

Compartilhar este documento

Compartilhar ou incorporar documento

Opções de compartilhamento

Você considera este documento útil?

Este conteúdo é inapropriado?

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

Compiled ESL Activities - Activity Directions - Updated Sept 13th, 2014

Enviado por

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqw

Compiled by Edward Pye

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Introductions & Ice Breakers ................................................................................................. 11

Energy Boosting Warmers ....................................................................................................... 21

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Longer Warm-up/Review Activities .................................................................................. 38

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Theme-Focused Activities ........................................................................................................ 78

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Problem Solving & Creative Thinking ............................................................................ 119

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Grammar Focused Activities ................................................................................................. 138

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Pronunciation & Intonation .................................................................................................. 159

Role-Plays .......................................................................................................................................... 165

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Mental Stimulation ...................................................................................................................... 175

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Summary: Fun and active introduction game.

Basic introduction sentences (or

Level/age: Intermediate advanced class (4 or

This game is good for a class warmer or an introduction activity.

Summary: Students must pick who is lying and

Level/age: Intermediate-advanced (adult)

Speaking, comprehension, questioning

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Summary: Students write up their personal

Level/age: high beginner advanced classes

Targets introduction language, time

Materials: Paper for the students, tape, scissors

Summary: Students examine the line between

Level/age: High Intermediate Advanced (All

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Level/age: Any level.

Materials: Roll of toilet paper.

20 min+ depending on number of

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Level/age: Beginner advanced classes, any age.

Sentence and question formation.

Materials: Ball of string.

How your things relate to you

Materials: Anything in your pocket

Break into groups of three.

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Orange: is the motivation color - what motivates them

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

What/who/where is/are/was/were your favorite:

Animal, Actor/Actress, Album

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Finding out about more in-depth

Did you have a happy childhood?

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Materials: several different colored pieces of

Speaking, personal descriptions

Level/age: High Beginner - advanced

Speaking and comprehension

COMPILED ESL ACTIVITIES

Summary: Fun and active review activity