Bad Fruit: A Shoppers' Nightmare

Level: Easy to Medium

This is an oral communication activity appropriate for EFL learners in

elementary/primary school. (It's optimal for grades 3-6). This game is designed for
practicing "shopping" dialogues and vocabulary.

Materials: "produce" and play money.

Object of Game: To accumulate as many products as possible.

Students are divided into clerks and shoppers.

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

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

Students shop, trying to accumulate as many items as possible (each item is 1

unit of currency).

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

The student with the most products at the end wins.

Students then switch roles.

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

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

What's the Question?

Level: Any Level

Type of Activity: listening and speaking

Purpose: review question forms previously studied in class

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

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

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

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

Rationale: This game forces the students to think backwards a little, so they must
provide a grammatically perfect question. All too often, they are used to answering
rather than asking questions, so this is challenging and useful as review.
Submitted by: Tim

Toilet Paper Icebreaker

Level: Any Level

This activity is used as a "getting to know you", icebreaker on the first day of class.
 1. Teacher takes the toilet paper roll and takes several squares of toilet paper, then
hands the roll of toilet paper to a student. The teacher tells the student to take
some, more than three.
2. After everybody in the class has some paper, we count the squares we have,
then we have to tell that many things about ourselves, in English.

This activity works well with substitute teachers also.

The toilet paper is such an attention getter.

Submitted by: Linda LeBlanc

Chain Spelling (Shiri-tori)

Level: Easy to Medium

The teacher gives a word and asks a student to spell it, and then a second student
should say a word beginning with the last letter of the word given. The game
continues until someone makes a mistake, that is, to pronounce the word incorrectly,
misspell it or come up with a word that has been said already, then he/she is out. The
last one remaining in the game is the winner.

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

Bang Bang

Level: Easy

Divide the group into two teams. Explain that they are cowboys and they are involved
in a duel. One student from each team comes to the front. Get them to pretend to draw
their pistols. Say "how do you say..." and a word in their mother tongue. The first
child to give the answer and then "bang bang", pretending to shoot his opponent is the
winner. He remains standing and the other one sits down. I give 1 point for the right
answer and 5 extra points if they manage to "kill" 4 opponents in a row.
Editor's Note: Instead of saying the word in the students' mother tongue, it would be
possible to use a picture or to say a definition ("What do you call the large gray
animal with a long nose?")
Submitted by: Liz

Battle Ships - A Vocabulary Game

Level: Easy to Medium

Preparation:
Divide the students in to groups of four or five. Then ask the student to make the
name for their ships for example with the names of animals, cities, movie stars or let
them find their own favourite names.

Ask them to choose the Captain and the Shooter. The captain's duty is to memorize
his ship's name, so he can reply if somebody call his ship's name. The shooter's duty is
to memorize the names of the ships of 'their enemies', so he can shoot them by calling
their ship's name.

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

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

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

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

In the last round there will be two big groups battling to be the winner.
Submitted by: Agung Listyawan

Describing Appearances & Characteristics of People

Level: Easy to Medium (Low to low intermediate)

Each student is then give one sheet of paper. One student sits at the front of a room.
He/she describes a person and the rest of the class draws the person being described.

It is more interesting if the person being described is known by everyone. Once the
student has finished describing that person then he/she reveals who it is and each
student shows his/her drawing. The laughter from this is hilarious as the impressions
tend to make the character in question look funny.

It is a good idea to encourage students to ask the interviewee student questions about
who they are describing.
Submitted by: Darrell

Sentence Race

Level: Any Level

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

1. Prepare a list of review vocabulary words.

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

This is always a hit with kids. For more advanced students, use tougher words.
Submitted by: Thomas D. J-B

Paper Airplane Game

Level: Any Level

Draw a target (with points - like a dart board) on the white board or use a cardboard
box in the middle of the room. Then, students make paper airplanes and launch them
after they answer your question in the form of a sentence. I don't except my
beginners/low intermediate students to form complete sentence so I help them to form
correct sentences. To my surprise they will repeat the sentence several times (while
I'm helping them) just so they can throw their airplane. For beginner and low
intermediate classes, I recommend formulating questions that lead to 1 or 2 types of
answers. This allows for better memorization. For example, use CAN/WILL questions
and write the beginning part of the answer on the board "I can/will...". I recommend
giving a prize to make the target points mean something, thus peaking their interest.
Submitted by: Ell Saunders

Pictionary (Game 1) - revamp - Charades (Game 2)

Level: Any Level

Write out series of categories like professions (doctor, bus driver, etc.), animals,
foods, actions (fishing, haircut, etc.) then divide the class into groups of 2. One
student draws and the other guesses. Next turn, the guesser draws and drawer guesses.
This game works best with the arbitrary stop watch (30 seconds). This is designed for
one lesson.

Then for another day take the same categories (or create new ones) and play the same
game except students, this time, act it out (no speaking or noises).
Submitted by: Ell Saunders
Spelling Contest

Level: Any Level

First, if you have a large class you have to divide it in 2 teams. then the teacher says a
word or a sentence depending on the level for the students to spell. Students should
spell these correctly with not even one mistake. The team that has more points is the
winner
Submitted by: Revolle Soyer

What's the Meaning?

Level: Medium to Difficult

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

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

The idea of this game is to let students be creative and practice writing skills.

Then you can have the students to discuss their writings.

 Who Wants to be a
Millionaire?
You can probably guess from the title what this ESL activity is all about.
Split your classroom into groups (I use 4 groups of 10 but it can be easily
changed to suit how many students you have) and then have them take
turns answering true or false questions until they choose to stop and
'bank' their money or until they get a question wrong and lose
everything. If you have a full class of 40 (4 x 10) then write the following
prize money scale on the whiteboard (if there are only 32 (4 x 8) then
take out maybe the $500 and $500000).
$0
$500
$1000
$5000
$10000
$25000
$50000
$100000
$250000
$500000
$1000000

Ask the first student a question (usually very easy) and if they get it right then move on to the
second student in the group and ask if they would like to continue or 'bank' the $500, the
questions I use slowly get harder but in general they are relatively easy (it's more fun that way,
plus they're 50/50 so they always have a chance). During these questions they aren't allowed
any help from other students (unless they're using a lifeline, which I'll get to soon).

A few examples of the easy questions I use (for Japanese students learning English):

Doraemon has no ears - True

There were 5 members of the Beatles - False
Anpanman's weakness is water - True
I have 4 arms - False
We live on the moon - False
The sun is hot - True

I have around 50 ready to ask them but I don't find it hard to think of new one's on the fly if I
run out during the lesson.

To add to the fun, give them 2 lifelines that they can choose to use at any stage during their
teams turn (they can only use each lifeline once per round).

Phone a friend - Call someone else in the team and ask them for help (feel free to make them
pretend that they're actually talking on a phone for laughs).

Ask the group - Let the team discuss what they think is the best answer.

That basically wraps it up, with 4 groups it takes around 15mins to get through 1 round. Keep
track of how much money each team puts in the bank and you can add it up to see which
team wins.

I've had a lot of fun with this game as the students really get into it, they put pressure on each
other to try just one more question and its always funny when they play it safe and 'bank'
money rather than taking a risk. Have fun and enjoy this ESL classroom activity!

Line Up According To...

This is a great ESL classroom activity that works
particularly well with classes that are normally a little shy
and reserved, sometimes you need to get quiet students
up and out of their desks to get them relaxed and feeling
confident enough to use their English language skills.

The game involves groups of students lining up in order,

depending on the criteria you choose, whether it's their
birthday, height or any number of other options.
 Begin by splitting your classroom into teams, if there are
30 students in your class then 3 teams of 10 should
work well. Explain that they must line up in order using
only English to communicate with each other, teams
caught cheating will be disqualified from that round
(giving them a little leniency of course).

When a team finishes, the person at the front of the line puts their hand
up and you walk down the line checking that they are indeed in the
correct order. You can alternatively assign each team with a captain
who is in charge of organizing the team, making sure they don't cheat
and signalling to you when they have finished.

Give one point to the first successful team and start the next round
using different criteria, here's some I use:

Height
Shoe size
Birthday
Time they woke up this morning
Time they went to bed last night
Number of brothers and sisters
Number of pets
Number of times out of the country

For fun you can try a round where they're not allowed to communicate
verbally at all, limiting them to just hand movements and physical
gestures. Add up the final points at the end of the game and see which
team wins!
Odd One Out
Odd One Out is a fun ESL classroom activity played in a similar way
toRows and Columns, with the difference being that rather than answer
standard questions, students must listen to 4 different English words and
decide which is different from the others.

Ask the students to stand up at their desks and choose someone to go

first (or alternatively ask for a volunteer).

They need to listen carefully to the words you say and decide which is the odd one out
they can choose either their row or column to sit down with them, if the student is incor
down. Continue the game until everyone sits down.

If your students have good English, are finding it too easy or you just want to challenge
them give the reason behind their choice as well as the answer.

Here are a few examples of odd one out questions that you might like to use:

John, Steve, Matthew, Kate - Answer: Kate (because it's a girl's name)

Brother, Mother, Friend, Daughter - Answer: Friend (because they aren't family)

Summer, Winter, Spring, March - Answer: March (because it's a month, not a season)

Tokyo, Sydney, New York, Brazil - Answer: Brazil (because it's a country, not a city)

At times there can be more than one answer that you might not have thought of so feel
answers if the student has a good explanation.