Games & Activities for the English Classroom

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1-Chain words

The teacher gives a word with spelling and student should say a word beginning with the last letter of the word given. The game continues until someone makes a mistake, misspell it or come up with a word that has been said already, and 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.

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2-Describing Appearances & Characteristics of People

Each student is then given 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.

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3-Sentence Race

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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.

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4-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).

5-What's the Meaning?

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

• Choose a word which is  unknown to the students,  from their reading passage .
• 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.

7-Catching up on your ABC's

Level: Any Level

This game is short and simple. Write the alphabet on the board. Throw a ball to someone and say a word beginning with the letter A. This person must catch the ball, say a word beginning with the letter B and then throw it to another person This third person says a word beginning with the letter C and so on.

Obviously the game is meant to be played fast. If played with higher level students you may not want to write the alphabet on the board. There are many ways to change the game to make it adaptable to your level of students.

8-Crazy Story

Level: Any Level

This is an activity that will make your students speak in class and be creative.

• 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

9-Words Beginning with a Given Letter

Level: Medium to Difficult

The teacher chooses a letter from the alphabet. Then each student must say a word that begins with that letter. If a student repeats a word that has already been said, then he/she is out of the game. The game ends when only one student remains. That student is the winner. You can increase the difficulty by adding a timer. Only allow each student 5 seconds to think of a word.