GAMES & IDEAS

Speaking, Writing, Pronunciation & Listening Games

1. Musical chairs: How to play- Bring some nice kids music to class. Put chairs in circle and make it short by one chair. Students listen to music and when you stop it they sit down. The one person who remains standing answers a few questions. Game continues.

2. Telephone Game for Adults : With the telephone game, the teacher takes advantage of students’ cell phones to execute the game. Write down numbers from 0 to 9. Write words with confusing sounds alongside each number number as shown in the example below:

1. Sat	6. Think
2. That	7. Sank
3.Say	8. Thank
4.They	9. Song
5. Sink	0.Thong

With these words and numbers on the board, the game can begin. One student tells the class his/her number by saying the words that correspond to the numbers on the board. For example if I am the student and my number is 254338, I will say the following words: that, sink, they, say, say, thank. The other students have to punch in the number on their phone as the student says the words that match the numbers. Later, they will call that number to see if they heard it right. If they got it right they get a point. (sent in by David Hauxwell, Teacher, UK, EF, Shenzhen)

In: http://www.esl-galaxy.com/games.html

3.Hot Seat

A lifetime favorite for most language teachers, this game has long been the cornerstone of most ESL classroom speaking activities and games. It is quite easy to play yet it gets a lot of language out of students if well thought out. With hot-seat, a student seats with his/her back to the board or to the teacher. The teacher displays a word or a flash cards. Other students describe what is one the card to enable the student guess what it is. For higher level students teachers can make hot-seat more challenging by writing a number of TABOO WORDs on the board. For example if a teacher shows the students a flash card of say a HAIRDRESSER. Taboo words could be words likes CUT & HAIR. Students cannot use these two words to describe hairdresser.This forces the students to find other ways of describing the word without the taboo words. Taboo words are most often words that can easily make give away the word of the flashcard.

In: http://www.english-4kids.com/gamespkg1.html

4. Freeze

Skills to practice: Any type of skill.
Levels: All levels of kids (simplify for very low levels)
Requirements: A ball, flash cards
Class size: 10 - 20
General rule- Ball stops with a student, s/he has to do something

How to play:

Bring picture cards or word cards to class which you want to practice. Refresh the students’ memory of the vocabulary on the cards
Pre-teach the words: “Stop” or “freeze” and make them know if they hear that, it means they cannot move. They must be still.
Next, tell students they are going to play a game. Ask students to sit in a circle. Put the cards face down in the middle of the circle.
Tell them they will pass the ball around the circle very quickly until you say “stop”. Warn that no student can hold the ball for more than two seconds. As the ball is being circled around, the teacher randomly shouts “Stop”.
The student who is holding the ball when you shout “stop” cannot pass it to the next. S/he remains still with the ball. Ask the student to pick up a card from the pile of cards facing down. The student reads or tells the other students what is on the card. Depending on their English level, s/he makes a sentence or more with the word on the card.
Ask questions to prompt weaker students. If the student cannot make a sentence(s), s/he should hand the card to another student to help, or simply ask any student to help. Then the game continues until the cards are finished.

Variations:

You can make it more competitive by giving points to any student who makes a sentence with the card or word which is picked up.

N: B- This is a flexible game, so it can always be adapted depending on the levels of the students.

In: http://www.english-4kids.com/gamespkg1.html

5. Memory or Concentration game

Tips: Great game for many language skills practice.Also easy to prepare.

Skills: Ideal for teaching words that have a close relationship. For example: Bank = get money.
For grammar, you may want to practice past vs present tenses.

How to play

In this example you will learn how to play a memory game. We will practice vocabulary and phrases related to places around nouns and activities we do in these places.
Prepare ten nouns and ten verbs that have a relationship. In this case our topic is places around vs. activities we do in these places.
The students will practice the words & phrases: First write them on the board and practice using the following question structure:

Step 1
“ What do we do in a ….?

1. Bank = get money

2. post office = send letters

3. library = read books

4. bakery = buy cakes

5. hospital = see a doctor

6. pharmacy = buy medicines

7. Cinema = watch a film

8. toy shop = buy toys

9. restaurant = have meals

10. park = go for walk

After teaching and practicing, proceed to the game. Go to the next step.

Step 2.
- Teacher randomly fills in the word and phrases into different boxes as shown below.

(For teacher only. Should be done before class)

1 Bank	2 Library	3 Have meals	4 Go for a walk	5 Send letters
6 Park	7 Buy medicines	8 Watch a film	9 Toy shop	10 pharmacy
11 Restaurant	12 See a doctor	13 Read a book	14 Cinema	15 hospital
16 Bakery	17 Post office	18 Buy toys	19 Buy cakes	20 Get money

In class draw grids on the board as shown below and number the boxes without the words inside.

(Draw this on the board for students)

1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20

Step 3:

Split the class into teams and ask them to take turns guessing two numbers that might have a combination. Every time a student makes a guess, write out the words from your sheet, which corresponds with the numbers s/he guessed. Ask students whether the words or phrases have a relationship. Surely, the relationship will be the ones on your grid. If the two numbers guessed have a relationship, ask the student to make a sentence with the combination (optional). Then give his or her team a point and leave the correct words on the board. If the combination is wrong and the class agrees it is not suitable, wipe it off quickly. For example if a student says s/he thinks box number 1 and 20 have a connection. Write out the words from your grid into these boxes. That will be BANK and GET MONEY. When the class agrees that this combination is suitable, give the team a point. If the combination does not tie with that on your grid, wipe it out immediately.

The game ends when all the words have been rightly guessed and filled into the numbered spaces.

In http://www.english-4kids.com/memorygame.html