Esl children classroom games

Give a time limit to answer e. Category Writing Game: Divide the classroom into two or three groups. Each group chooses their "captain". Each group has to tell their captain to write down as many words as they can which belong to that category. They have 1 or 2 mins. Each group takes 1 point for each word. Correct Spelling is very important in this exercise! Charades: Have a student come to the front of the class and whisper a word or show a flashcard to that student.

The student the acts out that word and the first student to guess can be the next player. This works very well with action verbs. Clothes Fun: Students form teams of 3. Each team has a bag with some clothes in it. The first team member puts on the clothes. Then when all the clothes are on, they say, " I'm dressed" and start removing the clothes, passing them to the next team member, who repeats the process.

If you have some fancy high-heeled shoes and silly hats this is a really fun game! Very young beginner students will normally only say, "shirt", "hat" etc.

My students loved it! Colors in the Air: This is good for very young ones. Give each S 2 pieces of different colored paper origami paper is ideal for this.

Teacher calls a color e. Color Circles: A good activity for young kids. Get some pieces of A3 paper and draw a large circle on each one. Pin the circles on different walls in the classroom. Model the activity: Say "Blue", take a blue crayon, walk over to one circle and color a small part of the circle. Do this for each color you plan to teach.

Continue with other students. Color Game: This is a good one for teaching the names of colors to young children. Arrange various colors of construction paper in a circle. Play some music and have the children march around the circle. Stop the music and all the children must sit down next to a color. Pick a color and sing to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" : "Who's beside the color insert name of color?

Please stand up, if it's you. Continue until all of the children get a turn. Count-off: This game requires at least 10 kids or more. They stand in a circle or in lines.

Gesture to one child and he or she says "1. After 20 restart at 1. For a higher level, choose kids at random. If they're too slow or get the wrong number, they're out. Makes a great elimination game. Cross the River: Place flashcards on floor in winding manner. Flashcards for ESL Kids. All flashcards are made specifically for teaching English to children. Directions: Build a model of a town, including some streets.

Use a radio controlled car a toy and give the controller to students. Practice directions, e. Do as I say, not as I do: A 'Simon says' game with a difference. First practice Simon Says with the students so that they understand the game and body parts. I find it works just as well omitting the 'Simon says'. Now tell them to do as you SAY, not as you do, and repeat playing the game - only this time, when you say 'touch your knees' etc, touch your ears instead, or any other part of your body.

This is a good way to see who is listening to you correctly and who is just copying your movements. Students find this game much more fun than the original. Teacher walks around the outside of the circle patting the students on the head saying "dog" each time. The teacher must try to sit in the S's spot before being tagged by the chasing S.

If teacher makes it back without being touched then the chasing S walks around the circle touching heads.

This can be done with any variation of words. Draw and Roll: Split class into 2 teams. If the drawing is correct then the student rolls a dice for points.

This game can be played 2 ways: The fastest person to draw the picture rolls the dice. Or the other way is to allow any student to roll the dice as long as the picture is recognizable and correct. I made my dice out of a box from the Yen store. Songs for ESL Kids. All songs are made specifically for teaching English to children. Just download and play in your lessons. Exercises: This one is great for over excited students who need to burn off a bit of energy.

It's also good for classroom commands and numbers. Stand the students in a line and call out instructions: "Jump 10 times", "Turn around 4 times" etc. Explosion: Give the students a topic and an object to pass around. Each student has to say a word in that topic e. If the time limit ends the student left holding the object loses. Fish: Before this game you need to have the students in pairs draw and cut out a picture of a fish for each pair.

While they are doing that put 2 parallel lines of tape on the floor a few meters apart. Have students play in twos - each student behind a different line. Teacher asks S1 a question. Next, teacher asks S2. The S who blows the fish over the tapped line is the winner.

Fly swatter game : Divide the students into 2 teams. Give the first in each team a fly swatter. Write the same array of answers on the board for each side. Ask student A a question a letter, blend, word, math problem, number, definition, etc. The first one to slap the write answer on the board wins a point. They get three questions and then they pass it to the next one. When the first player gets back to the front. Change the answers and do it again! Submitted by Tammy Edwards.

The teacher does an action and shouts out the word for that action. The students copy the action and repeat the word. Get Dressed! Split the class into 2 or 3 teams. On the board write teams 1, 2 and 3 plus the names of the team members. Each team needs to designate who they are going to dress. Write items of clothing between 4 and 6 items under each group. Tell the children that the first team to dress their person is the winner. Tell them to 'get ready', count down and then empty a bin bag of clothes on the floor.

The kids loved this game. Even the 2 children who wanted to sit out and watch were screeching with laughter. To add a bit more fun, if the team has chosen to dress a boy in their group I add 'dress' or 'skirt' to their list.

Submitted by G Holwill. Give Me Game: You can use with objects or flashcards. This works well with plastic fruit: Gather and elicit the different kinds of plastic fruit you have. Then throw all the fruit around the classroom it's fun just to throw the whole lot in the air and watch the chaos of the students scrabbling to pick them up. Once the students have collected the fruit they'll probably do their best to hide it in their pockets, etc.

Avoid having the fruit thrown back to you as they can go anywhere and takes a long time to finish this game. All craft sheets are made specifically for teaching English to children. Just print and use in your lessons. Hangman: The old favorite. Very good for reviewing vocab from past lessons. I spy: Teacher says "I spy with my little eye something that begins with B". Students try to guess the object e. Colors are a good alternative for younger students " Juice: Bring a small bottle of juice e.

At some point during the lesson take out the bottle and have a sip. This almost certainly will cause a mini-riot of kids asking for some. Here's an ideal opportunity to teach "Can I have some juice, please? Bring juice along every week, and before long your students will be requesting a drink in prefect English! If you don't want your students to be drinking out of the same bottle as you bring along a few plastic cups.

Knock-Knock: This can be used at the beginning of each class. Teach the students to knock on the door before entering the classroom. There are 2 variations for the next step: 1. When the S knocks, teacher says "Who's there? When the S knocks the teacher must guess who it is "Is that Koji? The S replies yes or no - if no, the teacher continues guessing. Having your students develop their own knocking styles makes this even more fun. Certificates, attendance sheets, lesson records, lesson plan tamplates.

Label It: This works well with newcomers of all ages who need an introduction to basic vocabulary. As long as the learners are able to identify beginning letter sounds, they should be able to do this activity. To familiarize my students with names of objects found in the classroom, I label everything with an index card that has the item's name on it.

Then I have them repeat what I read as they point to the item. The next day, I remove the cards and go through them one at a time and we place them on the correct item together. The third day, I let them label whatever they can on their own. I continue this for a few days. When they are able to independently label most of the items, I surprise them by having them labeled incorrectly.

Then they have to straighten out the mess. You can adapt this to any noun-based vocabulary list e. Your website has amazing flashcards and pictures that can be printed out and used for this. Have the students sit in a circle with you. Teacher starts by saying a word, then the S to the T's right must make a word that starts with the last letter of the word that the teacher said e.

Continue around the circle until someone makes a mistake. Line True or False: Put a line of tape on the floor and designate one side "True" and the other "False".

Hold up an object or flashcard and say its word. If students think that you have said the correct word they jump on the True side, if not they jump on the False side. Incorrect students sit out until the next game. Machine: This is good for practicing emotions and sounds.

Students form a circle and one student starts by whispering a sentence into the ear of the student next to him. Have students incorporate at least one new vocabulary word or the newly-learned grammar structure in their sentence. At the end of the circle, have the last student say the sentence out loud and see how close or hilariously far it is from the original sentence! Need ideas for the virtual classroom too? Here are 11 low-prep ESL games for teaching online.

Keep an inflatable ball in your classroom or use something else, like a balled-up piece of paper, in a pinch! Change the question mid-game. The random nature of the ball toss keeps students on their toes. Teenagers and students with more experience with English are typically better able to use it in a more productive and communicative fashion. These ESL games can be a great way to get your teenage or intermediate learners involved in the classroom and prompt them to use their knowledge of English.

Teaching online? Take a look at this 5-point checklist for planning online ESL games for teens. Turn it into a competition to speak only English during the whole period. Keep a tally on the whiteboard for each time a student speaks in their native tongue.

Cookies for everyone! Read about the most popular and effective ESL teaching methods. It can also be adapted to a variety of language levels and target grammar.

Find out how to create ESL grammar lesson plans. Have one student stand next to a seated student. You can also use these games to warm up the class when the lesson begins, during the lesson to re-energize the class or at the end of class to finish on a positive note and round off the lesson.

Using games and fun activities in class is an important part of teaching ESL. Playing games is a fun way to help students make connections between words and grammar. These connections quicken the process of building language skills. These ESL games can help both native and foreign speakers of English improve their language ability. Playing games in class also helps to focus attention, improve interaction, increase energy levels and build confidence.

Furthermore, shy or quiet students begin to open up and speak English when playing games in class. We are sure you will find our games section a useful tool in improving your students' English language ability. Past Simple Present Perfect Continuous. Discussions Essay Writing Paragraph Writing.

Presentation Skills Punctuation Reading Comprehension. Online Membership Download the Entire Library. ESL Answer Games. Here you will find fun ESL games to motivate your students to answer questions. These games can be used in any situation where students have to answer questions in class, e. ESL Brainstorming Games. These ESL brainstorming games are ideal to get students working together and using English.

The games can be used to brainstorm words from categories, revise vocabulary or introduce a new lexical set. ESL Category Games. On this page, you will find energetic category games to help students learn or revise categories of words. These games help students to focus their attention on vocabulary for a given subject or topic. These classic ESL childhood games have been specially adapted for the classroom. The concept is simple. Each person takes a turn to provide three statements about themselves.

Two statements must be true and one must be a lie. The other person must ask questions in order to figure out which statement is a lie. This ESL game does tend to work better with older kids, but, you could adjust your statements for a younger student e. This is a great ESL game for checking students vocabulary and supporting them with phonetic sounds and spellings. You start with a word relevant to the lesson, say you have been learning about different fruit, so the first word is apple. Your student must then think of a fruit beginning with e — elderflower.

Then you must think of a fruit beginning with r — rhubarb. And so on:. Now, this could be rather challenging for your lower-level ESL students. This would allow them more freedom and flexibility with their answers, providing a higher chance for lower-level students to be able to participate in this activity.

The idea is to keep the word train going for as long as possible until one person cannot think of the next word. Again, this is another one of my favourite games to use with my ESL Kids.

It is flexible in the questions you set and so can be accessible to all levelled students. I personally tend to use this with older students. I find my younger students prefer games which are more active or involve drawing. For Level stairs, start by drawing a set of stairs on the screen. Draw your students at the bottom and a prize at the top of the stairs, such as a gold star or trophy.

The aim is for them to answer a question on each step. If they answer a question correctly, they can move to the next step until they reach the top to win their prize. For beginner learners, you could have a letter or small CVC word they have to recognise and read. For higher-level learners, you could write a question on each step for them to answer or visa versa. This ESL game for kids offers an opportunity for them to be creative and use their imagination within class. Simply show the students either a selection of flashcards, virtual or physical props.

I really enjoy using physical props as I can use each item to act out the story. Students are then challenged to create a story using all of the items shown.