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Angela Gopurathingal

This is a small game and it can be used in between lessons.
It's quite simple.

The children have to react to certain weather conditions, which are:
- rain
- storm
- lightning
- hail

For each condition the children have to do a certain task.
For:
- rain: students have to sit on top of their table and form a roof above their heads using their hands to not become wet of course.

- storm: students have to hold on tight to their chairs, so that the storm doesn't blow them away.

- lightning: students have to lie down on the floor, so that they don't get struck by the lightning.

- hail: students have to sit under their table.

The teacher or a student name different weather conditions and the others have to react accordingly.  The game is more fun when you vary the time you give to transition from one condition to another.
I have played this with a 3rd grade class and a 5th grade class, both have enjoyed it very much - so I believe that this game is suitable for any grade.

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Mandy Zitt

If you have the possibility try to play this game in groups of 12 pupils or less.

This game's main purpose is to practice counting in English. All children stand up at the beginning. The first child says "one" and the child standing next to the first one says "two" and so on. If a child says the wrong number they have to sit down and are no longer allowed to play. (Make sure to keep every round short, so the children are not inactive for too long.) You could also eliminate this rule alltogether so everyone can participate at all times. To make this game harder you can count in steps, like for example "7-14-21-28-...".

Have fun!

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Alexandra Marques

Split the class into two groups and have them sit on opposite sides of the room. The groups select each one person to sit in the front of the room. As the teacher you'll be standing behind the two sitting students and you'll hold a piece of paper with a word on it (the students are not allowed to peek at that paper).
The students in the front have to figure out what the word is. The groups try to aid the students by mentioning descriptions or synonyms of the world (saying the actual world is not allowed!) The student who gets it first, gets a point for their group.
Then the groups selects somebody new to be in the front.

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(Jil Zeller)

-> Speaking practice.

How to play:
1. Choose a tongue twister you want to practice with your students.
2. Write the tongue twister on the board.
3. Practice in class and then have them practice in pairs for 2-3 minutes.
4. Have students line up in 2 teams.
5. Let the first team say the tongue twister one student at the time and see how long it takes them to say the tongue twister as a team.
6. Let the second team do the same.
7. The team who says the tongue twister the quickest are the winners!

I recommend starting with an easier tongue twister and use a more and more difficult one with the time. Here are some ideas for tongue twisters:(Zoom in!)

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Arianne Kägi
Best played in a 6. Grade.

Introduction:

Set up three chairs. Write down some questions on the blackboard such as:

“Why is the sky blue?”

“How can I be happy?”

“Why can’t cats read?”

Choose two students who speak English rather fluently to come and join on either side of you. Choose another student who will be the commentator. Explain, that you three sitting on the chair are the Dr. Know It All. You are one person so you must follow the movements of the person sitting in the middle (the teacher at this point). Cross your legs or move your arms around to see that they are following your movements. Explain that the Dr. Know It All can give answers that make no sense, and that each person can only say one word.

Example:

The commentator gets the question “Why is the sky blue?”

from the audience (rest of the class) and poses it toward the Dr. Know It All.

| Person: | Student 1 | Teacher | Student 2
|   | The | Sky  | Is
|   | Blue  | Because | Monkeys
|   | Like  | To  | Look
|   | At  | The | colour
|   | Blue. |   |

Always star by repeating the question. It gets the Dr. Know It All in the flow.

Change out the students. The teacher turns into an audience member.

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An architect, a blind person and an actor

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An architect, a blind person and an actor

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Gabriel Hänni

Split the class in groups of three. The blind person closes his eyes. Then the actor chooses a body position in which he can stay for a while. He can do whatever he wants with his legs, his arms etc.

Then the architect tells the blind person which parts of the body he has to move, that he looks exactly like the actor. If it's done correctly the blind person can finally open his eyes and check out the actor's/actress' position.

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Aline Hauser
This fun game can be used to practise the students' speaking skills in the classroom and  describe the appearance, clothing and personality of their fellow students.
How to play:
You need to clear enough space in the classroom, that the students are able to  run from one side of the room to the other.
The students are standing  at one end of the room. One students gets chosen as the ball thrower and is standing to the side with the ball. The student with the ball starts describing another student in the class, e.g. 'This student is wearing blue jeans. This student has short blond hair and blue eyes' The other students listen to the description and when  they figure out who is being described, that student runs to the other side of the room. The ball thrower then tries to hit the student with the ball as they run. If the student is hit, they are out of the game and become the new ball thrower. The two students then work together to describe another student in the class. If not, the student is safe and stays at the other side of the classroom. The game continues until there is one student left standing. That student wins the game.
Alternative ways of playing:
Each students gets a flashcard to hold with certain descriptive words on it. This  would make the game easier, as the students wouldn't have to think about ways in which to describe each others.
The teacher could also start as the ball thrower to help demonstrate the game and give everyone a chance to play.
Link: https://www.teach-this.com/esl-games/describing-games

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Sonia Calabrese

how to play:
Put 20 objects on a table and give students a minute to memorize them. Cover the objects with a cloth and ask the students to list as many as they can remember. You might choose to use objects related to your current module of study or that are connected in some other way.

It's very important that the students speak in full sentences. To support them, we could write a few sample sentences on the blackboard:

I saw a _____ on the table.
There is a ______ on the table.
A _____ is under the cloth.

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(eva de neuville)

> good for vocabulary and pronunciation

How to play:

Prepare a bunch of words and put them in a bag.

Split the class into teams of 2 and draw a line down the middle of the board.

Give one team member from each team a pen and ask them to choose a word from the bag.

Tell the students to draw the word as a picture on the board and encourage their team to guess the word.

The first team to shout the correct answer gets a point.

The student who has completed drawing should then nominate someone else to draw for their team.

Repeat this until all the words are gone - make sure you have enough words that each student gets to draw at least once!

I would use words the class according to the topic the class has been looking at (e.g. example of body parts). A means to differentiate is to have two different colours of words, one being easy words and the other being more advanced words. The children could choose which ones the would like to try.

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Anina Blattmann

The whole class plays this game. You put the class in two groups. One child of each group gets in front of the blackboard or visualizer. On the blackboard/Visualizer are a lot of pictures. E.g. an apple, a chair, a rainbow and so on. The pupils in front of the blackboard/visualizer have their back to it and don't see the picture. So it's important to show the picture after the two kids ar seated with the back to the blackboard/visualizer. The rest of the class has to discribe the picture, you (as a teacher) pointed at and the children on the hot seats have to guess what it is. The child who guessed the word or it could be a "chunk" first, wins a point for his team.
You can play this game in different ways:
-mouth the word without saying it out loud
-spell the word
-play the word without making a noise

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(Seraina Roemer)

There are many ways to play Bingo. Below, I'll list two that I have tried out myself in the classroom.

1) Everyone gets an empty Bingo form (e.g. 4x4 squares). The teacher then dictates words that the kids should write/draw into their squares in a random order. Once all the squares are filled, the teacher calls out the words at random while the kids cross out the corresponding squares on their sheets. Whoever manages to cross out four squares in a row (horizontally, vertically or diagonally) shouts "Bingo". Even if some kids already shouted Bingo, one can still go on and make the kids have douple or triple Bingo, which they can then also shout out.

2) Another way to play is the following: The teacher puts up a picture on which images of 16 words that the kids know are displayed. The kids need to think of the words and write them into their Bingo sheets. Once everyone is done, the teacher reads out the words in a random order and the kids can cross out their squares.
This version focuses more on vocabulary training since the kids need to think of the words themselves. (If they really don't know a word, they can draw it into their square and when the teacher reads out the word, they might again remember the name.)

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(Genni Boazzo)

I don’t really know the name of the game but it’s a mix between a simple picture-describing task and the telephone game.

You start the „chain“ by giving child A a sentence/story they have to tell to their partner B back-to-back. Child B tries to draw that story/sentence. After that drawing is done, Child C gets that drawing and has to describe it to child D who’s sitting back-to-back and has to draw what he's hearing… and so on.

In the end you have a sentence/story that maybe changed throughout the game and many drawings and sentences, such as the telephone game but this time you can find out where that story changed and what picture led to another.

If you want to include a writing task as well, you simply have to make the children describe the picture by writing one sentence down on a piece of paper and let them read it out loud to their partner, or fold the paper up (so they only see the description) and then reading it out loud to their partner.

I drew a little example for better understanding.

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Nadia Chamakhe

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(Adriana Lienert-Saéz)

"Black stories are fiddly, morbid and mysterious riddles for teenagers and adults. The players try to reconstruct the crime by asking, guessing and fiddling about. Only yes/no answers are allowed."
(https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/145/game-black-stories)

This card game is a lot of fun and students can learn how to ask questions that can be answered with yes or no.

Did the crime happen in___?
Was the murderer a ___?
Is the weapon____?
Were there any___?
As a teacher you can write those question on the blackboard to support the students.

Not only questions are repeated guessing and making assumptions is also a part of the game.

I think the murderer is___.
The crime probably happened___.
The reason might have been_____.

I think that games is a great oppurtunity to make the use of english fun.

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(Olivia)
This little game works perfectly in a group two or four. In front of you (it doesn't matter if on a poster, on the table or on the chalkboard) there are different pictures lined up in a row. The two groups/people start at each side of the picture row (on the very left or on the very right). Now each one has to speak out the sentence "I would like to have....on my pancake" as fast as they can. Whatever the picture shows must be mentioned as a topping of you pancake. When one is done, you quickly go to the next one and repeat the sentence with the new topping. When the two people meet,  they have to play a round of rock-paper-scissors. The winner can continue from the prior picture and the other one has to start from the very beginning. The one who arrives first on the other side of the row wins the game. In a group of four the players can be changed out after the rock-paper-scissor game.
In this game learners practice the following:
- speaking --> fluency
- functional language: "I would like to have....on my..." (It has not to be always the pancake, maybe the children want to try it out with Pizza). In a further step the negation could be introduced: "I would not like to have...on my...". This makes it more difficult as the players have to decide between the two options. The game really links to everyday situations, e.g. when you go to a restaurant or a "Dönner-Stand" where the salesman asks you about the different toppings.
If you want to see the game in action click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzX1j3h7X4k

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Fiona Meier

You prepare cards (or let each child prepare two or three) with objects/occupations/people or certain activities/verbs (can be very topic-related or totally free).
It's similar to the german "taboo"-game, but there is 3 forms. You can either
-pantomime
-describe
-paint
the word.

There's many possibilities to play it.
And as a teacher you can variate many aspects to focus more on specific skills (describing, vocabulary etc.)
You can decide / or let them choose the form to perform their card (or give certain criteria as "after every pantomime card the next child has to describe"). Or the form can be given by drawing lots (and adding more "describe" lots than "painting" lots etc.)

There is a game you can buy with a board, cards and characters on the board which can be played in groups.
But it's possible to do it yourself as class activity (two or more groups against eachother possible) or as break.
The board or score points can be counted in any ways or not counted at all.

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Link:
https://www.opportunity-china.com/blog/10-classroom-games-esl/

A favourite game among teachers, Hangman can be used at the start of the class to warm up the students and get them active. This is especially good for young students.

First, think of a word and write the number of letters on the board using dashes to show many letters there are. Then, ask students to suggest a letter. If it appears in the word, write it in all of the correct spaces. If the letter does not appear in the word, write it off to the side and begin drawing the image of a hanging man.

You have to continue this until the students guess the word correctly, your students will win. If you complete the diagram, you win.

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Michelle Meyer

All the children sit in a circle, the teacher stands in the middle and says a statement. For example: “Change places if you… have a brother.”
All children for whom this statement is true now change places very quickly. The teacher also tries to get a seat. The child who is left without a chair continues in the middle with the next statement.

This game helps the children to learn a fix sentence structure and to move and talk a bit during class. It’s also a fun way to get to know each other!

I tried it already in class and the children loved it! Have fun trying it out!

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(Eleanor McDonald)

Since I'm a sucker for fun vocabulary words this game spoke to me immediately.

The teacher writes a word that the kids can't know on the blackboard. Each student then has to write what they think could be the definition for that word on a slip of paper. The teacher reads all the definitions out loud. The students vote after each definition is read out loud, about whether or not that could be the correct definition. The kid who wrote that definition gets a point. The correct definition would also get a point, of course, even if no one voted for it.

A variation of the game could be inspired by the author Roald Dahl. He would make up words for his stories that were often a combination of actual words found in the dictionary. The students could try to figure out what Roald Dahl was trying to say with his made up word and also figure out the combination of real words that he was inspired by.

Here's a link to many of Roald Dahl's words:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/roald-dahl-words_n_57d74c2de4b09d7a687f6b35

Another great example would be Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky":

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Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll | Poetry Foundation

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This vocabulary game is perfect as a warm up activity in the beginning of the lesson or the end of the lesson when there's time left.
You can also use it as a repetition of vocabulary before an exam.

First you either divide the class in groups of two or everyone works alone.
You choose a topic of something that the students have to learn or had to learn. For example vegetables, fruits, pets or food. Start a timer for two minutes and the students have to write down as many words as possible. The team/student that wrote down the most words wins the game.

Salome Wyrsch

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The whole class plays this game together in two groups. One child of each group stands in front of the blackboard. On the blackboard is a picture which the rest of the class can see. The kids in front of the blackboard have their back to it and don't see the picture. The rest of the class has to discribe the picture and the children on the hot seats have to guess what it is. The child who has it first right wins a point for his team.
There are variations in playing this game:
-mouth the word without saying it out loud
-spell the word
-mime the word

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei0OtZsB2UQ

Have fun with this game!
Sabrina

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Vocabulary game

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I'm sure that some of you already know this game.
You are in a group and the first person starts: "I pack into my backpack ... (an object) a bottle of water." The next person goes on repeating always every object that was said before. "I pack into my backpack a bottle of water and a chocolate bar."
If the children have difficulty remembering the objects, you could draw the objects on the blackboard.

This game helps them to repeat the vocabulary and to use fix sentence structures.

Mila

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Board Race is a fun game which is useful for revising grammar strucutures or vocabulary. For instance you can include it into the lesson as an activation game.
There are two groups in a queue, each group has one chalk. The teacher writes down a topic and the students have to write as much word as they know about this topic. The group who has the most words is the winner.

Here is a link you can watch how Board Race works as a game which activates grammar: Teaching Grammar with Board Races - TEFL ESL - YouTube

have fun!
Cécile Kaufmann

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Persons:
-3 Players sitting beside each other and being one person. They are only allowed to do the same movement than the person in the middle. They can only say one word at a time. So each player will say only one word, in the order Player 1-2-3-1 and so on.
- An lively moderator who interviews Dr. Know-It-All.
-The class which questions Dr. Know-It-All.
Procedure:
Someone ask Dr- Know-It-All a question like: "Why is the sky blue?"
Dr. Know-It-All answers one word at a time: "the" "Sky" "is" "blue" "because" "the" "earth" "is" "green"
The moderator replies lively and with a lot of enthusiasm: "That was another amazing answer from Dr. Know-It-All. DOes someone has another question for Dr. Know-It-All?"
Of course it is important to switch roles regularly!

here a video for more details:
https://improwiki.com/en/wiki/improv/dr_know-it-all

have fun! :)
Loret Kneubühler

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Alessia Brupbacher

Pass the marker is a fun activity that just requires a marker and a whiteboard. In this activity, students form two lines in front of the board. Starting from the back of the line the first students say a word and then the next student. The student last in the line must repeat all the words said by the students in their line and then write them on the board. The first student to write all the words on the board and spell them correctly wins that round. The teacher should monitor that all the words are correct for each group. You can choose words from a category that they have studied recently or seen in class. This activity is a great way to recycle vocabulary and practice spelling with words.

Read and download the printable on our website: ESL Game: Pass the Marker - ESL Kids Games

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Melissa Hasler

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Touch and Go
Sonia Brack-Heinz

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Halloween Vocabulary learning with Pumpkin Jack Song

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Halloween Vocabulary learning with Pumpkin Jack Song

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Sonia Brack-Heinz

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Klicke hier, wenn du nach einigen Sekunden nicht automatisch weitergeleitet wirst.

Pumpkin Jack | Halloween Music for Kids | The Singing ... - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2N4j0fgQFY

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Klicke hier, wenn du nach einigen Sekunden nicht automatisch weitergeleitet wirst. Pumpkin Jack | Halloween Music for Kids | The Singing ... - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2N4j0fgQFY

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Sonia Brack-Heinz

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Nursery Rhymes and Songs to learn Vocabulary

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I spy withmy little eye Madlaina Behringer

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Taboo (Andrin Griffani)