Category: Games

ESL Reported Speech Speaking Activity: Gossip

This is a fun ESL/EFL reported speech speaking activity which I like to throw in when the students start to feel tired and bored by the theory and dull practice exercises.

It is a great activity to energize them while practising reported speech in the most natural way – gossiping. Not prep and a lot of fun.

Let’s gossip!

  1. Ask students if they like to gossip. Most of them do.
  2. Ask them to tell you some of the latest gossips they’ve heard. They’ll get excited, so keep it short.
  3. Explain that they are going to play a game of gossip. Tell them to prepare a gossip (it’s best not to use real gossip as someone might get offended). It can be about celebrities, friends, classmates, teachers(that’s one of the favourites).
  4. Give each student a copy of the worksheet and explain that they will talk to each other and gossip. Every time they hear a new gossip they write down the name of the person who told them and the gossip itself.
  5. Allow them to gossip for 10-15 minutes, depending on the class size.
  6. When they get back to their seats, tell them to report the gossips they’ve heard into the reported gossip column.
  7. When they are ready, ask them to report the gossips they’ve heard.
  8. Be prepared to hear some shocking news!
Esl Reported Speech Speaking Activity: GossipDownload

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ESL Speaking Activity: Conversation Cards

ESL Speaking Activity: Conditional Discussion Questions

ESL/EFL Speaking Activity: Role Play Debate

Ridiculous Holiday Complaints: Reading And Speaking(Role-play) ESL Lesson Plan

What? When? Where? Asking Questions ESL Activity

ESL speaking activity to practice asking questions.

  1. Explain the activity.
  2. Emphasis that they can only ask questions, they can’t explain the words or give synonyms.
  3. Explain that students will get a point for every word that they guess. At the end, the pair with the highest number of points wins .
  4. Divide the students into pairs.
  5. Individually consult any unknown vocabulary and encourage students to use dictionaries and look up the words.
  6.  Give students a ten-minute time limit and have them start. After 10 minutes the students swap roles.
  7. If you want them to work a bit faster, allow only a five-minute time limit.

Download the activity here.

Other pair work activities

ESL Pair Work Activity: Teenager Issues
ESL Speaking Activity: Business English Role Plays
Ridiculous Holiday Complaints: Reading And Speaking(Role-play) ESL Lesson Plan
ESL Communication Activity: Science Role Plays

ESL Vocabulary Activity Based on Taboo: Food

 

ESL Taboo Cards:Food and Kitchen

Level: Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper-Intermediate
Time: 5-30min
Skills: Speaking, Listening
Topic: Food
PDF: Forbidden Words: Food

Six page PDF vocabulary activity. 60 cards, more than 200 words.

Free sample version: Forbidden Words Food Sample

 

Click on the picture below to buy our other communicative activities.

ESL Speaking Activity Worksheet: Business Plan

My students loved this speaking activity. It is fun, it is competitive and it kept the students engaged for a loooong time. It is easy to use, just print the worksheet and you are ready to go.

Download the FREE PDF Worksheet>>>>>>Business Plan Worksheet

Try also some other activities and worksheets:

ESL Role Play Worksheet: Travel/Holidays

At The Restaurant: ESL Pair Work and Role Play Lesson.

28 ESL/EFL Conversation Starters to Spark Conversation

Business English Vocabulary Card Game | Forbidden Words

Speaking Resources for ESL/EFL Teachers: Picture Prompts

Speaking Resource for ESL/EFL Teachers: Creative Storytelling

32 Inspirational And Creative Job Interview Questions For ESL/Business English Students.

Picture Based Speaking Activity For ESL/EFL Classes

ESL Speaking Activity: Conditional Discussion Questions

ESL Travel Vocabulary Taboo Cards

This card game is very popular with my students so I’ve created more of them to cover different topics. Below, you can download the ESL travel vocabulary taboo card game.

I mentioned this activity based on Taboo game in an older article 3 Board Games You Can Use In The Classroom, where I wrote about my favorite board games I use in the classroom.  Since that, I’ve created another set of cards, this time focused on Media/Entertainment Media/Entertainment Vocabulary Card Game Based on Taboo.

Every word has three or four “forbidden words” so you can adjust the difficulty of the game
by allowing the students to use one or more of the “forbidden words”.

ESL travel vocabulary taboo cards can be used for revision, different games and students will certainly have lot of fun in the classroom.

Download the printer-friendly PDF activity >>>> Travel&Holidays

This travel vocabulary activity can be used with other resource on the topic of travel, our role play activity that contains five role-play situations: ESL Role Play Worksheet: Travel/Holidays

You will find more Taboo based cards here:

Forbidden Words: Food

Forbidden Words: Health

Vocabulary Taboo Cards: Nature&Environment

You can get all three card games in a bundle, which is a great value: Bundle of Three Taboo Card Games: Food, Health, Nature

Play and Learn! Kahoot: A Free Learning Platform.

Are you tired of marking vocabulary and grammar tests?

Do you want to revise vocabulary and chunks of grammar quickly?

Do you want to engage your students?

Do you want to have data about your student’s performance in neat Excel sheets readily available for you?

Do you want to play a game as a warm-up or filler, no prep whatsoever?

Do you want to have access to countless learning games?

Are you creative?

Do you enjoy creating your own games and quizzes?

If you answered YES to at least one question, you will love Kahoot. Continue reading Play and Learn! Kahoot: A Free Learning Platform.

Online Vocabulary Activity With Pictures.

I want to share with you a fun activity which I found on the website of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It is called Name That Thing, and that is exactly what you do. They show you a picture of an everyday object or a part of it and you have to choose the correct word. Sometimes, the object is not that familiar, like for example flying buttress. 

You will have 15 seconds to guess each word and the faster you are the higher the points. The game is a lot of fun and a great way how to learn new vocabulary.

There are also many other games, quizzes, crosswords, and puzzles. Have fun!

Some more vocabulary activities for ESL students  >>>Travel/Holiday Vocabulary Cards, Media/Entertainment Vocabulary Card Game Based on Taboo, Business English Vocabulary Card Game | Forbidden Words,

Make Game Quizzes For ESL Lessons

My younger students are very competitive and playful, and I love that about them. It is great to see that they are engaged and immersed in the activity, that they are having fun; and that they don’t even realise they are learning.

I am always in need of new resources, games, flash cards, you name it! Sometimes, I make my own, you can download them here: Media Card Game, Restaurant Menu Pair Work,  Travel&Holidays Card Game, Role plays- Travel. Another time, I happily turn to many online resources an ESL teacher can use. The one I recently used to revise reported speech, is Jeopardy Labs. It is an online template builder which allows you to build customised jeopardy (or a basic quiz game) template. It has a very simple, intuitive editor and when you have no time to build your own, you can browse games created by other people.  I got tons of results when I searched for reported speech and there are plenty of quizzes on other subjects, too!

I haven’t written the best part yet; you can create up to 12 teams, you can download the game and play it later directly from your web browser (so no internet needed for playing the game), it counts the points automatically (you just click the green plus button, or red minus button). Each game has 5 categories and from 100 to 500 points which you can assign according to the question difficulty. It has a clean, simple design, it is absolutely easy to use and I love it. Try it too and let me know what you think!

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