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.
Level: Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper-Intermediate
Time: 5-15min.
Skills: speaking
Topic: travel, environment, stories, relationships, art
Download the PDF here.
This storytelling activity is suitable for various levels because students create their own stories using the vocabulary and grammar they feel comfortable using. At the same time, they can show how well they can use a wide range of vocabulary and phrases and also if they can use more complex grammar structures.
ESL Communication Activity: Science Role Plays
ESL Pair Work Activity: Teenager Issues
Vocabulary activity: compound nouns.
Download the free PDF here.
Continue reading ESL/EFL Vocabulary Activity: Travel Compound Nouns Dominoes
You’ve probably come across a couple of articles that shared
some funny grammar rules such as:
“Verbs has to agree with their subjects.”
or
“Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!!”
I found the original list written by William Safir and published
in 1979 in the New York Times.
Years later they were shared on the internet and became a sort of a meme.
The rules are funny and brilliant, and I think they can be used in any
ESL/EFL class as perfect examples of common grammar mistakes.
So here’s a little activity that you can do with your higher level students.
Download the worksheet>>>Funny Grammar Rules Activity
Other resources:
ESL Communication Activity: Science Role Plays
ESL Game Compound Nouns Dominoes: Town and Countryside
ESL Pair Work Activity: Teenager Issues
Level: Upper Intermediate, Advanced
Age: 16+
Monolingual classes of ESL/EFL
This activity is great for practising fluency and improvising.
1) Tell each student to chose a topic they know a lot about, are passionate about and can talk about it for hours. Give them 5minutes to prepare a short lecture/presentation in their NATIVE language. They can only write brief notes/bullet points. Don’t tell them more at this stage.
2) When they are ready, tell them that they are going to present their lecture/presentation at an international conference, but unfortunately, they don’t speak English so they will need an interpreter. (Explain that they will interpret consecutively.)
3) Put Ss in pairs and explain that they will interpret each other’s presentations. Give them 5-10minutes so they can familiarize themselves with the topic and important vocabulary that will be used in the presentation. At this stage, they can use the notes they previously prepared.
4) The conference starts! The first pair of students gets on stage ( in front of their classmates). The speaker starts their presentation and after every couple of sentences pauses so the interpreter can repeat what was said in the target language. At this stage don’t correct the Ss, let them speak and write notes so you can provide feedback later.
5) Don’t let them speak longer than 5 minutes. If time allows, you can let the audience ask follow-up questions which will need to be translated from L2 into L1 and then the answer back from L1 to L2.
6) After everyone had their turn, provide feedback on the mistakes they made and don’t forget to praise them!
Download this activity in a PDF file.
More speaking activities:
ESL Speaking Activity Worksheet: Business Plan
ESL Group Speaking Activity: Language Centre Simulation
ESL Speaking Activity: Conditional Discussion Questions
ESL Speaking Activity: Business English Role Plays
No-prep Speaking Activity: Warmer And Filler For ESL Classes
Conversation Questions Conditionals: First, Second, Third Conditional
ESL Speaking Activity: Business English Role Plays
No-prep Speaking Activity: Warmer And Filler For ESL Classes
32 Inspirational And Creative Job Interview Questions For ESL/Business English Students
ESL/EFL Speaking Activity: Role Play Debate
My students love creative activities, especially the younger kids and teenagers are always thrilled when we play a game or do some acting. I did this activity with students from 14 to 19 years. It was always a success. The best thing is, there is almost no prep and you can do it the whole lesson, or shorter versions as a warm-up.
This activity is a cross of telling a story, inventing your own and acting. I use famous stories with three or more characters so the kids can work in small groups. Then I assign the story and let them draw a card with a specific genre.
So, for example, we can have the story of Shrek and the genre is a documentary. We have three main characters: Shrek, Fiona, Donkey. If needed we could add one extra character: Gingerbread Man, or Puss in Boots. Then I give the students some time to prepare, usually 10 minutes. After that, they take turns in acting their stories, as a theatre troupe :).
You can download the activity with my stories here or prepare your own, using stories well known in your culture.
Extra activity: if your students don’t know the stories or the characters in the stories, don’t tell them. Let them use their phones or school computers to do their own research.
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!
Forbidden Words is a game card activity based on Taboo. The aim of the game is to explain given words, but without those words that you would most likely use because those are taboo – that means, you can’t use them. The simplicity of this game allows for endless variations and you can use it to teach any vocabulary you wish. This is a Business English Vocabulary game for adults and teenagers.
This version contains 27 cards, each with 5 words, which gives you together 105 words you can use for teaching or revision with your students.
Each card contains one keyword (the word you have to explain) and 4 forbidden words which may not be used when explaining the keyword. If it is too difficult to explain the keyword without using forbidden words, you can allow your students to use one or more of the forbidden words.
Download >>>> Business Vocabulary Card Game I Forbidden Words
Download Travel card game >>>>Travel&Holidays
Download Media card game >>>>Media Card Game
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!
