esl games Archives

NEW: 12 Back to School Games That Foster Teamwork and Learning

As the new school year starts and the corridors buzz with the excitement of a fresh academic journey, educators everywhere are looking for innovative ways to motivate their students, spark their passion for learning, and create a dynamic classroom vibe. When it comes to achieving these goals, back to school games are a brilliant solution that seamlessly blends the thrill of fun with the magic of learning!

And guess what? We’ve got something pretty cool up our sleeves – a bunch of back to school games that mix the thrill of fun with the magic of learning! These action-packed activities aren’t just about having a good time; they’re tools that weave teamwork, spark conversations, and light up a love for languages. So, hold on tight because we’re about to dig into a treasure trove of fantastic games that are about to kick-start your school year in style!

In education, games are more than just play – they’re like secret ingredients that blend together teamwork, chatter, creativity, and even some serious thinking.

Back to school games aren’t just limited to physical engagement; they stretch your imagination and language skills too, such as swapping treasures in ‘The Trading Game’ or weaving memory threads in ‘The Memory Web.

These activities are like a recipe that combines a pinch of teamwork, a dash of collaboration, and a sprinkle of language magic. How about joining forces to solve a puzzle in the ‘Collaborative Puzzle Challenge’ or conjuring up a wacky story in the ‘Group Storytelling Relay’? These games aren’t just flexing your muscles; they’re like a workout for your language skills, as you swap ideas, connect words, and unravel mysteries.

Whether you’re a seasoned pro or stepping into the teaching world for the first time, these back to school games are like a treasure chest of opportunities at your fingertips.

So, let’s dive into each game and watch your classroom buzz with energy, creativity, and a bunch of grinning faces. Get ready for a splash of laughter, smart thinking, and the art of working together – all while setting the stage for an amazing school year ahead!”

1. The Trading Game

Objective: To encourage collaboration, negotiation, and communication.

Materials: Various small objects or items (e.g., pens, erasers, stickers)

Instructions: Distribute one object to each student as they enter the classroom. Explain that the goal of the game is to trade their object with others and end up with an object they value the most. Students must negotiate trades with their classmates by communicating their preferences. Set a time limit (e.g., 10-15 minutes) for trading. After the time is up, ask students to share the object they ended up with and why they chose it.

2. The Memory Web

Objective: To help students remember each other’s names and build connections.

Instructions: Form a circle with the students. The first student introduces themselves, saying their name and a fun fact about themselves. The second student introduces themselves and repeats the name and fact of the first student before sharing their own. This pattern continues around the circle, with each student repeating the names and facts of the previous students before adding their own. By the end of the activity, each student will have repeated and heard all the names and facts in the circle.

3. Collaborative Puzzle Challenge

Objective: To encourage collaboration and problem-solving skills.

Materials: Jigsaw puzzle pieces (one per student), a complete jigsaw puzzle

Instructions: Distribute one puzzle piece to each student. Explain that the goal is to complete the puzzle together as a class. Students must find their matching piece by finding the student with the adjacent piece. Once all students are connected, assemble the complete puzzle.

4. Human Bingo Icebreaker

Objective: To help students learn interesting facts about their classmates and break the ice.

Instructions: Create bingo cards with empty squares, each containing a unique statement or fact (e.g., Has visited another country, Can play a musical instrument, Loves pizza). Distribute the bingo cards to students and provide them with markers. Instruct students to mingle and find classmates who match the statements in the bingo squares. Once a student finds someone who fits a statement, they ask that classmate to sign or initial the square. The goal is to complete a row, column, or diagonal by finding classmates for the statements. Celebrate the first student to achieve bingo and learn interesting facts about each other.

5. Word Association Circle

Objective: To stimulate vocabulary recall and encourage quick thinking.

Instructions: Have students form a circle. Start with one student who says a word (e.g., “apple”). The next student must quickly say a word that is associated with the previous word (e.g., “fruit”). Continue around the circle with each student providing an associated word.

6. Group Drawing Challenge

Objective: To foster creativity, cooperation, and communication.

Materials: Large sheets of paper, markers or colored pencils

Instructions: Divide students into groups of 3-4. Each group starts with a blank sheet of paper and a marker. The first student starts by drawing a simple shape or line on the paper. Pass the paper to the next student, who adds to the drawing. Continue passing and adding to the drawing until all students in the group have contributed.

7. Story Starters Relay

Objective: To enhance creativity, cooperation, and storytelling abilities.

Instructions: Prepare a list of story starters (sentences that initiate a story). Divide students into teams and line them up. The first student in each line receives a story starter and must start telling a story based on it. After a short time (e.g., 30 seconds), the teacher signals for students to pass the story starter to the next team member. Each student adds a sentence to continue the story. The last student in each line concludes the story and shares it with the class.

8. Circle of Compliments

Objective: To boost self-esteem and promote positive interactions.

Instructions: Have students stand in a circle. Explain that each student will give a genuine compliment to the person on their right. The compliments should focus on positive traits, skills, or qualities. Continue until each student has given and received a compliment.

9. Tower of Support

Objective: To foster collaboration and physical teamwork.

Instructions: Divide students into teams. Provide each team with newspapers and tape. Instruct teams to build the tallest tower using only newspapers and tape. The catch: the tower must support an empty plastic cup at the top. Set a time limit for the challenge. Test the stability of the towers by placing cups on top.

10. Emoji Charades

Objective: To promote non-verbal communication and creativity.

Instructions: Create a list of emojis representing different actions, emotions, or objects. Divide students into teams. One student from each team selects an emoji and acts it out without speaking. The team members must guess the correct emoji within a time limit. Rotate players within the team for each round.

11. Name Chain Reaction

Objective: To practice name recall and concentration.

Instructions: Have students stand in a circle. The first student says their name aloud and performs a simple action (e.g., claps hands). The second student repeats the first student’s name and action and adds their own. Continue around the circle, with each student reciting all previous names and actions before adding their own. See if the group can maintain the chain without mistakes.

12. Group Memory Game:

Objective: To improve memory and team coordination.

Instructions: Prepare a tray with a selection of small objects (e.g., pencil, eraser, coin, paperclip). Display the tray to students for a brief period (e.g., 30 seconds). Cover the tray and give each team a piece of paper. Teams write down as many objects as they remember from the tray. The team with the most correct objects wins.

End of Year Activities and Games : No-prep, Easy to Print

It’s June, the most wonderful month. For students, but mostly for teachers. We really need that break. Here are a couple of end of school activities that will help with that,

But before you start sipping that cocktail by the pool, have some fun with your students if you can. In some countries, students returned to school at the beginning of June to wrap things up. Use the last couple of days to connect with your students and enjoy your time together. Here are some quick and simple end of year activities and games for ESL classes.

No-prep end of school activities

Picture dictation

Students work in pairs. One has a picture (any picture from a textbook, their own photos on phone, whatever) and describes the picture to their partner who has to draw the picture as accurately as possible. Entertaining activity for future artists.

Picture description

A variation of the previous activity. Students choose a couple of photos(appropriate) from their phones and describe it to each other. Works great as a quick warm-up.

Write a survey

Tell the students to each write 10 questions for a class survey. Give them a topic (summer holidays, hobbies, habits, future, etc). When they have written the questions let them survey each other and report their results at the end of the lesson. They love to talk about themselves! Who doesn’t, right?

Dictionary game

Tell the students to use a dictionary(an app, online, or paper) and find a couple of words they don’t know. For each of the words they need to write down the original definition of the word and make up two more definitions that are false. Thy then work in groups of three or four and read their definitions to their classmates who have to guess the right definition. They get a point for every correct guess. This is a fun guessing game that is also great for learning new vocabulary.

Draw a giraffe

This is another activity for aspiring artists. Two students sit with their backs to each other. Each will have a paper and a pencil/pen. Their task is to draw a giraffe or any other animal or an object, but each of them has to draw only a half of the final image. They can’t see what the other one is drawing so they have to communicate, how to draw it. It’s a lot of fun and the students can have an exhibition of the finished drawings and comment on them.

Plan a holiday trip

Put the students in pairs and tell them they have to plan a trip for the summer. They have to plan the whole itinerary and come with a budget for that trip. Hiking in the French Alps? A cruise in the Caribbean? Everything is possible!

Guess who I am

You’ll need a self-stick pad and a pen. Put the students in groups of four. They will write a name of a famous person or literary character(on anything else) on the self-stick note and stick it onto the forehead of a person sitting next to them so nobody know what is written there. They have to ask yes/no questions to guess the personality. A classic!

*Prince William plays post-it note game on charity visit. Source: The Telegraph*

Mini presentations

Give each student two slips of paper. Tell them to write down a topic they would like to discuss. When they are done, take ale the slips of paper, put them in a bin or a hat and have students each draw a slip. Tell them that they will have to give a short presentation on the topic. Give them 2 minutes to think about the topic, then put them in group of four. They will have each five minutes to present their topic. If there is time at the end of the lesson, have them ask follow up questions.

Print and play end of school activities

One minute talk

This is a very simple, no-prep activity. In pairs, students give each other a topic to talk about and they have to talk uninterrupted for a minute. It is more difficult than it sounds, especially with topics such as egg yolks, armpit hair o or shoe laces. If your students lack imagination, you can use these ideas: One Minute Talk Cards.

Role plays

Role-plays are fun, educational, great for shy students, creative, fun, and did I mention fun? You can create your own, look for some online or download these:

Role-plays about nature and the environment

Negotiation role-plays based on real life situations

Balderdash

Balderdash is a word bluffing game in which you write definitions for weird words. The definitions may or may not be correct. You will find more about the game and a free PDF in this link.

Discussion questions

Another classic activity. If you don’t want to waste time googling, you can download this 120 Conversation Starters activity.

Picture description

I’ve mention no-prep picture description activities above, for this activity you can download my free PDF resources:

Picture Prompts for Speaking

Creative Storytelling

Stories with a twist

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. You can download the activity with my stories here or prepare your own, using stories well known in your culture.

Stories with a Twist

Dominoes

A fun game of vocabulary dominoes. Students can work individually, in pairs or in teams. Great for vocabulary revision.

Travel Dominoes

Places Dominoes

Online end of school activities

Jeopardylabs

Everybody knows Jeopardy. So far, I was able to find any grammar or vocabulary revision quiz I needed. Lots of quizzes on many topics, but beware as the quality varies. You can create your own Jeopardy quiz and you can also assign your students a topic and let them create their own quiz to test their classmates’ knowledge.

Baamboozle

I use this site mostly with my younger learners as it doesn’t have many higher level grammar or vocabulary quizzes.
My tip: put your students in teams (max number of teams is 4), choose a quiz and let them play the Classic mode with the power up, it’s much more fun!

Quizizz

My favorite online quiz tool can be used to assign homework (this works great) or do solo practice. Very useful during lockdown, but also anytime. Assigning homework online in just a few clicks? The system checks it? The students see and track their progress? It gamiefies the learning process? What’s not to love!

Kahoot

If you don’t know Kahoot, you should definitely start using it. Right now! Kahoot is widely popular and it’s good to know that its creators made Premium available for free for the rest of the academic year. Try it out!

The Game Gal

Here you can find plenty of simple, family-friendly games. I mostly use the Word Generator for charades, pictionary and other games. The great thing is I only need my laptop and I project the words on the whiteboard, so the students don’t need computers.

ESL Taboo Cards: Printable Vocabulary Activity

Are you looking for a stimulating and entertaining method to increase your vocabulary and communication abilities in English? Take a look our ESL taboo card games below!

ESL Taboo is a frequently played game that’s designed for teams of two or more players. The goal is to get your teammates to guess a particular word or phrase without uttering a series of taboo words or phrases that are closely linked to the target word. For instance, if the target word is “banana,” the taboo words could be “fruit,” “yellow,” and “peel.”

Using ESL taboo cards in your classroom is an excellent method to stimulate your students’ minds and broaden their vocabulary range. It’s also an ideal opportunity to develop communication skills like expressing ideas with clarity, actively listening to others, and providing feedback.

To play, split your class into teams and give each group a pack of taboo cards. One member of each team draws a card and attempts to get their teammates to guess the target word without using any of the taboo words or phrases. If their teammates guess correctly, the team earns a point. If they use a taboo word or phrase, the other team earns a point.

ESL taboo cards can be used to practice various topics and themes, such as food, travel, hobbies, and more. You can also generate your own cards based on your class’s specific needs and interests.

So why not add a dash of spice to your ESL classes with a game of Taboo? It’s an amusing, effective, and engaging way to improve your students’ English language abilities while having fun in the process. And who knows, you might even learn a few new words and phrases yourself.

Here are our favorite taboo games:

Science&Techology NEW!

Food

Health

Nature and Environment

Other vocabulary activities:

ESL Vocabulary Quizzes and Games

ESL/EFL Vocabulary Activity: Travel Compound Nouns Dominoes

ESL Game Compound Nouns Dominoes: Town and Countryside

10 No-Prep and Low-Prep Fun ESL Christmas Activities

It’s the time of the year again!

I’m slowly getting into the Christmas mood, and nothing says Christmas more than music. Although I love listening to festive music mostly when I’m wrapping presents, planning a holiday lesson isn’t that bad either.

So grab a cup of tea or mulled wine, enjoy the music and let the creative juices flow. Or try these ESL Christmas activities.

Secret Santa

You know how this works, don’t you? Every student will become a Secret Santa to a classmate whose name they draw. The catch- they will not give each other sweets or other small gifts. The gifts these Secret Santas will be giving are a personalized poem or a short story for the lucky recipient.

Baked Goods Party

If possible, have the students bake something at home and take pictures of the process. The next day, everyone will bring what they baked and the students will take turns describing what and how they baked it. Think of it as a show and tell Christmas Edition. Plus, there will be sharing and tasting.

Charity Auction

Let the students choose a charity they want to contribute to. The next day, they will bring stuff they don’t need or don’t use for the auction. Decide on the starting price and minimum bid. Each student will describe the product they are selling. The students love outbidding each other and the will learn about helping others.

Christmas Taboo

Taboo is a classic vocabulary activity. You can download the Christmas version below.

Christmas Taboo Cards

Christmas Traditions Presentations

Each student chooses a country and will prepare a presentation about the Christmas traditions of the chosen country (or any major holiday if the country doesn’t celebrate Christmas)

Christmas Movie and Discussion

Why not watch a short Christmas movie? Or download our Advent Activity Calendar for even more activity ideas.

Advent Activity Calendar

Christmas Songs Complete the Lyrics

Find a couple of popular Christmas songs, copy the lyrics, erase some words and you’ll have a nice Christmas listening activity. And an earworm!

Christmas Charades

Prepare small slips of paper
Put the students into groups of three or four
Let them write vocabulary related to Christmas on the slips of paper(or use the Christmas taboo cards)
The groups exchange the vocabulary piles
In groups, they take turns and draw one paper slip at a time. They have to act out the word or expression for the group to guess

Bucket List

Depending on the age of your students, tell them to think about the things they would like to achieve by a certain age( 15,18,25,30). Have them write a list containing ten things they want to achieve, do, experience before that certain age. When they complete the list, put them into groups of three to discuss their choices.

Christmas Postcards

Cut drawing paper into postcard-sized pieces. Students first draw a Christmas postcard and then write a short holiday greeting to a member of their family or a friend. They’ve probably never written a postcard before. If you want, you can arrange for the postcards to be sent. It will be a nice Christmas surprise.

I hope you liked these ESL Christmas activities. Share your favorite ideas in the comments!

Best English Games to Play in Your ESL Classroom

Here is an extensive list of my favorite English games to play with my students.

Board games

Cards Against Humanity: Family Edition

Yes, you read that right. Cards Against Humanity. But! This is a family edition, so it’s clean. You can download if for free and print, but, make sure you feel comfortable using it, there are some cards that may still be perceived as inappropriate for school.

Free print and play games

I’ve only recently found a website where you can find free board games. My favorite is Dixit which is great for imagination and creativity.

Dominoes

This is a very versatil game that can be used to practice vocabulary (phrasal verbs, prepositional phrases, compound nouns and adjectives, etc.) and grammar (conditionals, participle clauses, etc.) You can create your own or try these and these vocabulary dominoes or this great resource.

Scrabble

Every classroom should have at least a couple of boxes of this amazing game. This game is a must. That’s all I’m going to say.

OrganAttack

This is a medical-themed card game which was created by Nick Seluk, the author of my favorite The Awkward Yeti comic. I liked the game so much that I even backed it on Kickstarter! It looks great, the organ cards are super cute and hilarious, the game itself is fun and easy to learn. Your aim is to remove your opponent’s organ before they remove yours. It is perfect for learning and revising medical-related vocabulary.

ESL board games

These are simple, usually one sheet board games used to practice isolated grammar structures or vocabulary. You can also create board games with different conversation questions. You can try this one with a vide range of questions.

Taboo

One of the most popular English games. Revising vocabulary is always a good idea. There are plenty of different topics you can choose from. You can try our free games on the topic of Media or Business. Other topics include Health and Food.

Online games/apps

Oatmeal’s free word game

In this game you unscramble words and use them to destroy your opponent. You can get the free game here.

Baamboozle

I use this site mostly with my younger learners as it doesn’t have many higher level grammar or vocabulary quizzes. My tip: put your students in teams (max number of teams is 4), choose a quiz and let them play the Classic mode with the power up, it’s much more fun!

Merriam-Webster

Merriam-Webster is a dictionary but they also have free games and quizzes that are great for learning vocabulary.

The Game Gal

Here you can find plenty of simple, family-friendly English games. I mostly use the Word Generator for charades, pictionary and other games. The great thing is I only need my laptop and I project the words on the whiteboard, so the students don’t need computers.

No-prep games

Vocabulary revision

This activity does not require absolutely any prep from the teacher, everything is done by the students. You only need to give them a couple of sheets of paper and they will cut it or you can give them already cut into small pieces. Detailed instructions can be found here.

Alphabet game

Students write the letters of the alphabet in a column. Give them a time limit and a topic(e.g. food, classroom items, animals, etc) and tell them to write one word for every letter in the alphabet. When they’re done, put them in groups so they can compare their words.

Balderdash

This activity is based on a popular board game. It is a more fun variation of a dictionary game I sometimes play with my students. They get a couple of difficult words and have to invent fake definitions. This game is the most popular among my kids.

Questionnaires and surveys

The best thing about these fun ESL activities is that the variations are endless. You can either find some or have your students create their own. It’s more fun and they also learn more. Just give them a topic, have them write 10 questions and after that, they circle the class and interview as many classmates as possible. Finally, they inform the class about the results. Topics may include Environment, Hobbies, Books, Travel, Science, History, Media, Celebrities.

One minute talk

This is a very simple, no-prep game. In pairs, students give each other a topic to talk about and they have to talk uninterrupted for a minute. It is more difficult than it sounds, especially with topics such as egg yolks, armpit hair o or shoe laces. If your students lack imagination, you can use these ideas: One Minute Talk Cards.

Other resources:

Role-play Scenarios for ESL: Discussing Different Topics and Situations, Even Vaccination!

12 ESL Negotiation Role-plays: Real-life situations

Conversation Starters: 30 Interesting Conversation Questions Not Only For ESL Students

No Time? 10 No-prep ESL Activities, Warm-ups and Energizers

Sometimes I don’t have time or energy to print extra resources or activities.

Some days, like today, the printer in my office runs out of ink, the printer in the common area is jammed and while two colleagues are trying to repair it, I quietly leave to copy some activities out of a resource pack, but the copy machine I wanted to use, the one for students, the one that requires coins (a lot of coins) to operate, is not working.

I have no time, my lesson is about to start. Sounds familiar?

No-prep ESL activities are my life. I need them, I love them. I can’t get enough of them.

Let me know if you have any favorite no-prep ESL activities.

1) Questions? Questions!

This is a silly little game, it’s short and funny, which makes it a perfect no-prep warm up or an energizer. Put the students in pairs and tell them to choose a topic. Then, give them some time (5 minutes) to talk about it. The catch? They have to speak ONLY in questions! Its fun to watch and they can practice question tags.

2) Alphabet games

This is an excellent activity for vocabulary revision. Write the letters of the alphabet on the board, project it on the whiteboard, or alternatively tell students to write the letter down in a column. That is all the prep you need to do. Their task will be to write a word from a certain category/topic for each letter of the alphabet (you might want to omit difficult letters such as Z or X). And this is where the fun begins because this game has so many variations. The topics can include:

food
animals
objects
professions
phrasal verbs
adjectives
travel vocabulary
body parts and health vocabulary

3) Have you ever?

Tell the students to write down 10 questions starting with Have you ever. This activity is great for students that don’t know each other that well, but it works for all students, no matter what age or level. The students can be very original and curious and that can make this activity quite entertaining. When they’ve completed the questions, put them in pairs, and let them ask and answer the questions. At the end of the activity, ask them what have they learned about their classmates.

4) What has changed?

Choose a student(or ask a volunteer) to have a good look around, then tell them to step outside. With the rest of the students, rearrange the classroom. Call the student back inside and ask them if they can spot any changes. Great for reviewing classroom vocabulary and prepositions.

5) Free speaking

I sometimes do this at the beginning of the lesson as a warm-up activity and sometimes at the end as a “reward”. Put the students in pairs or groups of three and tell them they will have to speak for a minute or two about a certain topic. The topic will be given to them by their classmates and it can be anything from free time to more difficult topics such as volcanoes, nails, moles, or kelp. It sounds easy but it’s not, the task is to speak as fluent as possible, and under pressure, each second lasts much longer. You can find more topics for free speaking here.

6) Acting out

I have a created PDF resource for this activity some time ago, but I’ve recently realized kids don’t know the same stories I do anymore. I am too old now, I can’t keep up. So you can either use my older version or the no-prep version:

On slips of paper, students write famous stories, e.g. Captain America, Titanic, Romeo and Juliet, etc. This is to guarantee that they will know them.
On other slips of paper, they write movie genres, e.g. sci-fi, comedy, horror.
Collect the slips with stories and genres.
Put the students into groups of three or four (depends on the story).
Give each group a story and a genre.
Tell them they have to prepare a short scene from that story, BUT, they have to make the story according to the genre. So the result might be: Cinderella as a horror movie.
Give them time to plan, write and practice their scenes.
Enjoy the show.

7) Picture description

Tell the students to open their textbooks on a random page. In pairs, they take turns and describe all the pictures on that given page.

8) Word explanations

This is a quick no-prep revision I use at the end of every unit to recycle and revise vocabulary. Put students in pairs of groups of four, give them a pile of paper slips(20-40). Tell them to write one word on each slip. They have to work together to avoid duplicates. The words should be from a recent unit/topic, they can use textbooks or other resources. When they are done, they will swap the pile of paper slips with another group. This is when the game begins. They will take turns and draw a paper slip from the pile, explain the word without using the word or gestures. The student who first guesses the word gets a point and keeps the card. The student with most points/cards is the winner.

9) 5-second questions

Fast paced and competitive, no-prep required. Put the students in pairs or if you have a larger class into groups. Tell them they will have to ask each other questions to earn points. Appropriate questions, of course. Sounds easy, right? The problem is, they will only have 5 seconds to ask a question, and it has to be grammatically correct. To make it more stressful, the other student- their opponent can count down the seconds. If they ask a correct question in the time limit, they will get a point.

10) Oh, really?

This is another simple and no prep activity which students love. Put the students in pairs and tell them they will have a conversation. The first student has to start with a short sentence, like this:

Student 1: I play tennis.

The other student responds: Oh, really?, and adds extra information( a word or a phrase).

So it should be like this: Oh, really? I play tennis every day.

Student 1 continues: Oh, really? I play tennis every day with Serena Williams.

Student 2 responds: Oh, really? I play tennis every day with Serena Williams in Monaco.

Student 1 responds: Oh, really? I play tennis every day with Serena Williams in Monaco while feeding dolphins.

And so on. Can they keep up?

The student who will form the longest grammatically correct (and at least a little bit coherent) answer wins.