Games Archives - EFL Ideas

6 Fun Activities Exhausted ESL Teachers Will Appreciate At The End Of The Term

I have one more week of teaching ahead of me. Three more weeks of work. There is more paperwork now than actual teaching. The kids can smell the summer holidays in the air and it shows. The teachers can barely hide how exhausted they are.

And it’s hot. Scorching hot. No AC in the building and my brain is shutting off. All I can see is myself on the beach, sipping a gin&tonic. But the kids still need to be educated. Motivated. Engaged. Entertained.

The perfect time for some fun speaking activities. Group work. Games. Anything. It’s too hot to be creative. I am thankful for any useful activity I can find so I put together a couple of fun ESL activities that I’m using these days. The kids are happy. My head didn’t explode. Win-win.

1. 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.

2. The holiday maze

You can make any topic into a maze activity. I like this holiday maze by TeachingEnglish. Makes everyone long for the summer break even more.

3. Murder mystery

This is a great activity even for larger groups(7-11). The victim is a cranky English teacher so the students will certainly enjoy it.

4. Taboo

This one is still popular. 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.

5. Scrabble

Whether it’s the online version or the actual board game, Scrabble is always a good choice.

6. 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.

You can also find some interesting ideas in this article from Lessons Plan Digger, which inspired me to write this list.

For even more communicative activities, click below.

10 Websites To Make Your Lessons More Engaging And Fun

This is a list of my 10 favorite fun ESL/EFL websites which I regularly use when I want to spice things up a bit in the classroom, reward my students or give them some relax time.

These are all great for learning vocabulary, revising, they can be used in various projects, to promote reading, cooperation, creativity. There are soooo many things you can do with these sites, just use your creativity or get inspired by my tips.

1. Kahoot

With Kahoot, you can create various quizzes and games and if you’re in a bit of a hurry you can use its extensive library of quizzes. It has a number of quizzes on various vocabulary topics, grammar and many interesting topics such as history, geography, pop culture, trivia.
My tip: Have your students sign up at Kahoot and create their own quiz. You can assign them a topic based on what you’re currently studying in the class or let them choose their own topic. They love creating their own quizzes, especially those with insider jokes.

2. 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!

3. 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.

4. Smartypins

This is a fun little Google game which can be used as a warmer, filler or a 5 minute activity when teaching travel, culture, etc.

5. Geoguessr

This is a similar site to now nonexistent Locate street (which I liked better). It uses Google Street View to drop you anywhere on the planet and you must guess your location based on vegetation, signs, people. It’s a funny way to teach the students about interesting and remote places. I sometimes use it as a reward, the kids love it. Tell them to sign up, it’s free and they will avoid the annoying pop up.

6. Merriam-Webster

I didn’t expect a dictionary website to be this entertaining. There are games, quizzes, videos. They are educational and fun and I love them.
My top picks: Name That Thing, there is also the Animal Edition of the game. You have 10 seconds to answer each question, 12 pictures and a lot of fun!
How Strong Is Your Vocabulary is also fun and you can repeat after a couple of months to see if your students’s vocabulary has improved.
Another game is a challenging puzzle which is described as “anagram puzzles meet word search.” This one can also be downloaded to mobile phone.

7. Etymonline

How often do you explain the etymology of the vocabulary you are teaching? I do it quite often as many English words come from Latin, Greek, French and it’s easier for the students to remember the words when they see how similar the words can be to words in their own language(this applies to European languages).

8. 5 Minute Mystery

As the name suggests, this site offers short, five-minute mysteries. Students have to sign up, it’s free and quick and then they can start sleuthing. Great activity for painless reading practice.

9. 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.

10. Scrabble Sprint

Scrabble needs no introduction, so I’ll only say that this one’s fast.

Recently I posted another article about fun and useful ESL/EFL websites and it got a lot of hits. You can read it here:

My 10 Favourite ESL/EFL Resource Websites.

Check out our communicative resources.

ESL Game Compound Nouns Dominoes: Town and Countryside

Vocabulary activity game.

Download the game here: Compound nouns dominoes Places

Other vocabulary resources:

Travel/Holiday Vocabulary Cards

Useful Classroom Tip: Vocabulary Revision

Business English Vocabulary Card Game | Forbidden Words

Media/Entertainment Vocabulary Card Game Based on Taboo.

Useful Classroom Tip: Vocabulary Revision

Whether you teach large classes or small groups, revising vocabulary in a quick and simple way is always useful, especially when its all done by the students – all you have to do is to give them instructions, circle and monitor.

1. Put the students in groups of four ( I like to use Random Team Generator for this).

2. Give each group 40 (the amount depends on the level of the students, the time you have for this activity, etc.) small slips of paper ( 1 A4 page makes 16 slips of paper of the optimal size)

3. Each student will write an item of vocabulary that was covered in the previous lesson/lessons. The group has to cooperate so there is no duplicate vocabulary.

4. When they finish, groups swap the pile of cards they made so they get a different set of cards,

5. In their groups, they take turns and draw a card from the vocabulary pile and explain the word to the rest of the group. The person who first guessed the word keeps that card. The winner is the person with the most cards.

Other resources and activities:

Fun Vocabulary Posters For ESL/EFL Students

ESL Game Compound Nouns Dominoes: Town and Countryside

ESL Speaking Activity Worksheet: Business Plan

ESL Pair Work Activity: Teenager Issues

No-prep Speaking Activity: Warmer And Filler For ESL Classes

This is a quick no-prep activity that can be used as an ice breaker or a regular activity.

Students usually like to talk about themselves and maybe boast a little so this activity is quite popular.

At the beginning of the lesson, ask them to pull out their mobile phones and tell them to browse their image gallery for a picture they wouldn’t mind showing to their classmates. It should be a photo taken by them and it can be anything as long as it is appropriate.

When they are ready, put them in pairs or groups of four and tell them they will be describing their classmate’s photos and deducing as much information they can from the pictures. At the end, the student who took the photo will explain the photo to their classmates.

Will Your Students Steal A Car?: ESL/EFL Simulation Activity

This ESL simulation activity is for a group of four students, B1-B2 level, 15+ age.

I find it’s best to use this activity after teaching crime vocabulary, and after teaching some basic concepts of peer pressure, argumentation, and manipulation. What I like about this activity is that the character cards don’t tell the students what decisions they should make, it’s purely their choice.

Pages: 12

Group Activity For ESL/EFL Classes: Famous Stories With A Twist!

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.

Download >>>>>>>> Stories with a Twist

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.

Bean Boozled in ESL Classroom: A Funny Way to Warm Up, Engage And Motivate Your Students.

Who doesn’t like jelly beans? Most kids love them. Why not use that love for them in your classroom?

I’m sure most of you know the naughty version of Jelly Beans- Bean Boozled. It is a game which features a spin wheel and 14 different flavours of the jelly beans. 7 of the flavours are weird and wild and quite disgusting, especially rotten egg or dog food, others are more or less harmless, like toothpaste and lawn clippings. The other 7 flavours are regular jelly beans: peach, coconut, lime, etc.

The fun thing is, the seven regular flavour look identical to the other seven disgusting flavours. Can you tell them apart? You spin the wheel, which shows you what colour you have to eat. Will it be tasty lime or lawn clippings?

So far, it sounds fun, but what can you do with this game at your ESL/EFL lessons?

Plenty of things. I used it for the first time as an icebreaker in September, during that first lesson when everyone feels awkward and uncomfortable. I prepared a set of quiz questions, mine was general knowledge but you can make it anything you want: tenses, vocabulary, spelling, etc.

I asked a student a question and when they didn’t answer correctly they had to spin the wheel and eat a jelly bean. It was exciting because they didn’t know what flavour they would get, so they tried to answer correctly as the game progressed, hence the motivation.

You can use it as an energizer when your students seem in need of a little excitement and fun. It can be used at the end of the lesson as a filler, or as a form of a reward after a difficult test. You can also hack the spin wheel and add different questions to each section. If the student answers correctly, they don’t have to eat the jelly (or they can, if they want to risk it). If they can’t answer the question correctly, they have to eat the jelly.

My favourite way how to use it is to let them write the questions, and I mostly use it for vocabulary revision. I prepare vocabulary cards on certain topic and each of the cards contains the word which they need to explain and colour of the jelly bean.

They spin the wheel, and if they can’t explain the word they have to eat the bean of the matching colour. Which can be delicious or quite sickening. Just make sure the kids are ok with this kind of game and have some tissues ready, some spitting may occur!

Other games and speaking activities:

28 Conversation Starters

Role plays- Travel

Business English Vocabulary Card Game | Forbidden Words

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

5 Apps To Learn English Without Knowing It

There are 2.2 million apps in Android store and 2 million in Apple’s App store. I’m sure a huge number of those apps is useles, but you can also find there plenty of helpful, entertaining of educative apps.

Here’s a simple infographic of 5 apps I’ve been using with my students of various ages and levels.

Other online resources:

Play and Learn! Kahoot: A Free Learning Platform.

10 Websites To Make Your Lessons More Engaging And Fun