Fun ESL Games!

FUN ESL GAMES!

15/6/2019

Looking for some fun English games to play with your ESL students? We have put together a list of some of our favourite low-prep ideas that can be played using our collection of free ESL eBooks of or any other reading resources you may have.

A. TIC-TAC-TOE

1. Divide the class into two teams.
2. Draw a TIC-TAC-TOE board on the whiteboard.
3. Ask one student from each team to come up to the whiteboard.
4. Read a sentence from a selected ESL eBook, leaving a word out. For example:

My ______________ is Jason Miller.
Answer: name

5. The first student to correctly write the answer on the whiteboard wins an X or an O for the team.

B. LADDERS

1. Divide the students into four teams.
2. Draw four ladders, with five rungs each on the whiteboard.
3. Ask the class a question based on the ESL eBook read. For example:

Question: Hannah is Jason's ________________.
Answer: sister

4. Each team must send a representative to the whiteboard to write the correct answer. If a team is correct, their answer stays on the whiteboard and they move up a rung. If a team is incorrect, their answer gets erased from the whiteboard.
5. The first team to move to the top of their ladder wins.

C. BINGO

1. Prepare a blank BINGO template for each student.
2. Make a list of vocabulary words from the selected ESL eBook.
3. Ask the students to choose words from the list, and to illustrate them on their BINGO template. The students are not allowed to write words on their BINGO sheets.
4. Call out words from the list in English. A student must understand the word in order to cross off a square. You determine the pattern that wins the game, for example any horizontal line.
5. In order to win, the student who calls ‘BINGO’ must tell you what all the vocabulary words that they crossed off are in English.
*Variation for advanced students or review before an exam: Have the students spell out one or all of the words.*

Do you have any other game favourites you would like to share?