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Welcome to
Shimon's Activity Page
Hi. I'm an EFL teacher and I enjoy creating activities for my classes.
Below you find some activities, none of them really original. Some of them can be found at Dave's ESL cafe.
Why use activities and games in the foreign language classroom? First of all, they enhance language learning in a way that students don’t really feel that they are really studying; it is learning through fun!
And who doesn’t enjoy
having fun for a change? Or would you rather sit in class, bored
as you could ever be, trying to learn something in the dullest
way possible? Using games to teach a language can be one of the
most effective ways of getting the students engaged and
motivated. Here are some games that I've picked up. So,
let’s try some of the games that I know:
TIC TAC
TOE
STOP
THE
COFFEEPOT GAME
BALL GAME
LAST
LETTER
WORD
ASSOCIATION
TONGUE
TWISTERS
catch
pass
the card
frozen
tag
Poncho
Carrancho
What's
That Word?
Hang Man
Add A
Word
Sentence
builder
Board
Games
Market
Memory Game
CONCENTRATION
Bingo
Simon
Says
Charades
Which
one's bigger?
Categories
Blind
Olympics
Find the Cup
Do After
Me
Magic Bag
Have
Circle the number
Happy
families
Feel
& Guess
Slap it
Collocations
Rhymes
Wolves
& Lambs
Musical Chairs (with a twist)
Who am I?
Have you seen my Sheep?
Giant
Steps
Draw it
TIC TAC TOE (For Beginning to Intermediate Level Students)
All you need for this game is a chalkboard,
and a list of vocabulary. Draw a nine square
grid on the board and fill each box with one
word. Divide the class in half, and designate
one half as -x- and the other half as -o-.
The students on each team collaborate in
coming up with grammatical sentences using
the vocabulary. When they use a word in a
correct sentence, mark either x or o over the
word. Three in a row wins! This game is good
to review general vocabulary, parts of
speech, and verb form, without ever tiring
the students. INDEX OF GAMES
This is a simple vocabulary game that can be
played with two levels of difficulty
depending on the level of your students. In
the easy version, draw five columns on a
chalk board. Assign each column a letter from
the alphabet and shout Go! The first student
to fill in all the columns with a word that
begins with the letter of each column shouts,
STOP! You can go through the whole alphabet
like this and also use common two letter word
beginnings like ex, sh, sp, ch, etc.... In
the more difficult version, assign each of
the five columns a general catergory like
food, clothing, emotions, office items,
things in the house, etc.... You then call
out a letter from the alphabet. Students have
to fill each column with a vocabulary word
that begins with the letter and pertains to
the category
INDEX OF GAMES
THE
COFFEEPOT GAME
This is a traditional but fun game to play:
one student is sent out of the class and the
remaining students choose a simple verb (e.g.
"walk". "eat", "dance" , etc) . The student
that is outside then returns and has to find
out which is the "mystery" verb by asking
yes-no questions to the other students. The
word "coffeepot "is provided to substitite
the verb. The student then asks:"Do you
coffeepot every day?" ; "Do you coffeepot
with your legs? " until he / she finds out
which is the mystery verb.
INDEX OF GAMES
BALL GAME
Students stand up in a circle around the
teacher. A ball is tossed to a student and
the teacher asks a question, e.g.: "Say a
color". The student then responds and throws
the ball back to the teacher.The teacher then
throws the ball to another student and asks
another question. For higher levels, you can
ask such questions like "Give me the past
participle of an irregular verb". This is a
fast game, and it is great for reviewing
vocabulary.
INDEX OF GAMES
LAST
LETTER
This is actually a variation from the Ball
Game.The last letter of the word must be the
first letter of the next word. You will need
a ball, but a screwed up piece of paper is
fine. The teacher throws the ball to one
student and says a word, such as "dog". The
student must reply with a word starting with
"G," such as "girl". When answered, the ball
is thrown back to the teacher and it is then
thrown to the next student, who continues.
The sequence may then be (for example): girl,
look, king, go, octopus, student ... and so
on. You can have the students throwing to
each other. i.e., student A = "Cat," throw to
student B = "Today," throw to student C =
"Yes," etc. Please be warned, you may have
some fastball pitchers in
the class!
INDEX OF GAMES
WORD
ASSOCIATION
The teacher starts the game by saying a word,
such as "Hotel". For example: Teacher: Hotel
Student A: Bed Student B: Room Student C:
Service Student D: Food Student E: Restaurant
Student F: Chinese As you can see, any
association is ok. If the student can't
answer (5 second limit) he or she must stand
up. The last student seated is the winner. If
the association is not obvious, the student
is asked to explain the
association.
INDEX OF GAMES
TONGUE
TWISTERS
: She saw shy sheep.
: Rubber baby buggy bumpers.
: How much wood would a wood chuck chuck, if
a wood chuck could chuck wood?
: Moses supposes his toeses are roses,/But
Moses supposes erroneously./For Moses he
knowses his toeses aren't roses,/Like Moses
supposes his toeses to be.
: The Leith police dismisseth us, which
causeth us dismay.
: A fly and a flea in a flue,/Were caught. So
what did they do?/Said the fly, "Let us
flee!"/Said the flea, "Let us fly!"/So they
flew through a flaw in the flue. ]
: This snail is stale./It's tail is
stale./And this is stale tale.
: " Betty Botta bought some butter./"oh," she
said, "this butter's bitter!/If I use this
bitter butter/It will make my batter
bitter./I need a bit of better butter/ Just
to make my batter better."/ Betty bought a
bit of better butter./ Now Betty's batter
isn't bitter.
: Round the rugged rock the ragged rascal
ran.
: This isn't really a tongue twister, but it
makes an excellent example of the
ambiguities, and humor of the English
language:Time flys./You can't./They fly too
fast.
Roger Rocket ran around the river and rented
a raft to ride on.
Phineas Foster fishes for fat flounder.
Veronica Victor vowed to view the vanity.
Minnie Mouse makes many mashmallows for
Mickey Mouse to munch on.
Which noise annoys an oyster most? A noisy
noise annoys an oyster most.
INDEX OF GAMES
Catch
Time: very short
Level: any
Materials: ball (or other throwable item)
Purpose: various review, student fluency
Instructions: Choose a set of vocabulary items. The student holding the ball says an item and throws the ball to another student. That student has to say the previous item and then their own item.
Alternatives:
Students each have one vocab
item. You say your own item and the item of the student to whom
you're throwing the ball.
INDEX OF GAMES
Pass
the card
Time: very short
Level: any
Materials: cards (or other small, easily passable item)
Purpose: various review, fluency
Instructions: Students arrange themselves in a circle. The teacher says a vocab item and passes a card representing the item to the next student who repeats the process until the card gets back to the teacher. The card needn't have any relation to the word except that the teacher arbitrarily assigns it.
Alternatives: Send the next
card before the first one comes back.
Send cards in opposite
directions.
INDEX OF GAMES
Frozen
tag
Time: 5 minutes or more
Level: any
Materials: cards (with words or pictures representing vocabulary), space
Purpose: various review, fluency
Instructions: Hand out the cards, one to each student and practice the vocab so that everyone knows their own word. One person is "it". When they touch another person, they become frozen (can't move) but their friends can unfreeze them. To do this, the friend tells the frozen person what's on their card. The frozen person then either repeats or acts out the item. Then they are free.
Alternatives: from time to
time have students switch cards and teach each other their own
vocabulary and change the person who is "it".
INDEX OF GAMES
Poncho
Carrancho
(by Ramiro Garcia)
Time: 15 minutes or more
Level: any
Materials: None
Purpose: various review
Instructions: Assign the name of a food to every student and write the names on the board. The teacher is also assigned a food, let's say 'turkey'. Have the students say in a loud voice what they are. The teacher starts the game by saying, "Poncho Carrancho doesn't eat turkey, he eats rice."
The student who is rice has a few seconds to react. Her response should be "No, Poncho Carrancho doesn't eat rice, he eats spaghetti."
Alternatives:
verbs: Poncho Carrancho doesn't ______, he _______.
verbs, past tense: Poncho Carrancho didn't ______, he _______.
family: Poncho Carrancho looks like his ______
jobs: Poncho Carrancho wants
to be a _____.
INDEX OF GAMES
What's
That Word
Time: as short as 5 minutes
Level: Lower intermediate on
Materials: Item lists
Purpose: to practice circumlocution
Instructions: Students are given a list of items. They pick one item and try to describe it to their partner who guesses. They may not use Japanese, the name of the item, or give spelling hints.
Caution: The items the teacher gives to the students should reflect their ability. The more items there are to choose from, the more difficult the game becomes. Also the more similar the items are, the more difficult the game becomes. Teachers should be careful not to make it too easy lest it become uninteresting.
Alternatives:
fruit, food, furniture, jobs, family relationships, classroom items, computer programs, weather, sports, etc.
INDEX OF GAMES
Hang Man
Time: as short as 5 minutes
Level: Absolute beginner to lower intermediate
Materials: writing surface
Purpose: to practice alphabet skills and spelling awareness; to review vocabulary
Instructions: The teacher
marks a number of blanks to indicate where letters go to make
words. Students ask for letters like this, "is there a/an
__?" Insist on the full phrase, not just "Q" or
"L". The teacher fills in the letters the students
guess correctly. If th
