• English Games Elementary
• Activities For Elementary Students

The lesson and project ideas below are meant to fill the bill for Friday afternoon fun and learning. Some are simple games. Friday Fun Archive. Do you have students who are too shy to speak? Here are 6 fun ESL games that will get even the shyest student out of their shell! Various ESL Activities (elementary to advanced). Vacation Fun; Activities which may. A downloadable English pronunciation program for beginner to advanced.

English Games Elementary

Have you ever asked a question to your English language class, only to be answered with complete silence and blank stares? At one point every English teacher has had the struggle of encouraging students to speak. Perhaps the student has a deep fear of making a mistake, or maybe the student is just plain shy, even in their native language. Whatever the reason, here is a list of a few fun activities to get your students to speak English! His list is for more advanced (B2+) students.

Who's Telling the Truth? Have each student write three facts about themselves that nobody in the class knows on a piece of paper. Make sure each student includes his/her name on the top of the paper.

Collect the sheets of paper and bring three students to the front of the room. Read aloud one of the facts that is true for one of the students in the front of the room. The class then proceeds to question the students in an attempt to determine who is telling the truth, and who is lying. Each student is allowed to ask one question to one of the three students. After a round of questioning, the students predict who is telling the truth. Taboo Variations Variation #1: Create a PowerPoint presentation with each slide containing a noun. Have one student come to the front of the room and sit with his/her back to the PowerPoint. The students in the class should take turns describing the words for the student in the front of the room to guess. Variation #2: Separate the students into groups of 4/5. Place a pile of cards with random nouns in the center of the group. Have students take turns describing the nouns for their group members to guess. The group member who guesses correctly keeps the card in an attempt to have the most cards at the end of the game. Variation #3 (Advanced speakers): Separate the class into two teams. Students are given a word to describe to their teammates, in addition to a list of words that they cannot use in their description. Each student should have 2-3 minutes to see how many words his/her teammates can guess.

Descriptive Drawing Activity Pair up the students and give them each a picture face down. They must describe the picture for their partner to draw. Comic Strip Descriptions Give each student a portion of a comic strip. Without showing their pictures to one another, the students should attempt to describe their image, and put the comic strip into the correct order. After about ten minutes, the students can predict the order, show one another their portion, and see if they were correct! 'Secret' Word Students are given a random topic, and a random word completely unrelated to the topic. The student must hide the word in their speech, without the other students in the class guessing their 'secret' word. The other students in the class must listen carefully to the speech, in an attempt to discover the secret word. Debates Give each student a piece of paper with “agree” written on one side, and “disagree” on the other side. Read aloud a controversial statement, and have each students hold up his/her paper stating whether they agree or disagree. Choose one student from each side to explain his/her position and participate in a short debate. Impromptu Speaking Split the class into two teams, and use a list of impromptu speaking topics. Have each student choose a number, and respond to the statement without preparation. The student must continue speaking for 45 seconds when the teacher calls out 'stop.' As the student is speaking, the other team listens for any hesitation, grammatical mistakes or vocabulary mistakes. If the other team can correctly identify an error, they get a point.

Desert Island Activity Give each student a piece of paper and tell him or her to draw an item. Any item. Tell the students that they have been stranded on a desert island, and only half of the class can survive and continue to inhabit the desert island. The student's goal is to convince the class that they should survive. The hard part is that the only thing they have is an item that was drawn a few minutes earlier by a classmate on the piece of paper.

Storytelling Activity Bring four students to the front of the classroom. Three students should sit down in a row, and one of the students should stand behind them acting as a controller. The controller should have a stack of cards in his hand containing nouns. The controller will hand a noun to one of the three students who will start to tell a story. The student will continue telling the story until the controller decides to hand another noun to another student who will then take over the story. Two Truths, One Lie Each student should write three facts about themselves on a piece of paper. Two of the facts should be the truth, and one should be a lie. Students read aloud the facts, and give the other students a chance to question them and decide which statement is a lie.

True/False Storytelling Give each student a piece of paper with either the word “true” or “false.” Each student should tell the class a story, and the class must guess whether the story is the truth, or a lie. To add to the activity, you can allow the other students to question the student telling the story. I Have Never All students in the class should start holding five fingers in the air (this number can be adjusted depending on how many students are in the class). The student who begins the activity will tell the class one thing that he/she has NEVER done. The students who have done that activity should put a finger down, and tell the class a story about this activity.

Games & Activities for the ESL/EFL Classroom (I-TESL-J) Games & Activities for the ESL/EFL Classroom A Project of This is a place were English teachers can share games and activities that they have found useful in the classroom. If you know a game or an activity that works well with ESL/EFL students and it is not yet listed here, please. Games You may view the games in two different ways. Many Games Per Page(This Section) Number of Submissions: 132 The newest addition is at the top of the page.

Bad Fruit: A Shoppers' Nightmare Level: Easy to Medium This is an oral communication activity appropriate for EFL learners in elementary/primary school. (It's optimal for grades 3-6). This game is designed for practicing 'shopping' dialogues and vocabulary. Materials: 'produce' and play money. Object of Game: To accumulate as many products as possible.

Students are divided into clerks and shoppers. The clerks set up 'stands' to allow easy access for all shoppers (e.g. Around the outsides of the room with their backs to the wall). The shoppers are given a set amount of money. (e.g. Dollars, euros, pounds, etc.) and begin at a stand where there is an open space.

Students shop, trying to accumulate as many items as possible (each item is 1 unit of currency). Periodically, the instructor will say 'stop' (a bell or other device may be needed to attract attention in some cultural and classroom contexts) and call out a name of one of the products. Students with that product must then put ALL their products in a basket at the front of the room. The remaining students continue shopping. Students who had to dump their products must begin again from scratch (with fewer units of currency).

The student with the most products at the end wins. Students then switch roles.It is recommended giving students as much money as possible since students who run out can no longer participate.

Alternative play for more advanced students: Clerks set the price of items. Shoppers have the option of negotiating the price. There are two winners in this version: The shopper who accumulates the most products and the clerk who makes the most money. Submitted by: Mike Yough What's the Question? Level: Any Level Type of Activity: listening and speaking Purpose: review question forms previously studied in class Procedure: Form two teams (three will work, but two seems to add just the right amount of competitive tension).

Explain the game, with a few examples of answers in search of questions. Ask, 'What's the question?' , and get students to correctly say the corresponding questions for your answer. Have two players-one from each team-come to the front. Style it like a game show if you like, with the students standing side-by-side.

If you have access to bells or buzzers, it's even more fun. Next, read an answer to a question and say, 'What's the question?' The fastest player to respond wins a point for her/his team. New contestants come to the front for a new round. Rationale: This game forces the students to think backwards a little, so they must provide a grammatically perfect question. All too often, they are used to answering rather than asking questions, so this is challenging and useful as review. Submitted by: Tim Toilet Paper Icebreaker Level: Any Level This activity is used as a 'getting to know you', icebreaker on the first day of class.

Teacher takes the toilet paper roll and takes several squares of toilet paper, then hands the roll of toilet paper to a student. The teacher tells the student to take some, more than three. After everybody in the class has some paper, we count the squares we have, then we have to tell that many things about ourselves, in English. This activity works well with substitute teachers also.

The toilet paper is such an attention getter. Submitted by: Linda LeBlanc Chain Spelling ( Shiri-tori) Level: Easy to Medium The teacher gives a word and asks a student to spell it, and then a second student should say a word beginning with the last letter of the word given.

The game continues until someone makes a mistake, that is, to pronounce the word incorrectly, misspell it or come up with a word that has been said already, then he/she is out. The last one remaining in the game is the winner. This game can be made difficult by limiting the words to a certain category, e.g. Food, tools, or nouns, verbs, etc.

Submitted by: Huang Shufang Bang Bang Level: Easy Divide the group into two teams. Explain that they are cowboys and they are involved in a duel. One student from each team comes to the front.

Get them to pretend to draw their pistols. Say 'how do you say.' And a word in their mother tongue. The first child to give the answer and then 'bang bang', pretending to shoot his opponent is the winner. He remains standing and the other one sits down. I give 1 point for the right answer and 5 extra points if they manage to 'kill' 4 opponents in a row. Editor's Note: Instead of saying the word in the students' mother tongue, it would be possible to use a picture or to say a definition ('What do you call the large gray animal with a long nose?'

) Submitted by: Liz Battle Ships - A Vocabulary Game Level: Easy to Medium Preparation: Divide the students in to groups of four or five. Then ask the student to make the name for their ships for example with the names of animals, cities, movie stars or let them find their own favourite names. Ask them to choose the Captain and the Shooter. The captain's duty is to memorize his ship's name, so he can reply if somebody call his ship's name. The shooter's duty is to memorize the names of the ships of 'their enemies', so he can shoot them by calling their ship's name. Activity: Arrange all the captains in a circle, the ships' crews must line up behind their captains.

The shooter is the last crew member in line. The teacher must decide a lexical area of vocabulary, this vocabulary will be used to defend their ships from the attacks. Every students (except the shooters) must find their own words. The lexical area for example, 'Four Legged Animals'.

Give the students 1-2 minutes to find as many possible words as they can and memorize them. Start the game by calling a ship's name, for example the ship name is 'THE CALIFORNIAN'. The captain of THE CALIFORNIAN must reply with a word from the lexical area given, for example he says 'TIGER' followed by his crews behind him one by one, 'COW'; 'SHEEP' until it is the shooter turns and he calls out the name of another ship and the captain of the ship called must reply and his crews must do the same thing. No word can be repeated. If the captain is late to reply (more than 2 seconds) or his crew can not say the words or a word repeated or the shooter shoots the wrong ship (his own ship or the ship that has already been sunk) the ship is sunk, and the crew members can join the crew of another ship. The teacher can change the lexical area for the next round. In the last round there will be two big groups battling to be the winner.

Submitted by: Agung Listyawan Describing Appearances & Characteristics of People Level: Easy to Medium (Low to low intermediate) Each student is then give one sheet of paper. One student sits at the front of a room. He/she describes a person and the rest of the class draws the person being described. It is more interesting if the person being described is known by everyone. Once the student has finished describing that person then he/she reveals who it is and each student shows his/her drawing.

The laughter from this is hilarious as the impressions tend to make the character in question look funny. It is a good idea to encourage students to ask the interviewee student questions about who they are describing. Submitted by: Darrell Sentence Race Level: Any Level A good game for large classes and for reviewing vocabulary lessons.

Prepare a list of review vocabulary words. Write each word on two small pieces of paper.

That means writing the word twice, once on each paper. Organize the pieces like bundles, 2 bundles, 2 sets of identical words. Divide the class into 2 teams. Get them to make creative team names. Distribute each list of words to both teams.

Every student on each team should have a paper. Both teams have the same words. When you call a word, 2 students should stand up, one from each team.

The students must then run to the blackboard and race to write a sentence using their word. The winner is the one with a correct and clearly written sentence. This is always a hit with kids. For more advanced students, use tougher words.

Submitted by: Thomas D. J-B Paper Airplane Game Level: Any Level Draw a target (with points - like a dart board) on the white board or use a cardboard box in the middle of the room.

Activities For Elementary Students

Then, students make paper airplanes and launch them after they answer your question in the form of a sentence. I don't except my beginners/low intermediate students to form complete sentence so I help them to form correct sentences. To my surprise they will repeat the sentence several times (while I'm helping them) just so they can throw their airplane.

For beginner and low intermediate classes, I recommend formulating questions that lead to 1 or 2 types of answers. This allows for better memorization. For example, use CAN/WILL questions and write the beginning part of the answer on the board 'I can/will.' I recommend giving a prize to make the target points mean something, thus peaking their interest. Submitted by: Ell Saunders Pictionary (Game 1) - revamp - Charades (Game 2) Level: Any Level Write out series of categories like professions (doctor, bus driver, etc.), animals, foods, actions (fishing, haircut, etc.) then divide the class into groups of 2. One student draws and the other guesses.

Next turn, the guesser draws and drawer guesses. This game works best with the arbitrary stop watch (30 seconds). This is designed for one lesson. Then for another day take the same categories (or create new ones) and play the same game except students, this time, act it out (no speaking or noises). Submitted by: Ell Saunders Spelling Contest Level: Any Level First, if you have a large class you have to divide it in 2 teams. Then the teacher says a word or a sentence depending on the level for the students to spell. Students should spell these correctly with not even one mistake.

The team that has more points is the winner Submitted by: Revolle Soyer What's the Meaning? Level: Medium to Difficult You, the teacher, may need a dictionary do this activity. Choose a word which is long, difficult, and unknown to the students, a good word to begin with is: warmonger. Without using a dictionary, your students write down a definition. (They can work out the definition in groups of three).

Allow them a few minutes to think and write. Collect the definitions and read them aloud.

When you have finished reading, they will have to vote which of those is the correct one. (It doesn't matter if none of them is the correct one). After they have voted and none of the groups guessed the meaning you read the correct one aloud.

The idea of this game is to let students be creative and practice writing skills. Then you can have the students to discuss their writings. Submitted by: Natalia Iglesias from Argentina More Games & Activities To keep this page's filesize reasonable, we occasionally move things to other pages. (up to mid-July 2005).

(up to the end of August 2003). (up to the end of December 2002).

(up to the end of August 2001). (1999). (1998-1999). The Oldest Submissions (1998) Copyright (C) 1998-2005.