"Describing Something"

M ake up a handout with pictures or names of famous people (around 20 is good). Give some hints, such as, "He's American," "He's black," "He's a sport player," "He plays golf." By this time the students will have guessed Tiger Woods. They will then cross Tiger Woods off their list. Turn it over to the students and they will take turns describing the people to each other.

This game would also work for almost any topic (animals/food/clothes, etc)

Shootout at the esl Corral

D ivide the class into groups of two. You can do this on 2 sides of the class, at their desks standing up or get the kids to make a line at the front of the class as well. Then, there are 2 variations. The first one is that the first 2 students play rock/scissor/paper. The loser has to answer a question about what you've been studying. I used it a lot of math when I was studying that for a couple days with the kids. I'd say what is 5x8 and give them 5 seconds to answer. If they got it, they went to the back of their line, or remain standing. If not, they sit down and the game is over for them. The second variation is to just ask a question to both students and the loser sits down. It's a fun, high energy game with a lot of excitement to it. The kids seemed like they couldn't get enough of it. And you can use pretty much any topic you want. And it's definitely heavy on the listening and speaking skills.

Boggle

M ake a grid on the board, maybe 6x6. Then fill in the squares with common letters. Then the students make words, with at least 3 letters. Each word can only use each letter once and the letters must be touching. You can go diagonal, up, down, whatever.

The Alphabet

P ut them in teams of 2 and have them write the alphabet on a piece of paper. Then you can give them a topic.

Example: "Words to describe a city."

B-Busy,

E-Exciting. Give them 3 or 4 minutes, collect the papers, check for the crazy answers, add up the points and you have a winner!

The Toilet Paper

T his is the perfect way to start your first class, if there are less than 15 students. Bring in a roll of toilet paper. Tell students they can choose between 2 and 6 pieces. It's up to them how many they take. Tell them no other details. When everyone has some paper, tell the students that they have to say one sentence about themselves for each piece that they have. Example: name/favorite food/ hobby/ members of their family.

English as a Second Language Students

W rite the vocab words on a flip chart of some sort. Divide the class up into teams. 5-8 people/team works well. One student from the team comes and sits at the front of the class facing his or her teammates. Show one word at a time to the team but not the person sitting at the front. The team has to give hints about the word, in English only, using no body language.

An example: EYE. Hints students give: 2, on face, I can see.

2 or 3 rounds of 1 minute each and the goal is to get as many words as possible in that 1 minute. If the team uses body language or Spanish, discount that point.