Introduction
Language games are useful in many ways in ESL classroom. Teachers can use them in their classes to help learners practice pronunciation, develop vocabulary, extend their repertoire of communication strategies and try to produce humor in the target language. For teachers and learners alike, games can bring light relief and a change of pace to classes. The following ideas may provide you with some starting points to help you to design your own games for learners.
Some essential games
1- Who am I? Choose a famous person, someone all of the learners are likely to have heard about. It is best if the person you choose is contemporary. Ask learners to try to find out who you ‘are’ by asking you questions, with yes/ no answers, such as, ‘are you male or female?’, ‘are you American?’, ‘are you a politician?’, and so on. Then put learners into small groups, and ask them to take turns in choosing the personality.
2- What’s my line? This is similar to ‘who am I?' above, but focuses on particular job descriptions. Questions could include, ‘is your work outdoors or indoors?’, ‘do you work with computers?’, ‘do you provide a service to people?’, ‘do you work with groups of people?’, and so on.
3- Animal, vegetable or mineral. Everything except free space can be regarded as one or more of these. Allow a maximum of 20 questions (say) with which learners can probe the identity of the animal (including humans), or plant or object you have chosen. Then, when learners have found out how the game works, divide them into groups, and get them to take turns picking the object.
4- Knockout quizzes. Prepare a series of cards, each with a short question written on one side of it, and the answer written on the other side. Divide learners into teams, and deal out so many cards to each team. Ask each team in turn to select a question to pose to another team. If the other team answers correctly, they score a point and it is then their turn to pose a question. If the team does not answer correctly, the team posing the question scores a point, and can pose another question. With more advanced learners, you can get them to prepare the questions instead of doing it yourself.
5- Crosswords or word searches. You can get learners to devise these themselves. It is best to select a topic, such as food, or travel, or a particular building the learners all know. Then ask each group to exchange their crossword or word-search with other groups.
6- Alphabetical circles. Choose a topic, for example, shopping. The first learner could say, ‘I went to the shop and bought an apple’. The next could continue, ‘I went to the shop and bought and apple and a banana’. Then could come ‘carrots’, ‘dates’, ‘eggs’, and so on. It is normally best to use only 23 letters, as there are not many things starting with X, Y or Z.
7- First and last letters. For example, ask learners to call out the names of animals, where the next one starts with the letter that the last one finished with. Sequences, such as ‘elephant’, ‘tiger’, ‘rhinoceros’, ‘seal’, could result. The same process can be used for all sorts of topics themes, including countries, capitals, cities, and so on.
8- Single letter mind-maps. This is a quick game that you can play with a whole class at a time. Pick a topic beginning with a chosen letter, for example ‘Danger’. Put this in a circle at the center of a whiteboard or overhead transparency. Then build around it other words beginning with ‘D‘which link to the central topic. Examples for this one could be ‘disaster’, ‘deep water’, ‘driving too fast’, and so on.
9- Homophones. Draw a sketch of (say) a witch, and ask learners for another word (which) sounding the same as the word represented by the sketch. Then get learners in groups to take turns doing the same thing. They will need plenty of thinking time!
10- Scrabble. This commercially available game can be adapted for learners whose command of language is relatively high. Allow learners to use electronic spellcheckers, or the spellcheck facilities on computers (or, of course, dictionaries).
