Technology in education

Games and fun activities

Games and fun activities are a vital part of teaching English as a foreign language. Whether you’re teaching adults or children, games will liven up your lesson and ensure that your students will leave the classroom wanting more.

Games can be used to warm up the class before your lesson begins, during the lesson to give students a break when you’re tackling a tough subject, or at the end of class when you have a few minutes left to kill.

Two Truths and a Lie

This getting-to-know-you ESL game is a lot of fun for more advanced students. Each student must tell the class two truths and a lie about him or herself and have the class guess which statement is the lie. Students must be able to express themselves orally in order to succeed at this game. This game allows students to get very creative, which means that they usually have a lot of fun playing.

Hot Seat

This is one of students’ favorite games. Hot Seat allows students to build their vocabulary and encourages competition in the classroom. They are also able to practice their speaking and listening skills and it can be used for any level of learner.

Why use it?  Vocabulary; Speaking and Listening

Who it's best for:  All ages and levels

How to play:

• Split the class into 2 teams, or more if you have a large class.
• Elect one person from each team to sit in the Hot Seat, facing the classroom with the board behind them.
• Write a word on the board. One of the team members of the student in the hot seat must help the student guess the word by describing it. They have a limited amount of time and cannot say, spell or draw the word.
• Continue until each team member has described a word to the student in the Hot Seat.

Don’t forget the…

In your group, you are going on a shopping trip. Before you leave, you need to make a list. Sit in a circle and the first person starts by saying the first thing on the list. For example “I’m going to the shops and I need to buy apples.” The next person needs to add something to the list and remember what the first person wanted to buy. For example “I’m going to the shops and I need to buy apples and bread.” Keep going and adding to the list and see how long it takes before someone forgets one of the items.

Charades

This is a classic party game and it’s great for practising English, too. On stack of cards or slips of paper, write down the vocabulary you want to remember – verbs and nouns work well for this game. Now mix up the pieces of paper and take turns to act out a word each while the other people in the group try to guess which word you are acting.

Name of the Activity - Completing clothes parts

Description - Stick pictures of some clothes on the walls of classroom seperately. Draw only a head of a person on the board and ask them to complete the picture putting them right places of the body. Then, in the same way ask them to find the names of clothes sticking beside the right clothes.

Language focus/aims - Knesthetic activity, clothes and body parts