Games for English Learners

English learning games are an essential part of classroom management, even at intermediate and advanced levels of instruction. Games keep students awake, and can help review old material, as well as introduce and practice new material. Games for intermediate and advanced English learners can even be more fun than beginners' games, since the instructions and subject matter can be more complex.

1.     Jigsaw Story

This activity is great for practicing sequencing, but it is also useful for general reading comprehension. Play in small groups. Type up a short story (6 to 10 sentences) in individual lines, and then cut them apart. Give each member of the group 2 to 3 sentences. Each student reads her sentences aloud, and the group tries to put the story in order. The first group to put it together properly wins.

2.      Alphabet Practice

Have the class stand up and form a circle. Say a word; students then will go around the circle saying a word that starts with the same letter. Anyone who misses sits down for the rest of the round. If your class is small, go around the circle two or three times using the same first letter. This game should be fast-paced, so don't allow any one student to think for too long. For very advanced students, make the game more challenging by requiring the words to fit into two categories (e.g., they must have same first letter and be a verb).

3.      N+7

Practicing dictionary skills and parts of speech can be dry, so liven things up with this game. Divide the class into small groups, and give them each a short poem or excerpt of a poem (rhyming poems work very well for this game). Each group must also have a dictionary. Students must find all the nouns in the poem, and then replace them with another noun that is seven dictionary entries away (if the seventh entry is not another noun, students choose the next possible entry). Each group then reads aloud the original poem and the altered poem (which may not make sense, but will be funny, especially in comparison to the original). The results will vary depending on the dictionary and how well the students counted, but what really matters is whether the students found the correct parts of speech (in the original poem and in the dictionary).