ESL Speaking Activities, Games and more

ESL Speaking

If you're on the lookout for some new English speaking games and activities to make your classes interesting and engaging, some help is here. First of all, check out one of my other websites: ESL Speaking: Games, Activities, and Resources.

Next, don't forget to sign-up for my mailing list. You'll get 40 ESL games and activities delivered straight to your inbox, along with lots of other stuff that I think will be helpful for you.

40 Free ESL Speaking Games and Activities

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Next, go to ESL Warm-up Games and Activities. There's lots of goodness here that you can use to help get your classes started off the right way.

Finally, check out Speaking Activities That Don't Suck: Foolproof Ways to Force Your EFL Students to Produce Enormous Amounts of English from English Teacher X. Speaking activities, presented in an extremely funny, witty way.

ESL Speaking: Activities, Games and Resources

2 pieces of  news for you, my readers. The first is: ESL Speaking. If you teach a conversation, discussion or 4-skills English class, this is the site for you. It has games, activities and resources all designed to help you plan your speaking classes. Plus, I think the design is wicked cool, if I do say so myself (it's my site! Ha!).

The second thing is that if you want to get 40 of my favorite ESL games and activities, you should sign up and get it delivered straight to your inbox. I promise only goodness for you and none of the badness that is spam.

40 ESL Games and Activities-Classroom Tested and Approved

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Lesson Planning Made Easy

I'm in the office, here on a Friday night in South Korea getting ready for the upcoming semester which has come alarmingly fast. Time flies when you're having fun jet-setting around the world, or something like that. Anyway, onwards and downwards back to Earth.

I checked out my class rosters and it appears that many of the students I had last semester are back for round 2 this semester. Same students, same teacher, just different subject. Which is fine and I actually like having repeat students who've conformed to my system, but one area where is does throw a little wrench into the system is the class warm-up. I did word puzzles last semester and felt like by the end, I had exhausted every single appropriate one I could find on the Internet. Finding good ones for my students is tricky,  since they're not little kids, but they don't necessarily understand ones with complicated language.

So, my solution! ESL Trivia, Logic Puzzles and Word Games. It's $9.99 well spend, let's just say that and the deeper I've dived in as I'm planning, the more impressed that I am. I can't believe I wasted so much time last semester scurrying around the Internet looking for stuff that's all in one place (this book!). Seriously...it's kind of the ultimate way to start off your class with a couple little brain-teaser trivia puzzles.

Teacher Resource Pack

I've run across this helpful resource from Rob Whyte over at ESL Writing and perhaps most famous from his work on Lonely Planet Korea. As a cool aside, we hung out yesterday doing some "research" for the upcoming edition. Anyway, onto the helpful thing.

It's a teacher's resource pack which contains the following:

160 logic puzzles and word games
ESL Trivia Challenge volume 1
ESL Trivia Challenge volume 2

I always do a bit of trivia or a puzzle of some sort to start my classes off in an interesting way, but it's kind of hard to find things appropriate for students who don't speak English as their first language, so this could be quite useful for sure. You can buy it at: ESL Publications  for $9.99 and it comes with a money-back guarantee if you're not happy. You can buy each book individually, but click through to the second page for the resource pack which contains all three-it's a much better deal!

How to start a class

How to start a class is something that I waver back and forth on and I'd actually like some ideas and suggestions on it.  I've done a lot of things over the years ranging from the, "Hi everyone, how are you?" to giving students some free-writing time, or things like riddles as a warm-up.  They have their various pros and cons, but these days for bigger classes, I'll usually just start with "Hi everyone, this is what we're doing today...."  And then I'll go over the plan for the class.  This semester, I'm planning to follow that up with attendance and then 2 riddles as a kind of warm-up.

For small classes, I do much the same but I get a bit of banter going on.  Banter with big groups of students in Korea usually doesn't work that well so I try to avoid it.

Tips from the readers?

Teaching: the Small Stuff that Actually Matters

If you want to see me live and in-person, come check out the Kotesol Busan-Gyeongnam Symposium on April 12th at Busan National University.  I'll be talking about my top 10 small things that actually matter in the classroom.  Leading up to that, I'll be taking the next 10 days or so to talk about each one individually. 

Small Thing #1: Where are you going?

People like to know the plan, particularly if they are the organized type like I am.  Even those who are generally not organized probably like to know as well.  In the classroom, students like to know what's going on.  What is the beginning and middle and end of a class.  And students seem to feel reassured about the whole thing if they know that the teacher has actually prepared.  I've taken some language classes where it felt like the teacher threw together some crap 1 minute before walking into class and was just making stuff up on the spot.  It didn't give me a happy, comfortable feeling. 

Anyway, in the classroom, I'll always write up the plan on the side of the board.  Just general stuff and this is maybe what is would like for a conversation class:

Today's Plan:

1. Warm-up: review game xyz

2. Simple past - pg. 12 + conversation practice

3. Listening - pg 13

4. Simple past board game

5. Homework: Workbook pg. 34

For my writing classes, it's usually much simpler and I just throw it up at the first slide of my PPT for the students to check out as they come into class. 

Listening Lesson Plan: Thomas Edison

I used this listening exercise as a warm-up for part 2 of my "used to/didn't use to" lesson plan.  The rest of the lesson consisted of talking about inventions and what life was life before and after the invention.

I put the students in groups of 4 or 5 and gave them the questions beforehand and gave them a couple minutes to read them.  Then, I showed the Thomas Edison video one time and gave them 2 minutes to talk with their group and try to fill in the answers.  Then, I showed the video a second time and gave them 3-4 minutes to again talk with their group.  Then, I checked the answers and the group with the most questions right got a little prize.

The Cell-Phone Addiction Unit

It seems like every single ESL Textbook for adults/uni students seems to have a unit on increasing cell-phone usage/addiction.  A fun way to introduce this is by having students use their smartphones to take a quiz.

It was really easy for me to give students the link via Twitter.  I use Twitter instead of giving handouts for things like the syllabus or midterm exam review papers in my classes, so it motivates all the students to sign up for it.  Anyway, I asked the students to open up their Twitter app and look for the Tweet that I'd already posted that morning before class.  They clicked on that tweet and were shown a link for the cell-phone quiz.   It took them about 5 minutes to do it and they could then get their result in a percentage for how addicted they are to their cell-phone. 

Fun...world cup style

Even though the fad has passed, this can still be a fun game that Korean students get kind of excited about.  First, write up some questions.  I use review things mostly but add in a few random ones like, "What time did you wake up this morning?" or "How long did it take you to come to school this morning?" 

Then, in class count up your students and make up a "draw."  You know, the round of 16, quarter-finals, semis and the final.  If you have an odd number and it doesn't quite work, make up some "last-chance spots."  So all the people who lost their game in the section of the draw can compete against each other for the last spot.  Write up student's names in the draw, randomly (I use the attendance list).  To add some more fun, and for smaller classes you can get students to pick a country.  For bigger classes, wait until the semi-finals before you allow country picking.

Anyway, ask the students a question from your list and the person to answer the fastest gets to move onto the next round.  That's it!

A fun vocab review game

Write the vocab words on a flip chart of some sort.  I use an old notebook and write one word/page.  Divide the class up into teams.  I find that 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.  I 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.

I do 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 Korean, I discount that point.  This game is very, very fun.  Lots of laughs and happy times.

A simple game to review vocab

I'll use this game once or twice a semester to either review vocab that we've studied in class that day, or to start off a new class to review stuff from the previous week.  I make a grid on my computer.  Maybe 4x5.  Then, I fill in the chart with half words and half definitions.  Examples from this week:
Exhausted/very tired. It's between my head and shoulders/neck. If I drink too much soju/stomachache.

Make a few copies and cut them out. Put the students in groups of 4 or 5 and have them put them face down on the desk.  They go around, one at a time trying to make a match.  If you make a match, you get to go again. 

Steal the Eraser

Thanks to one of coworkers, Danielle for the basic idea of this game.

Divide the students into 2 teams.  Have 2 desks at the front of the class, facing each other, with an eraser in the middle of the 2 desks.  One student from each team comes and sits in the hot seat.  Rotate through so that all the students get a chance to play.  You then ask a question of some sort.  The first person that grabs the eraser can try to answer the question.  My rule is that you can take the eraser whenever you want, but I"ll only say the question once.  I then count 10 seconds down on my fingers.  Their team can help them with the answer, but only in English.  If correct, they get 1 point.  If not, the other team gets a chance to answer the question.

This week in class, we're studying "When I _________, I ______/ I __________when I ________.

So, I would say something like, "When I feel happy, I _________." Or "I'm late for school when __________"

And of course, to make it even more exciting or if one team is behind by a lot of points, have a "Bonus Round," where the teams pick their best 3 players and each question is worth 2 or 3 points, or something like that.

Late students

Korean university students seem to think that walking into class 30, 50 or even over an hour late (in a 1.5 hour class) is acceptable.  And they want their little attendance mark when they do it, because if they have over a certain numbers of absences, then they automatically get a failing grade according to university policy. 

I hate this.  I loathe lateness.  LOATHE.  It's actually my #1 Pet Peeve, and the first year I taught at a uni in Korea, I felt like I had no control over this situation and so the students took advantage of it.  They would wander in and out of class continually and disrupt any kind of vibe or activity that we had going on.  It was extremely frustrating.

So, I made a new rule.  You need to be sitting in your desk before the class officially starts in order to get your point for the day (a stamp=1% of the final grade).  Then, I lock the door after 10 minutes to prevent any late-comers from even trying to come in.  Because I'm so kind (!), a few more people who are 1-9 minutes late can come in as we're playing the daily warm-up game but they won't get their point for the day.  And to minimize the annoyance even more, the first thing I do every day is play a 5-10 minute warm-up or review game so that a few late students don't interrupt everything or miss vital information that they'll need to further participate in the rest of the class.  They just sit down, and relax until the game is over.

Do you hate something about teaching at a uni in Korea?  There might be a solution to your problem that you can implement because you'll generally have full control over how your run your classes.

Need some new ideas for class?

As I was cruising the 'net for a few new ideas of my own, I ran across this amazing list of stuff to do with kids.  It's like the equivalent to my own "master list" that I have for teaching adults, for kids.  Lots of it can be adapted for any age group though.

Reader Question: the Master List

I've been talking about my "master list" of games and activities that I consult when prepping for my classes.  Danielle asks if I'd be willing to share the list.  And yes, I would but it wouldn't make much sense to anyone but me.  Most of the things on it are just 3 or 4 words and offer no explanation as to how to actually play the game or do the activity.  It'd be much more beneficial to use the label I've listed in the sidebar "game."   There are 36 entries listed and some of them talk about games in a general kind of way but most of them are specific things that I do in class.   Some more good stuff is to be found under "warm-up."

A quick warm-up game for all levels of adults

Put the students in groups of 2-3-4.  Have them pick 4 famous people, dead or alive that they'd like to invite to a party they are having.  Then, they have to say the reason why they're inviting them.  I do an example like this:

Person: Michael Jackson
Reason?  He can play some dance music for us.  Also, I want to know why he got so much plastic surgery. 

Give them a few minutes, depending on the level.  Then, I get the student to pick 1 or 2 of the people, depending on the size of the class and tell the rest of the class their answer. 

I've gotten an interesting array of answers and the students are quite interested to hear what the other groups have to say.

The pass

A genius blog entry from David Deubel about "Small Musts" in the ESL/EFL classroom.  I want to talk a bit about:

10.7 Not asking students what they learned. End each class with a review of the target language/expressions/vocabulary. Also, end each class by asking them if they are happy. Just by reminding them they can be happy – they will be a little more.

This is something that I did a while back at the beginning of the next class.  I'd always do a quick review of the previous week or two, either in the form of a warm-up game or activity, or just a few questions from me to the whole class.  But, I really, really like the idea of doing it at the end of class as well.  I think language learning is all about hearing/learning/seeing something enough times that it's impossible for you not to know it.  One or two exposures to a vocabulary item or grammar point is not enough for it to really "stick" in your brain.  And I also plan to get back onto the review at the beginning of the next class train.  I don't really know why I got off.  I just kind of forgot I guess. 

10.9 Not allowing students to “pass”. Students are human beings. They have emotions. They sometimes just don’t want to answer. They should always be allowed the safety of being able to say “pass."

In Korean universities (at least mine!), students are generally quite lazy and showing up seems to be equated to passing the class in their minds.  Asking them to answer a question, such that they actually have to pay attention is often entirely too much.  Giving students a "pass" option would, in my poorer classes result in a continuous series of "pass" "pass" haha "pass" "pass" hahaha.  So, this is how I do answers:

1. I will ALWAYS give students time with their partner to answer the question before I will ever make someone answer in front of the class.  This way, they at least have some answer they can say.  Or, if I don't give the students time, I will ask for volunteers to answer.

2. The students in my class sit in groups of 2 or 3.  I will almost always go by groups.  Like one person from the group has to answer this question.  Then onto the next group for the next question.  This way, if there is one person who is really poor at English or just doesn't want to answer they have their friend to help them.

"How are you today?"

In all my classes, I try to elicit a student question for me, in response to a question I've asked.  Example: at the beginning of my smaller classes (less than 10), I'll usually ask students, "How are you today?" for lower levels or "What's happening/ what's up?" for the higher level classes.  I'll go around the class and then when everyone is finished, I'll just wait.  Someone will have to ask me the same question.  I try to always give a very vague but interesting answer so that students want to know more information and will ask me some questions.

In real-life use of a language, it's not just one person ask, the other one responds.  It's a back and forth kind of thing, so I try to model this in the classroom.  And actually, you might be surprised at how weak most Korean students are at asking simple questions, since they've generally never been expected to do this before.  This is a simple step in the right direction. 

Describing People (or anything for that matter)

A simple warm-up game that you can use to generate some interest in this topic that is often review for many students.  Make 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)

Warm up game

...a fun one to get some thinking juices going. It's called odd one out. For example, I'll have 7 or 8 sets of them on the board. You can make it into a review game in some cases. Body part, shapes and foods work very well.

1. apple/orange/onion/banana
2.ankle/toe/leg/mouth
3. Tv/cup/credit card/table

and on it goes.

Which one is different and why?

1. onion, because not a fruit
2. Mouth, because upper 1/2 of body.
3. Cup, because it's a round shape.

I usually put them in teams of 2 and they have to write down their answers. The first 2 teams get a prize of some sort.