ESL Games – Best Ways to Use Them to Enrich Your ESL Classes

Many years ago as a neophyte elementary school ALT in Japan, I got a piece of advice: ESL classroom games are a great way to waste away the time of English class, especially if you didn’t plan enough activities to do.

At the time, that kind of made sense to me but over the years, Ive started feeling that thats sort of offensive actually. I mean if our classes should provide something of value to children, what are we doing that we have to kill time? And what kind of poor planning results in too much time at the end of class.

After several years of teaching elementary school English classes, I must admit that ESL classroom games are an extremely valuable way for getting the students to practice more, do it in a repetitious way, and all with out them, the students, getting bored. When you play games in class, children see the practice part of the lesson as learning a games rules. And by playing the game, the students are really just practicing their English some more.

Planning your lessons does require a little bit of fore thought. One, you must plan the games according to the classes grade level otherwise if the game is too complex, the activity won’t go well. You also have to consider how many prior English lessons the students have had for that thematic unit. The reason is that some games allow the students a lot of freedom and thus don’t work so well until the children are comfortable with the vocabulary.

Ways to use ESL games in the classroom–many elementary schools in Japan, set up classes that explore a thematic unit over the course of a month which averages out to about four lessons per month. Lesson one therefore is an introductory one.

For the first lesson, the vocabulary will be new to most students. Therefore, the students will need help to use English. Repeating-style games, like the “Magic Word Game,” are good choices. Games where students are listening and reacting, like the “Card Slap Game,” also work well.

For lesson number two, the children are gaining some confidence in the vocabulary since lesson one. Because of this confidence, they are ready to play a game that give them some more freedom rather than just repeating after the teacher. A game like, the “Fruit Basket Game,” fits the bill nicely. This game requires student to be able to recall and say the vocabulary on their own.

The third lesson again allows the students to play games with even less interaction with the teacher. Games like the Whisper Game, and the Hot Potato Game, have the student communicating for nearly the whole round with no teacher participation.

The children are ready to play one on one games with their classmates by the fourth lesson. Now, the teacher need only go through the class and help children that may still be having trouble. Games that work great for a fourth lesson, include “Through the Bombs,” and the “Monster Catcher Game.”

So hopefully by now you’ll start to look at ESL classroom games a little different–that instead of being used as a time killer, they are actually a valuable teaching resource. Children love classes that are fast-paced and fun and with games as part of the curriculum, that’s exactly the kind of class you’ll have. Combined with skits and other ESL activities and children are sure to love English class.

Given the alternative of complex children’s song, and repetitious drill and then toss in teacher unsure of his own English ability, I’d rather, as Ron White would say, be drug naked over a cactus with my mouth on the tailpipe of a greyhound bus.