Esl Game

  Throughout section on the teaching of productive skills and the teaching of receptive skills our activate activities will usually involve some form of game and our final consideration here will be the use of games in the classroom. We can start with a definition of what we actually mean by a game and it basically has three components. A game is an activity that has rules it should have for its purpose in the classroom a teaching point and by nature to the fact that it's a game it should also include an element of fun. So that will be our working definition for a game that we're going to use in the classroom. There are many different types of games and they range between the competitive and those will require cooperation and there are all sorts of games that involve both of these...  [Read more]

  So, let's take a common game that's been played over the years, which is called Noughts and Crosses or Tic-Tac-Toe. What we're going to do is to adapt this game for classroom use. So, we've taken the normal Tic-Tac-Toe or Noughts and Crosses grid and we've just numbered out each of the particular squares. What we can then do is to form teams and those teams can then be asked a series of questions and they get to choose which question they want from 1 to 9. So, let's say, for example, they choose question 1. That could be on anything that they have studied ,the grammar or vocabulary. If they get that question correct and say they are the Noughts or the zeros then they get to put their mark here. What the next group will probably do is to try to block them in some way by choosing...  [Read more]

  The next example of a game that we can adapt very easily for classroom use is the game of Jeopardy and in this particular game, what we can do is to have a set of levels for our questions, I'd say one through five, where one is going to be the easiest example and five is going to be the most difficult and then, in each of these sets of boxes, we can have various grammar points, such as tenses, perhaps modals, vocabulary and maybe even conditionals. So what the students can do is they can pick a particular topic first of all and within that topic, they can pick the level of the question that they want and then we can have a set of cards that have been created to fit into these slots and we can ask them that question at that level. So, a very simple adaptation of the game jeopardy...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences When it comes to learning ESL, most learners associate it with memorizing spelling rules, doing countless grammar exercises, making abstract speaking topics, and translating sentences from L1 into English. In these, there is little or no listening and speaking practice involved, making English just one of the numerous boring school subjects. However, there is so much more to learning and activating the language if the fun element is involved. This doesn't only include traditional classroom games but also learning both at school and home with the usage of modern technology. Most children born in the 2000s have grown up using iPads and mobile phones, which makes them much more tech-literate even compared to the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Games are great tools to motivate students and encourage them to learn things informally. However, ESL classroom games must have a purpose and support the learning process and not distract from it. In this blog post, our ITTT TEFL expert shares seven steps to gamify your ESL classroom effectively. Before starting a game with your students, ask yourself what you want your students to achieve by the end of the game. Do you want them to learn a linguistic point or some particular behavior pattern? If you know your students' needs, then it's easier to choose an appropriate activity that will be purposeful to the learners. Also Read: Playing...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas ESL games are games that can be used in the classroom to practice certain language points and encourage active and creative communication between your students. There are many different games created specifically for use in the English language classroom that can be found online or in any number of resource books. But we are not limited only to those games designed for the class; the majority of games that we played as children or still play as adults can be adapted and used in lessons. Whether games are co-operative or competitive, they are a great way to provide students with a goal to be achieved by using the English they have learned. “Games are fun but are not suitable for the classroom.” There is plenty of...  [Read more]

TEFL Lemon began in 2014 as an ESL blog on the WeChat platform in China, quickly becoming the biggest ESL blog on WeChat. TEFL Lemon provided English teachers with ELT articles to read and share, as well as free ESL lesson ideas, ESL games and fun speaking activities which TEFL teachers could use in their classes. English teachers in China could also download free ESL flashcards on a variety of themes. Following their success on the WeChat platform, in 2018, TEFL Lemon decided to build their own website to offer their ESL Flashcard Games for Kids, ESL Warmers, ESL games and speaking activities for teens and adults for free to TEFL teachers around the world. You can visit their website here. Not only do TEFL Lemon offer teachers brilliant ESL games and teaching ideas, but they also have...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas There are many famous games used by TEFL teachers that students know like the back of their hand. If you want to change up your online lessons and bring even more fun in your teaching, check out these seven non-trivial online ESL games to help you in every stage of the TEFL class. For this activity, you will need to prepare a digital image and share it with a student during the online class. You can find plenty of connect-the-dots worksheets on the internet. The student needs to have access to the drawing tool, so make sure the online conference program you use has this feature. Choose a picture that would accompany the lesson's topic. Ask...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Anyone who has ever been in a classroom knows how much students enjoy playing games. Playing games is exciting and a great time for the students to get to know each other better as well as feel more at ease with the teacher. Consequently, a good English Teacher should know how to use games I order to achieve goals like reviewing previously learned vocabulary, enhancing spelling skills, practicing grammar points, promoting a nice and positive attitude in the classroom and many more! This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Xenia P. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Students of all levels and ages usually like playing games in the...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Did you say games in a classroom? Is that even possible? Many people around the world cannot imagine or accept that education can be fun too. However, it is very important to motivate, entertain and vary the class activities in order to avoid class boredom. Entertainment in class is also important because it helps to establish rapport in the class (it creates a relaxed, fun and motivated environment) and it works as an evaluation tool (gives us information about the student's’ knowledge). One particularly telling definition of games was explained by Diane Ackerman, a famous American poet and essayist, who stated that “Play is our brain's favorite way of learning”. This post...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas 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. There are literally hundreds, probably thousands, of games that you can play with your students. EFL games are used to test vocabulary, practice conversing, learn tenses - the list is endless. Also read: The 5 Best TEFL Games For Adult...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The online mode of teaching has become a primary one in the COVID-19 era. For many teachers, remote work is not easy especially due to a different approach to creating materials. If you still struggle with games and activities for your activate phase of the lesson, take a look at the following three tools that can help you to versatile your Zoom classes and make your students super happy! Yes, it’s that easy! This tool is like a magic wand for ESL teachers because it’s easy to use and very flexible in adjusting dozens of favorite games. It's not just a visual aid for delivering a presentation to an audience, in fact, Google Slides can be used as a tool to create a unique learning experience for students. All...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teaching language to children is a rather delicate and complex process that requires a careful approach and patience from the teacher. To make this process more vivid and interesting for children, it is necessary to remember the existence of such an important and very useful tool as games. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Aleksei K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. In my opinion, games act like some kind of a magic wand which forms the foundation of trust between the teacher and the child, helps to build a psycho-emotional connection, and greatly diversify the learning process as well. Games, in my opinion, have a very...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences All humans are raised with an innate love for games. Since we were all children, playing games was our pastime activity. When comes to teaching either young learners or adults, in-class games are the foundation stone of learning. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Pavlina M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Teaching Business English (BE) to clients/adults must be a fun procedure. There are many reasons why a teacher must use games when teaching English in class regardless of students’ age or occupation. To begin with, students can learn with great easiness through the game process. New concepts or language perspectives can...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences We must up our game as ESL teachers in the 21st century – both figuratively and literally. I use games to engage students and promote learning in my classroom for a wide range of learning objectives. Below is a short list of icebreaker games that I regularly use in my classroom, and I will discuss the learning target(s) that each game aims to facilitate and deliver as well as the context in which the game is used. Since I work with high school age and adult students, the games are geared for English Language Learners in these age groups. As learning communities become more globalized and data give more information on how people learn, one major challenge I find with gamifying learning in the ESL classroom is...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas We all know what it’s like to teach a class with reluctant students who don’t want to talk. It’s like pulling teeth. However, with these 7 awesome ESL conversation activities, you can really get your students talking! For this activity, you simply use a tumbling block game such as Jenga and write 1 simple ice breaker question on each block. Before a student places a block on the stack, they must first answer the question on the block. This activity is especially great for small ESL classes or for small groups in a big class. Also Read: The 5 Best Ways To Build Rapport With Your TEFL Students First, take a few minutes to brainstorm characteristics a person might have. This could be something like “has flown in...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I have been teaching English to young learners in China for almost a year and I tried to make my lessons with and without flashcards. And I can say for sure, that it’s really hard to teach children (3-12 years old) if you don’t have prepared flashcards for your classes, but only an interactive whiteboard and some stuff to play games. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Kelly P. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. I’d like to reveal a paragraph about games more deeply, because games in a classroom allow you to keep your students motivated and interested in what’s going on. Also Read: "7 Great Games for Your ESL Conversation...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Teaching Ideas Hello everybody and welcome to the ITTT weekly live stream. It's Liza here and I'm super excited that this stream happens every week and we can talk about teaching and TEFL and stuff like that. So welcome and thank you for joining me. Today, we are going to talk about online ESL game design. Last week I started showing you the game I was designing, it was Monopoly. Today I'm going to show you the outcome of the game and also tell you a little bit more about online game design. Thanks a lot for letting me know that you are watching and right now please let me know at what stage of your ESL career you are at. As for me, I'm an online ESL teacher currently. I used to teach in a real classroom several years ago, but then...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Games are a useful tool for teachers of EFL students because they help with motivation, engagement, and graceful failure (Plass 260-261). I will present a successful example of a teacher using games in an adult grammar class from Indonesia. Second, since I plan to teach online EFL students, I will present free digital games online teachers can use in their virtual classrooms. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Christopher C. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Many professional articles have been written showing the importance of game-based learning theory for EFL students. Games have an element of ‘play’ in them, and so differ...  [Read more]

Anna Domiczek TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Preschool curriculum or lesson plan designed for English language learners should incorporate several basic and common themes. Those popular themes created for young learners will introduce students to new, interesting vocabulary words and phrases. Learning about animals, clothing, food, family, shapes, colors, numbers, or daily activities makes students deeply engaged in learning. They are discovering the world around them versus memorizing/repeating abstract words and phrases. Thanks to such theme-based lessons, English language students genuinely engage with the content being taught and make real-life connections while developing new...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I love flashcards. Honestly, I really do. For me, they are a never-ending source of games and activities. Nowadays I work as an ESL teacher in a training center and I teach mostly young learners (students from 3 to 8 years old) and I am strongly convinced that this age group may learn a foreign language only through games, entertaining activities and live communication. Therefore, I am trying to be creative and use plenty of teaching aids and props, such as IWB, OHP, whiteboard, course books, board games, balls, balloons, hoops, various arts and crafts, etc. However, I find that using flashcards is simple yet one of the most effective tools to increase my student’s vocabulary. And here are some of my favorite...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Most everyone has a favorite game that they play over and over again. Games go further than just a simple competitive interaction between two people or teams. In a way, games teach the average person how to navigate life with two outcomes; either the joy of winning or the disappointment of losing. Although it is not necessarily bad to lose it is an inevitable outcome for each person who participates. The idea is to learn from the failure to gain experience in which you can strategize a new way to achieve victory. The act of winning is simply the reward for playing the game as it is expected to be played. The main concept of games is competition and how we as human beings are constantly competing whether we realize...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Nobody doubts that motivated students learn better and assimilate taught contents more easily than non-motivated ones but keeping students motivated and engaged during class is one of the teachers' biggest challenges. Playing games in class, though, seems to be of great help when it comes to engaging, reinforce materials and retain the attention of students. Another positive point is that games can be used at any moment in the teaching process by any level. The usages are diverse varying from teaching to getting feedback, not to mention that having students playing games reduces drastically Teacher's Talking Time turning classes more student-centered. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Kelly...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Teaching Ideas Teaching speaking skills is an important part of an ESL class. Sometimes, entire conversation classes are established that focus solely on speaking. Here are 7 great games for your ESL conversation class. Write down the names and key points about five celebrities and assign them to the same amount of students in your classroom. One by one, a student enters a “party” with another student playing the host. The host must then find out the identity of each guest by having a conversation with everyone. Have your students stand in a circle. Choose a specific grammar point and have the first person asks a question using the grammar structure. The student then throws a ball to another student who answers the question...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Are games in a classroom a good idea? There seem to be two trains of thought regarding this. Games in the classroom can be seen as being a good thing and also seen as a time-waster and something that shouldn't be used at school once a student is out of the early years of elementary school. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Brandie K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. At the school, I currently work at, and with some of the schools previously, there are several native to Japan teachers who will get angry when they find out the students have played games in my English class. I have been told that it is a waste of time, something...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas There are many benefits to using games in the classroom, including the creation of an engaging learning experience for students, a positive learning environment, and the potential for students to practice real-life situations with instant feedback. Also, gamification of learning can use students’ natural inclination for socialization, achievement, and award. Thus, games can be a great tool for teaching English as a foreign language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Tassyn M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Games should be used with a direct purpose and should be monitored carefully to see if the intended results are...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Teaching Ideas Flashcard is an indispensable tool that every teacher needs during the studying process. Regardless of the age of the students, it can be used effective equal with young learners or adults. Usually, in the ESL classes, the teacher uses flashcards when they need to teach new or review the previous vocabulary. It’s also one of the easiest ways to add some games into your lesson, cause mostly it doesn’t need special preparations. Young learners especially like flashcard games because usually it’s active games and allow them to have fun during the lesson. There are different types of flashcards, for instance, on one side could be a word or picture on another side – it's the English translation. Those types of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas What are the principles of lesson planning and how it can enhance your teaching? This blog post is devoted to this problem. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teachers definitely need to work on their skills and style. In this blog post, our TEFL graduate considers several benefits teachers get from taking a TEFL course. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Slang is a colloquial form of language. However, it does not mean teachers should avoid it in their lessons. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In the globalized world, English takes the central...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas How to design a perfect lesson plan and use it effectively our TEFL graduate explains in this blog post. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas What are the principles of lesson planning and how it can enhance your teaching? This blog post is devoted to this problem. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Teachers definitely need to work on their skills and style. In this blog post, our TEFL graduate considers several benefits teachers get from taking a TEFL course. Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Slang is a colloquial form of language. However, it does...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Learning an unfamiliar language is no easy feat and with the globalization of the English language, more and more people are faced with the task of learning English to better their lives. It is no secret that English is one of the more difficult languages to learn given its many peculiarities and the lack of clues to pronunciation. This makes learning English not only more complicated but often frustrating for students who have difficulties understanding certain concepts. This is where games can have a huge impact. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Randi B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The most important job of any teacher,...  [Read more]