Pass The Bomb

Level: Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced.

Skills: speaking.

Topic: vocabulary.

Materials: slips of paper, small item (an eraser or a pencil).

Time: 10 to 20 minutes.

This game works great with vocab-recap.

Cut out slips of paper with topics on them (e.g. nouns starting with F, things found in a circus, irregular verbs in past participle, city facilities, genres of fiction….). Divide students into groups of four, and give each group a set of topics. Each group also has a small item (e.g. an eraser or a pencil; if you can, a small rubber ball is excellent for this game) that can be passed around between them. 

Start the timer on your cell phone and call out ’start’. A student in each group now picks up a topic from the pile and says one word connected to this topic. As soon as a relevant word has been said, the student passes on the small item to the student next to him/her. This student now has to say a new word, pass on the item and so on. 

The student with the item in his/her hand when you call out ’stop (after appr. 30-45 seconds), gets a point, and in this game, you don’t want to get points. If all the students of the group have said their words, after the allotted time, the group gets no point.

It's amazing how feverish competitive this game gets and how deeply involved the students become. 

Mobile Phones

Level: Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced.

Skills: speaking.

Topic: grammar / vocabulary.

Materials: student's own mobile phones.

Time: 5 to 15 minutes.

Everyone has a mobile phone. Most students end up clashing with the school protocols against the usage of those in classroom, but you can change that a bit. 

Put the students into working pairs. Call out a letter. The students see in their mobiles databank who is the first person with that letter and talk with a partner about that person, for about a minute. When the time is up,  change letters. Keep the activity speedy! 

It's guaranteed that students would like this and feel at ease about the school protocols against mobile phones in class afterwards.

Long Sentence Game

Level: Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced.

Skills: speaking.

Topic: grammar.

Materials: none.

Time: 5 to 15 minutes.

One student says a sentence, e.g. I watch TV, and then names another student in class (Gabriel). Gabriel then repeats the sentence, adding a verb phrase, and names the next student, e.g. I watch TV and I eat popcorn. (Isabella). Isabella repeats the sentence and adds another phrase, e.g. I watch TV, I eat popcorn, and I phone my boyfriend. (Laura).

A different student must be nominated each time. The game continues round the class. The object of the game is for students to remember and say the ever lengthening sentence. When the sentence is long enough and students are struggling to remember it, finish by getting the whole class to repeat the final sentence together. 

Tip: demonstrate with examples on the board before you start, showing students how the position of and moves. You can use long sentence game for structures such as: like (verb) -ing (I like reading, swimming, dancing, etc.); there is / there are (In my bedroom, there is a bed, a chair, a computer, etc.); past simple (Yesterday, I got up, I had a shower, I got dressed, etc.); countability (My sister bought some tomatoes, an onion, some sugar, etc.).

Add a Word

Level: Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced.

Skills: speaking.

Topic: grammar / vocabulary.

Materials: none.

Time: 5 to 15 minutes.

The object of this game is to build up a story with each student contributing one word at a time. Good for gauging individual student's pronunciation problems.

The first student begins by saying one word; the second student adds another word; and so on, gradually building up a story. Students can add 'period', signalling the end of a sentence if it is appropriate. The ones who could not come up with a suitable word or take too much time are out of the game.

Example:

• Student 1: One
• Student 2: Day
• Student 3: Charlie
• Student 4: Saw
• Student 5: A
• Student 6: Gorilla
• Student 7: Walking
• Student 8: Down
• Student 9: The
• Student 10: Street
• Student 11: [Period]
• Student 12: 'Hello'
• Student 1: Said
• Student 2: Charlie... (And so on).