100+

Awesome
Warmers &
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Acknowledgements

This anthology of warmers and fillers has been compiled after

years of ESL teaching and training TESOL students, the latter
whom I would like to acknowledge for their contributions in
submitting creative and innovative ideas for warmers and fillers.

Apologies if I have neglected to mention some names, but a

heartfelt thank you to:

Adam, Ajda, AK, Alyssa, Amelita, Andraž, Aniquiel, Anna,

Ariane, Ashim, Ben, Carlyn, Caryl, Cherry Anne, Dario, Darren,
Earl, Edward, Enelyn, Erik, Espina, Febe, Fernadielle, Freddie,
Ian, Ivy, Jade, Jane, Janet, Janica, Jann, Jas, Jean, Jelyn, Jen,
Jenny, Jeremy, Jhonny, Joe, Joel, John, Judeica, Julia, Katie,
Kevin, Kristine, Lan, Leriza, Lou, Lucas, Lyra, Mae, Magdalena,
Maniesha, Marie, Marijoy, Marni, May, Meghan, Michael, Minh,
Mylene, Neil, Paul, Peter, Phillipe, Rachael, Rick, Ritchie,
Rosalie, Rose, Shahnawaj, Shania, Sharon, Sheila, Sophie,
Stefanie, Steven, Tom, Tuan, Vien, Vuthuy, Yael to name but a
few!

You have inspired me over the years and have truly helped me to
be a better teacher! Love to you all! – Diana Joyce Renke

PS.. Be sure to check out my blog for more teaching ideas:

www.awesome-esl.com/blog

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 101 Awesome Warmers & Fillers

Table of Contents

Vocab revision games / 35. Spelling Tennis

Brainstorming 36. Vowel Body Spelling
1. Scattegories 37. Spaghetti Spelling
2. Word Tennis 38. Tower
3. Memory / Hidden Squares 39. Change The Letter Game
(Pelmanism)
4. Mime, Draw, Explain Fluency / Speaking Practice
5. Pictionary 1. Shout It Out
6. Shout It Out 2. 3 Things In Common
7. Pyramid / Back To The Board 3. Music Chart Discussion
8. Vocabulary Charades 4. Dice Discussions
9. Taboo 5. Disco / Library
10. Mallet’s Mallet / Bonk 6. That’s A Lie!
11. Finger Bingo 7. Weekend
12. How Many Things Can You 8. Talk For A Minute
Think Of That….? 9. 3 Picture Story
13. Stop The Bus / Brainstorming 10. Story Telling
(Vocab-Pronunciation) 11. Magic Circle
14. Memory Words 12. Spin The Bottle
15. Word Association 13. Talk Or Die
16. Opposites Quiz 14. To Be Or Not To Be
17. Name Two Things 15. Angry Greetings
18. Around The World 16. I’d Rather…
19. Ladder 17. Chinese Whispers / Telephone
20. Words From Words
21. Flashcard Mystery Grammar Points
22. Tick, X, Squiggle 40. All Of Us
23. ABC Word Race 41. Have You Ever …?
24. Grid Game 42. Jumbled Sentences
25. Flashcards With Symbols 43. The Long Sentence Game
26. Steps Game 44. Change Chairs
27. Label Your Neighbor 45. Who Would….?
28. Pass The Eraser 46. Irregular Verbs Challenge
29. Change The Letter Game 47. Jump The Line
30. Ball Between Backs Race
Pronunciation Activities
Spelling 48. Tongue Twisters
31. Alphabet Game 49. Ship Or Sheep
32. The Letter Game 50. Pronunciation Grids – Shouting
33. Spelling Relay Dictation
34. Body Letters 51. Pronunciation Ball Throw

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Questions 86. 10 Second Objects
52. Coffeepotting 87. Fruit Salad
53. Quizzes
54. 20 Questions Misc
55. Proxy Interviews 88. I Spy…
56. Do You Like Your 89. Riddles
Neighbours? 90. True Or False Statements
57. Question Dice 91. Picture Flash
58. Who / What Is It? 92. Snow Ball Fight
59. Yes / No Game 93. Betting Games
60. Shout The Answer 94. Cough Dictation
61. Banana-Na 95. Croquet
62. Fruits And Vegetables 96. Basketball
63. Find Someone Who… 97. Coup Co
64. Don’t Answer Back! 98. Balderdash
65. Stand In Line 99. Can I Come?
100. Word Plexers
Writing 101. Cuisenaire Rods Pattern Game
66. Word Stories 102. Jumping Over Ladders
67. Email 103. Rick’s Bomber Game
68. Writing Storm

Numbers
69. First To 20
70. Over & Under Ball Pass
71. Number Draw Race
72. Fizz – Buzz
73. 21

Music
74. Musical Categories
75. Musical Jobs
76. Music – Ordering Sentences
Or Words
77. Music – Gap Fills
78. Music – Karaoke
79. Music – Singing And Dancing

TPR
80. Teacher Says (Simon Says)
81. Opposites Teacher Says
82. Shark
83. Human Knot
84. Duck Duck Goose
85. Body Dice

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 Warmers and Fillers
Vocab Revision Games / Brainstorming

Scattegories
 This is similar to stop the bus but the categories are more obscure, e.g. ‘things
you find in the kitchen’, ‘things that are cold’ and there is a time limit rather
than waiting until the first person finishes. In groups, give the students a
bunch of categories. Tell them they have 3 minutes to write as many answers
as they can, starting with a certain letter (you will have to make sure there are
answers for all your categories with the letter you give the students). Each
team gets one point for every original answer they have (similar answers
negate each other and no team gets a point for that answer). This will
encourage students to be creative in their answers. All answers are up for
debate and can be voted on by the rest of the class. Continue with a new
letter. The team with the most points in the end wins.

Word Tennis
 Split the class into two teams. The first person on each team will shout out the
answer first, and then the second person the second answer and so on. The
teacher shouts out a topic e.g. ‘clothes’ and the first student on one team says
a word in the topic e.g. ‘shirt’. The first student on the other team says
another word from the topic e.g. ‘trousers’. Then the second person on the
first team says another and so on until someone messes up. The other team
gets a point. Continue with another topic e.g. foods.

Memory / Hidden Squares (Pelmanism)

 Divide the class into groups. Give each group a set of matching word cards
(you can also use picture-word matching, word-definition matching, etc.).
Students lay them out in the form of a grid e.g. if there are 24 cards, they lay
the cards down 4 across and 6 down. One student starts by turning over two
cards and reading them out loud. If they match, the student keeps them as a
pair. If they don’t match, the student turns them back over as they were.
Then it is the next student’s turn. Continue until all pairs are matched. The
student with the most matches wins.

Mime, Draw, And Explain

 Split the class into teams. Have one student come to the front of the room.
Give the student a vocab word. The student begins to mime the word. If the
students cant get the word, the student then draw the word or clues to explain
the word. If the students still can’t get the word, the student then explains the
word (without saying what it is). If a team gets it when the student is miming =
3 pts, drawing = 2 pts, and explaining = 1pt.

Pictionary
 Divide your students into pairs, sitting, facing each other in 2 lines. Give one
line of students a mini-board and marker. Show them a flashcard or a vocab
word. The students draw the picture as their partner guesses what it is. The
first to guess correctly (from any picture) gets a point.

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 Change this into a more challenging game by having the students draw whole
sentences e.g. ‘the cat is sleeping on the TV.’

Shout It Out
 Divide the class into teams. Have one student from the first team come to the
front of the room and draw a card (see following pages for some example
topics). The student tells their team the topic and the students have 30
seconds to shout out as many things on the list as possible. The number of
words on the list they get is the number of points they get for that round. You
can let the other teams have a 15 second chance to come with any more they
can think of for extra points. Then have another student from the next team
come to the front and draw a card. The team with the most points wins.

Pyramid / Back To The Board

 Divide the class into two or three teams. Place one student from each team at
the front of the room in chairs with their backs to the board. Write a word on
the board. The rest of the students must describe the word to their team mate
(over the voices of the other teams describing the same word). Students may
not use Vietnamese or spell the word, but you can allow them to act it out if
you want. The first team member to guess the word on the board gets a point.
This is sometimes played using a pyramid grid, assigning a point scale on
each line, making the value of the points raise as the pyramid builds and the
words get harder. See following pages for template.

Vocabulary Charades
 Students write new vocabulary on cards from the lesson associated with the
topic. Collect the cards and divide the class into teams of two or three. One
student from each team comes to the front of the class. Choose a card for
each student. Show student 1 a card. He / she mimes the meaning of the
word to his / her team, who win a point for a correct guess. If the team cannot
guess, the other teams can raise their hands to guess. Student 2 and 3 then
take turns to mime their words. Continue with different team members and
words. The team with the most points wins.

Taboo
 Write down a list of vocab words from previous units / lessons. Divide the
class into teams. Call up one student from each team. Show the two
students the same word e.g. in-line skates. They have to stand in front of
their teams and try and describe the object without actually saying the word
(or any words that are in the word) or using any actions. The rest of the team
has to try to guess the word. The first team to guess what is being described
wins a point. If a student describing the word actually uses the word, they
lose a point. Make sure you and your TA monitor the teams closely for any
blatant cheating. Repeat the game with new students and a new word. The
team with the most points wins.
 We also have the official ‘Taboo’ game behind the counter in the TSC.

Mallet’s Mallet / Bonk

 Put for chairs in a small circle in the center of the room. Call forward one
student from each group. Give them a category e.g. colors. The students

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 take it in turns to say a color. If they hesitate too long to repeat a color
already said, they are out and must sit back down with their team. Continue
with the remaining three students. The last student remaining wins a point for
their team. Repeat with a new student from every team and a new category.

Finger Bingo
 Give each student a piece of paper and scissors. Have them trace their hand
and cut it out. Then write five vocab words from whatever topic you have
been studying, e.g. body parts. Divide your students into two teams and ask
one student from each team to do a simple board race to choose a winner,
e.g. name a color. The first student to do this now takes the hand of the
opponent and rips off one of the vocab words, stating it aloud. Anyone else in
the class with that same vocab word written down must also rip it off their
hand. Continue with the next pair of students. Continue for about 10 minutes.
Then have each team count up how many fingers they have left in total. The
team with the most remaining fingers wins.

How Many Things Can You Think Of That….?

 In groups, students try to think of and note down as many things as they can
that fit a given definition and that they know in English. For example, you
might tell them to think of as many items as they can that are small enough to
fit into a matchbox. After two or three minutes, pool all the ideas on the board,
or have a competition to see who can think of the most items. Here are some
examples:
o How many things can you think of that …?
 …are bigger than you are?
 …are round?
 …make a noise?
 …work electricity?
 …are made of paper / wood / glass?
 …people enjoy looking at?
 …you can write with?

Stop The Bus / Brainstorming

There are several variations of this game. Here is one way to play the game:
 Divide the class into pairs or small groups. Across the top of the board, write
five categories e.g. hobbies, verbs, adjectives, animals, foods, etc. Choose a
letter from the alphabet e.g. F. The teams race to think of words beginning
with F to fir each category e.g. fishing, fly, fat frog, french fries. The first team
to finish shouts ‘stop the bus’. They get a point for each answer they have
that no other team has gotten yet. To avoid cheating, make sure they write
down their answers onto the paper (not just think of them). Repeat with a new
letter of the alphabet.
 This can also be adapted to practice pronunciation or word stress by having
topics be related to them e.g. words with /θ/,/ʃ/,/k/ /silent e/ sounds, etc. or first
syllable stress, last syllable stress, etc.

Memory Words
 Write down a list of 13 – 15 key words from the previous units in the book.
Scatter the words onto an OHP transparency. Show the students the words
for 1 minute. They aren’t allowed to write anything in the minute. They have
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 to remember as many words as possible. Turn off the OHP after one minute.
The students write down a many words as the can remember in pairs. The
pair that can remember the most words is the winner.

Word Association
 Divide students into groups of three or four. Student A thinks of a word from
the previous unit, e.g. suitcase. Student B has to say a word associated with
suitcase e.g. travel. Student C has to say a word associated with travel e.g.
train and so on… Student can challenge each other to explain their word
associations. The last person to be able to continue associations wins.

Opposites Quiz
 Organize the class into teams. Say an adjective from the list below. The first
student to call out the opposite from the list below wins a point for his/her
team. The team with the most points at the end wins.
o Adjectives
 tidy, poor, horrible, old, high, soft, hot, beautiful, better, boring,
cheap, clean, dangerous, dark, different, difficult, dry, early,
empty, fast, fat, friendly, last, noisy, strong, worst
o Opposites
 untidy, rich, nice, young, low, hard, cold, ugly, worse, interesting,
expensive, dirty, safe, light, the same, easy, wet, late, full, slow,
thin, unfriendly, first, quiet, weak, best.

Name Two Things

 Divide the class into pairs. Give each a small white board, marker and eraser.
The teacher then says, ‘Name two …’, e.g. ‘name two animals’, or ‘name two
things that start with b’. Students race to write down two things fitting into the
criteria you stated. The first team to do so gets a point for their team. Have
the students change writers and repeat with a different criteria. The pair with
the most points wins.

Around The World

 Elicit a bunch of topics to the board. Have two students sitting next to each
other stand up. The teacher states one of the topics, e.g. ‘colors’ and the two
students race to say a word under that topic, e.g. ‘red’. The student who says
the word first moves one student to the left, who stands up (the losing student
sits down in the winner’s chair). The first student to go around the whole room
wins.

Ladder
 Divide the class into teams. Draw as many ‘ladders’ on the board as there are
teams. Each team lines up in front of their ladder. Give the first person in line
a marker. Yell out a topic and students race to write a word in that topic on
the bottom rung of the ladder. The student then hands off the marker to the
next student who fills in the next rung, and so on. The first team to climb their
ladder gets a point. The make it more challenging, tell students that as each
word goes up the ladder, it has to be longer than the last word, e.g. the topic
is animals, the first student writes cat, the next writes crab, then camel, then
monkey and so on.

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Words From Words
 Write a fairly long word on the board. Students work in pairs to make as many
words as possible from the letters in the initial word. For example, from the
word ‘grandmother’ the following words can be made: and, red, hot, her,
grand, heat, rat, meat, hate, dragon, mate, etc.

Flashcard Mystery
 Each student gets a flashcard and holds it on his / her back; the student does
not know which flash card he / she has. Students mingle and ask each other
questions to find out which flashcard they have. For example, students may
say ‘do I have a tiger?’ to which the other student looks on their back and
answers ‘yes, you do’ or ‘no, you don’t’.

Tick, X, Squiggle
 This game only works well with five letter words! Split your class into teams.
Write on the board the following key for students:

o = right letter, right place

o X = wrong letter, wrong place

o = right letter, wrong place

 Draw five dashes on the board and tell students you are thinking of a five letter
word e.g. ‘chair’. The first team says a five letter word, e.g. ‘shirt’. You write
the word shirt in the five dashes on the board. Then write the appropriate
symbols under the word, e.g.

c h a i r
X X
 Students know that there is an ‘h’ in the correct place, an ‘I’ and ‘r’ but in
different places than in the word chair and there is not a ‘c’ or ‘a’ in the word
you are thinking of. The next group guesses another word, e.g. ‘short’.

c h a i r
X X
s h o r t
X
 Now students know there is an ‘s’, ‘h’, ‘r’, and ‘t’ in the word in the correct
places but there is not an ‘o’ on the word. The next group chooses a word. If
they guess correctly, they win a point. If they guess incorrectly continue
playing until a group gets the word. This can be played in small groups.

ABC Word Race

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  In teams, students line up at the back of the classroom. Give the first person
in each line a marker. When you say ‘go’, students race to the board and
write a word beginning with ‘A’, then runs back to their team and hands off the
marker to the next student in line. The next student runs to the board and
writes a word starting with ‘B’ and so on until a team has finished going
through the entire alphabet. You can make it more challenging by giving a
topic in which the students must write word, e.g. countries, foods, verbs, etc.

Grid Game
 On the board draw two grids with 12 squares and write the numbers 1 – 12 in
a square.  Divide the class into 2 teams.  Each team needs a writer.  The rest
of the team are given a grid with words in it (12 grid squares with 12 words –
each team has the same words, but in different places on the grid).  The rest
of the team have to take turns describing one of the words without using
Vietnamese, spelling or saying the word.  The writer has to guess and write
the word in the correct square.

Flashcards With Symbols

 This is a great activity to review vocabulary. Draw or write a symbol / shape /
letter or number under each flashcard on the whiteboard.  You call out the
symbol and the student has to say the word or structure for that flashcard.

Steps Game
 Draw a set of steps for each team - about 10 levels.  Each team is at the
bottom (draw a sad face).  Revise vocabulary with any kind of board race or
game. First team with the correct answer gets to move up one level.  The first
team to get to the top (draw a happy face) gets to choose something funny for
the other teams to do e.g. sing a song.

Label Your Neighbor

 Take a bunch of blank stickers to class. In pairs, students must write as many
labels as they can and stick them on their partner in the allotted time. The pair
with the most correct labels wins. This is great for labeling body parts, colors,
clothes, etc.

Pass The Eraser

 Stand all the students in the circle. Explain to the student that they must
pretend the eraser is a different object and show us what it is. For example,
take the eraser and put it up to your ear and start talking into it like it is a
telephone. The other students should guess what it is. Then pass the eraser
to the person next to you and they will continue to make objects from the
eraser. Some ideas to help students if they get stuck are: toothbrush, banana,
marker, hat, brush, etc.

Change The Letter Game

 Put a common four letter word on the board. In pairs or small groups,
students race to find as many new words as they can change only one letter at
a time to form a new word. After a minute, the group with the most words
wins. For example, the starting word is hand. Students can write hand – band
– bend – mend – fend – feed – feet – meet and so on.

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Ball Between Backs Race
 Divide your students into teams. Give each team a soft ball. The first two
people in each team stand back-to-back at the back of the room and put the
ball between them. They must hold the ball with their backs and cannot use
their hands or touch the ball at any time. Once all the groups have the ball
between their back, shout out a vocab topic e.g. colors, animals, foods,
character adjectives, adverbs, etc. They must run together and race to the
board where a marker is laying on the floor. They must bend down, pick up
the marker and each write a word belonging to that category (passing the
marker between them) without dropping or touching the ball with their hands.
The first pair to do so gets a point for their team.

Spelling

Alphabet Game
 This game can be played in groups or as a whole class. Students try to think
of an animal (or any topic, such as foods, etc) beginning with each letter of the
alphabet, omitting letters that don’t have words or are too difficult (e.g. X, U,
Q). Students win one point for each correct animal they say first. Extra points
could be added for saying whether the animal is wild or domestic.

The Letter Game

 Put a pile of cut up letters in the middle of the floor. Divide the class into four
teams, placing them at each corner of the room. The aim is to spell words the
fastest. Tell the students that only one student from each team can pick a
letter at any given time. Each student who goes to the letter circle can only
pick out one letter, and then must go back to their team, where a new team
mate goes to find a letter. The teacher shouts out a recently learned vocab
word. Teams race to spell the word letter-by-letter. The first team to spell the
word gets a point for their team. Continue with a new word.
See following pages for letter template. It is recommended to make 12 copies
of each letter. Copy it onto tag / card paper for longer lasting letters.

Spelling Relay
 Divide the students into two or three teams. Line them up at the back of the
room. Give the first student in each line a board marker. Shout out a vocab
word, e.g. ‘apple’. Students race to the board to write the first letter of the
vocab word, e.g. ‘a’. They must then race back and hand off the marker to the
next student in line who runs to the board to write the next letter, e.g. ‘p’. The
first team to finish writing the word gets a point for their team.

Body Letters
 This can be played a number of ways:
o The teacher shouts out a word and students race in teams or groups to
form the letter with each other e.g. ‘H’ three students would lie on the
floor forming an ‘H’.

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 o You can set gestures or actions to each letter and sing the alphabet.
Make sure if you do this that you keep the same actions for each letter;
changing the action could be confusing and more difficult to remember.

Spelling Tennis
 This follows the same format as ‘Word Tennis’ (see previous pages located
under Vocab revision games / Brainstorming) but the students spell the word
shouted out instead.

Vowel Body Spelling

 The aim is to spell words without saying the vowels but putting actions in for
the vowels instead. First, decide what action is going to be used for each
vowel e.g. ‘a’ is putting arms above heads, ‘e’ is putting hands on knees, ‘i’ is
putting arms straight out, etc. The teacher then says a recently learned vocab
word, e.g. ‘banana’. The class then begins to spell the word saying the
consonants and miming with an action the vowels, e.g. ‘b’, <arms above
heads>, ‘n’, <arms above heads>, ‘n’, and <arms above heads>.

Spaghetti Spelling
 Bring some dried uncooked spaghetti to class. Break it up and give small
piles to pairs of students. Say a recently learned vocab word. Student race to
spell the words using the spaghetti pieces.

Tower
 Draw the following grid on the board:

Write in the first 3 letter word e.g. cat, pet, bat, pen, she etc. Divide the class
into small teams. Teams race to think of the next word (5 letters) which must
include the 3 letters of the first word e.g. CAT – TRACK. The 3 letter words are 5
points, 5 letter words are 10 points. Each new word must be formed using 3
letters from the previous word. Words cannot be repeated. For the final 20 points
teams must think of the longest word they can using the previous 3 letters. The
longest word wins the points. Play a few rounds, changing the first word each
time! To vary the activity, this can be played as a board race and will get students
moving. Draw 2 or 3 grids on the board and have the teams race to complete their
own grid. First to finish correctly wins the round. To make the game more
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 challenging you could change the length of the words e.g. draw the tower made
up of 5 letter words and 7 letter words etc.

Fluency / Speaking Practice

3 Things In Common
 Students work in pairs to find out three things they have in common with each
other - but not things like 'We both live in Vietnam', as these things are too
obvious. You can extend this or make it more specific by giving them a topic
(family) and they have to find three things in common. Try to put students
together who don’t normally talk to each other.

Music Chart Discussion

 Connected to the theme of music, a great piece of material to have at hand for
your teenage groups is the recent top 20 music singles charts. Hand out a
copy to each group of three or four students & get them chatting at the
beginning of a lesson. You could set some guidelines for discussion e.g.
‘What kind of music is most popular this week?’, ‘how long do you think this
song will be at number one?’, ‘which songs are going to move up the charts or
down the charts?’ etc. For US chart visit the following website:
http://www.billboard.com/billboard/charts/hot100.jsp

Dice Discussions
 Write numbers 2 - 12 on the board and get students to suggest topics they like
to talk about. Write one topic next to each number. Students take it in turns to
roll the dice, and talk for a pre-agreed time limit on the subject that
corresponds to the number rolled.

Disco / Library
 The goal is for students to transmit a message to one another. Split the
students into two groups. Put one group in a row at one end of the room, the
other group in a row on the other side of the room. Pair the students together
so one person is a speaker and one is a listener. Give one row white boards
(they are the ‘listeners’) and one row a slip of paper with a message on it (they
are the ‘speakers’). Decide if you want your students to be at the disco or the
library ('disco' – the teacher plays loud music and students must shout to each
other; 'library' – the students must mouth words to each other.). The first
person to write down the message correctly gets a point for their pair.
Continue with a new message and switch the listeners and speakers.

That’s A Lie!
 Tell the students that they will be telling a true story to their friends but they
will include one lie. Give the students time to think about their story (they can
make notes but shouldn’t write the whole story) because they should make it
believable. In pairs or small groups, one student tells his / her story. The
other students try to guess the lie from the story. Give time for all the students
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 to tell their stories. Switch up the groups and have the students retell the
same story while new students try to guess the lie. To debrief, ask the
students if they did a better job telling the story the second time. Ask them if
they were better liars the second time. Etc.

Weekend
 Elicit 5 words from each student to describe their weekend. A different student
tells class or small groups what the other did. The original student verifies the
story.

Talk For A Minute

 Put the class into two rows facing each other. Write a topic on the board e.g.
sport. The pairs have to talk toughest for a minute about sport e.g. ‘What’s
your favorite sport?’, “how often do you play?’, ‘Where do you play?’. After a
minute say stop. Ask each student to move down one person to their left so
they are facing another student (the person on the end goes to the opposite
end). Give them a new topic and repeat the procedure. Continue with more
topics.

3 Picture Story
 You will need a photo of an interesting couple, a photo of an interesting
location, and a strange piece of realia. Students must build a story from these
items. First show them the couple. Elicit ideas about their relationship, their
careers, who loves whom the most, how long they have been together, etc.
Once you have a pretty full picture, introduce the piece of realia (for example:
a tennis racket), elicit how this is involved in the story, who used it and the
result that it had upon the couple. Finally, show the class the location picture
and elicit a suitable conclusion to the story. Ask students to summarize the
entire story. The student will surprise you with how inventive they are. This
can be done in small groups, as a whole class and with different pictures.

Story Telling
 A good game for revising past simple tense. Sit the students in a circle on the
floor. Tell them that they are going to tell a story. The story will be told one
word at a time, with the students taking it in turns to say a word. You start e.g.
‘Yesterday’. The next student then says a word to continue the story e.g. ‘I’.
The next student says a word and continues the story.

Magic Circle
 Students stand in a circle. One person has a ball and makes a statement e.g.
‘my name is …’ or ‘I like … but I don’t like …’ then tosses the ball to another
student who also makes a statement and so on. This can be used often at the
beginning or end of class to remember or reflect on what students have been
learning. It is also a fun way to see students’ language skills develop as they
gain more ability.

Spin The Bottle

 Take some skittles/bowling pins to class and put students into 3 teams.  Sit
them in 3 circles.  One student spins the bottle.  Whoever the bottle points to
can ask a question or practice the vocabulary / grammar point.  E.g. 'I am

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 thinking of an animal beginning with T' - the rest of the group has to guess the
answer.  They can keep a tally of correct answers for points if you want it
competitive. You can also vary this activity and have the bottle spinner ask a
question to whom ever it points to. Then the student who answers can spin
the bottle and ask a question to the next person.

Talk Or Die
 Elicit several topics to the board e.g. hobbies, school, sports, family, etc.
Stand your students in a circle, you standing in the middle. Point a marker at
a student and call out a topic. That student must talk continuously without
stuttering or stopping on that topic until you point the marker at another
student and call out a different topic. If a student stops or cannot speak on the
topic, he / she dies and is out of the game. Continue until one student is left.
They are the winner. This can be done in smaller groups.

To Be Or Not To Be
 Split the class into two rows. Write a controversial statement on the board e.g.
boys are better at school than girls, woman should not have jobs outside the
house, Vietnam is better than Cambodia, etc. Tell one row they must agree
with the statement and the other row must disagree with the statement. The
two sides then debate with each other. You can make this a less structured
activity where all students are talking with each other at once or a team vs.
team structured activity where sides take turns talking and rebutting.

Angry Greetings
 Elicit some greetings to the board e.g. how are you, what’s your name, nice to
meet you, how have you been, it’s been a long time since I last saw you, etc.
Tell your students they are going to go around and greet each other as if they
are meeting for the first time. Decide whether the students are meeting a
coworker, a friend’s friend, their boyfriend/girlfriend’s mother, etc. Have them
mingle and meet each other. Then tell your students that they are meeting
their friend for lunch but they just found out their friend kissed their
boyfriend/girlfriend and they are very angry about this. Continue with other
scenarios, using similar language but changing the body language and tone of
voice depending on situation. Some other example situations include: the
person they are meeting smells really bad, you’ve met the person before but
cant remember his/her name, the person you are meeting is really famous and
you are star struck, you are meeting a small child, the person you are meeting
just had a parent pass away, etc.

I’d Rather…
 Tell students they are going to have to tell their partner their preference to the
sentences you write on the board. Write funny sentences on the board, e.g.
‘I’d rather eat a cockroach’ and ‘I’d rather eat a spider’. Students talk amongst
themselves about which they would rather do. Other examples are: ‘I think of
myself as the ocean’ or ‘I think of myself as a mountain’; ‘I’d rather be deaf’ or
‘I’d rather be blind’, etc.

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Chinese Whispers / Telephone
 Divide the students into teams and line them up. Show the first person in
each line a word, phrase or sentence, depending on ability. The students
whisper the word, phrase or sentence to the next student who then whispers it
to the next student and so on. The first team to produce the word, phrase or
sentence gets point (the last person either shouts it out or writes it on the
board).

Grammar Points

All Of Us
 Students sit in groups of four to five. Write the following expressions on the
board:
All of us are going to …
Four of us are going to…
Three of us are going to…
Two of us are going to…
One of us is going to…
None of us are going to…

In their groups, students ask each other about their plans for this weekend.
They must complete the expression so that they are true for their group.
When they finish, each group tells the class its sentences. The rest of the
class listens and guesses who the people are, e.g. the group says “Two of us
are going to play football this weekend.” The class then says “We think that it
is David and Rodrigo.” The group confirms or corrects.

Have You Ever….?

 This is often played as a variation on change chairs. Start by saying, ‘have
you ever…?’ Any students that have done it must get up and change chairs.
The student left standing without a chair to sit in begins the next round with
‘have you ever…?’ saying something different people may have done.

Jumbled Sentences
 Divide the class into teams. Have them stand in lines, the last students
holding a marker facing the board. The first person in each team looks at the
jumbled sentence e.g. ‘weather / is / today / What / the / like / ?’, decodes it
and whispers it to the next person in line who then whispers it down to the
next and so on until it reaches the writer. The writer races to write it on the
board. The first team to finish gets a point for their team.

The Long Sentence Game

 Start the sentence by saying “Yesterday I got up early.” (Any sentence will do
depending on your language focus or topic). Nominate a student who repeats
what you said and then adds another activity, e.g. “Yesterday I got up early
and had a shower.” They nominate the next student who repeats this and

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 adds another activity and so on. Once everyone in the class has added
something, try to see if everyone in the class can say the final sentence.

Change Chairs
 All the students sit in their chairs in a circle. One student does not have a
chair (there is one less chair than there are students). The student in the
middle starts by saying ‘change chairs if you …’ and filling in the rest with
some criteria, e.g. ‘change chairs if you are a boy’. Any students that the
statement applies to must get up and change chairs, e.g. any boys. The
person in the middle of the circle also races to sit in a chair. The last person
standing without a chair starts the next statement using ‘change chairs if you
…’ and so on.

Who Would….?
 Divide the students into groups of about 8 students. Give each student some
blank slips of paper. Read out a question using the second conditional, e.g.
who would you go on a dream date with? What would you buy with a million
pounds? What would you change in the country if you were President / Prime
Minister? Students write their answer on a paper. Collect the papers of all the
group members. The papers are mixed and passed to another group who
guesses who wrote which answer, e.g. we think Simon would buy a Ferrari.
The other group confirms if their guesses were correct.

Irregular Verbs Challenge

 Have students stand in a circle. Start by saying a common irregular verb e.g.
to eat. The class follows your lead: ‘eat’ <hands on heads>, ‘ate’ <hands on
hips>, ‘eaten’ <hands on knees>. Then demo another verb that doesn’t
change all three parts, e.g. think <hands on heads>, thought <hands on hips>,
thought <hands on hips>. Do one more to make sure the students get it e.g.
run <hands on heads>, ran <hands on hips> run <hands on heads>. Then the
student standing to your right has to say a verb and the students say and
perform the actions. If a student messes up, they are out. Continue going
faster and faster. If a student shouts out a verb already said or a regular verb
they are out as well. The shorter the time limits to say and do, the harder it is.

Jump The Line

 One half of the classroom is ‘some’, the other half ‘any’. Read some
sentences from a grammar lesson on countable and uncountable nouns
aloud, omitting ‘some’ or ‘any’. Students listen and move to the correct side of
the room. Any student who moves the wrong way or the last student to move
loses a life for their team. Continue until one team loses all their lives.
*This activity can be tweaked to fit a number of language or grammar points.

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 Pronunciation Activities

Tongue Twisters
 Write or hand out some tongue twisters to the students. Practice saying them
a few times and then have the student try saying them as fast as they can.
You make it into a game or competition.
 Here are some examples of tongue twisters:
o Peter Piper: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of
pickled peppers Peter piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of
pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?
o Woodchuck: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a
woodchuck could chuck wood?

Sheep Or Ship?
 Divide the class into teams. Write two similar sounding words on the board
(one on the left of the board, and one on the right), e.g. ship and sheep,
number the words one and two. Say one of the words, e.g. sheep. The
students must decide what word you said and then say either word one or
word two. Use the ‘ship and sheep’ sheet (see following pages) for a list of
similar sounding words. To make this activity into a game, draw a start line
and a finish line at either end of the class. Use the squares on the floor as
stepping stones connecting the start and finish lines. Ask a player from each
team to come forward to be the counter. If a team chooses the right word,
their counter can move forward to be the counter. If a team chooses the
wrong word, the counter moves back a square. The winner is the team who
arrives at the finish line first.

Pronunciation Grids
 Put students into teams. Draw a 4 x 4 grid on the board, get on student from
each teams to copy the grid and stay at the board (you will have several grids
on the board, depending on the number of teams, so size them accordingly).
Give the other students in the each team a grid completed with minimal pairs
(each team has a different grid, or they’ll cheat!). The teams stand at the back
of the classroom and must shout their words to their team-mate who writes the
words in the grid on the board. The following restrictions apply:
o Students cannot use Vietnamese.
o Students cannot spell the word.
o Students cannon mime the word or point to it
o The students cannot move any close to each other – they must stay at
the board and the back of the class respectively.
o An example grid:

1 2 3 4
A Seat Shop Shine Shy
B Sign Sue So Shirt
C Sheet Sin Sheep Show
D Shoe Skirt Shin Sit

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Pronunciation Ball Throw
 Write several phonemic sounds on the board, e.g. /z/, /s/, /ɪz/, /t/ etc. Students
are divided into teams. One person from each team stands behind the line
placed towards the back of the room. You (or another student) shouts out a
word ending in one of the sounds on the board, e.g. plays, walks, horses, or
watched and the students throw the ball at the correct phonemic sound. The
first person to hit the correct sound gets a point for their team. Continue with a
new set of students for each group.

Questions

Coffeepotting
 This game should be modeled as a whole class but then can be played in
small groups. One student sits at the front of the room as thinks of a verb e.g.
‘drink’. The other students as questions to find out what the verb is but they
cannot state the verb, instead the must insert ‘coffeepot’ e.g. ‘can you
coffeepot with two people?’ or ‘do you coffeepot everyday?’. The student then
answers appropriately. The answers can be more detailed than yes / no but
should not give anymore than necessary away. The student that guesses the
verb gets to the next coffeepotter.

Quizzes
 The possibilities for quizzes are extensive. Here are a few ideas:
o Bring a quiz to ask. Read out the questions and students work in
groups to decide the answer.
o Hand out a quiz and students race to answer them all
o Have students build their own quiz in groups based on a topic or vocab
words.
o Have students fill in and correct each others quizzes.
o Use paper money, points or stickers for rewards to answering
questions.

20 Questions
 Have a student think of a recent vocab word, e.g. an animal, place, etc. The
other students then ask yes or no questions to find out clues about the word,
e.g. ‘is it red?’, ‘can it fly?’ until they can guess what it is. The class tries to
guess the word before they have asked 20 questions. This can be played din
small groups as well.

Proxy Interviews
 Ask one student to become one of the others in the class. The rest of the class
then interviews him. The 'real' student then compares the answers given by
the 'fake' student. Switch up students. You can also put the students into
small groups and do the same activity.

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Do You Like Your Neighbors?
 Ask students to arrange their chairs in a circle. Choose a student to stand in
the middle. This student needs to sit down. He needs a student to free a seat
so that he can occupy it. Explain that the student should point to a seated
student and ask, "Do you like your neighbors?" The seated student has two
options:
o Option one: Student says "no" in which case the students sitting to her
right and left (her ‘neighbors’) have to change seats.
o Option two: Student says "Yes, but...I don't like people who wear
jeans." All students wearing jeans then have to change seats.
Different examples could be "Yes, but I don't like people who wear
leather shoes/watches/white socks/tights etc."
In the scramble for seats which follows a "no" or "yes, but..." the student in the
middle tries to find a seat leaving one of the other students without a seat.

Question Dice
 Designate different question words for each number on the dice, e.g. 1 – who,
2 – what, 3 – where, 4 – when, 5 – why, 6 – how. Take a dice to class and
divide your students into small groups. This can be done as a speaking race
or a writing race with small white boards. Ask one student from any team to
role the dice. What ever number the students land on, they must form a
question using the questions word designated to that number e.g. 2 – what
questions, students could write ‘what time do you get up in the morning?’. The
first team to make a correct sentence gets a point. Continue by throwing the
dice again for a new question word.

Who / What Is It?

 One student starts y thinking of a well-known person or thing. He / She then
says, ‘I’m thinking of someone / something that …’ and give a clue. The other
students get to try to guess what it is. If they can’t, the first student gives
another clue. The student who guesses what is being thought of first gets to
become the speaker.

Yes / No Game
 The aim of the game is to make your partner say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, while trying not
to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ yourself. Demonstrate with a strong student first. If your
partner says yes or no then you win a point. If you say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ your
partner wins a point. You can make this more competitive by putting the class
in two lines with one end for winners. When a student loses they must go to
the other end while everyone else moves down one place. Set a five minute
time limit. Set a five minute time limit.

Shout The Answer

 Stand your students in two lines, one at one side of the room, the other line at
the other side of the room. Give your students a set of topics or pieces of
information they need to find out about their partner standing in the other line,
e.g. birthday, full name, favorite food, etc. They must ask / shout to their
partner the question they want to know. Their partner tells them by shouting
the answer across the room. This can also be done for any kind of information

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 gap fill. It works best when the pairs are students who don’t know each other
as well (to avoid them already knowing the answers).

Banana-na
 Put two students at the front of the classroom. One student is the asker and
the other the answerer. The student asking the question can ask any
questions he / she wants. The student answering the questions can only
answer by saying ‘banana-na’. The student answering questions cannot
pause, answer or laugh, or else they lose the point. If they can answer
questions for 1 minute without breaking, they get a point; otherwise the asker
gets a point. It gets funny when the questions start getting personal. This can
be played in small groups as well.

Fruits And Vegetables

 This is a great warmer for new classes or new teachers or just something silly
at the start of class to get students talking. Ask the students to write down the
following words on a piece of paper, keeping what they write a secret from
those around them:

o A fruit
o A vegetable
o A number between 1 and 200
o A yes / no answer to the question “do you like football?”
o How many pencils and pens they have
o The first thing the do in the morning

Now tell them that these things are actually…

o Their first name
o Their family name
o Their age
o The answer to the questions “are you married?”
o How many children they have
o Their job

Now they must get up and go around the class and ask the personal questions
and share information about their new selves. Encourage them to shake
hands and make eye contact when meeting new people. You could do this
exercise as a class survey so they have to write down the answer they hear.

Find Someone Who…

 This is a good activity for a new class or to get students to practice asking
questions. Think of several questions for your students to ask each other and
type it up on a handout. For example:
o Find someone who…
 can speak Chinese
 has two sisters
 likes to play football
 lives in district 5
 has been to Singapore
… And so on….
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Don’t Answer Back!
 The aim of this warmer is for each student to give the answer to the question
asked to the previous student, sounds complicated but the students pick it up
quickly. This warmer is a good listening activity and really makes the students
concentrate on the questions. Before playing the game you will need to make
a list of questions suitable for your students and their level. Depending on
class size you will need at least two questions for each student and it's best if
they progressively become more and more difficult.

Example:
1. Are you English?
2. Where are you from?
3. What color are your eyes?
4. How many people are there in your family?
5. What's the weather like today?
6. What time do you have lunch?
7. How often do you go to the cinema?
8. What are you doing?
9. When were you born?
10. Have you ever been to England?

Write the question what’s your name? on the board. Explain to the students
that you are going to ask each student a question but they are going to
answer the question from the student before. To help explain this, get a
student to ask you a question e.g. have you got a dog? Don’t answer this
question but tell them your name (answering the question written on the
board). Then ask another student to ask you a question, again don't answer
this question but tell them if you have got a dog (answering the previous
question). Now start the game. Point to the question on the board and then
ask the first student question number one. This student must give the answer
to the question on the board. Then ask student number two the next question,
they must give the answer to the question before. Don't worry, they soon get
the hang of it! Continue asking questions making sure all students have a go.
To make it more fun you can give each student three lives. If they hesitate for
too long or they tell you the wrong answer they loose a life. The player or
players with the most lives win.

Example:
Are you English?
S1 - “My name is Roberto".
Where are you from?
S2 - "No. I'm not."
What color are your eyes?
S3 - "I'm from Italy".

Stand In Line
 Ask all the students to stand up and form a large semi-circle at the front of the
class. Then ask them to rearrange the semi circle as quickly as possible from

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 left to right depending on their birthday, with the left end of the semi-circle
representing January 1st and the right end of the semi-circle representing
December 31st. You can then ask them to arrange themselves according the
first letter of their names or in alphabetical order. They must ask each other
question to do this. Repeat the exercise with other criteria, e.g. how many
minutes it takes to get to school, how many people are in their family, how
long they have been studying at ila, how long they spend on homework, how
tall they are, or any comparative you can think of.

Writing

Word Stories
 In groups, students note ten words they have learnt recently. Allow them to
look back at the previous units. Write all the words on the board. In groups,
students then make a story using at least five of the words on the board. Set
a five-minute time limit. Students tell the class their story. Hold a class vote to
decide which story is best.

Email
 Give each student a copy of the Email handout (see following pages). Tell the
students to write their name in the ‘From (Username)’ spot. Then assign each
student someone in the class to write to (they will be able to choose for the
second round, but this ensures everyone gets an ‘email’ in the first round).
Tell them to write a message. You aren’t going to be reading the messages
so they can write pretty much anything they want (but keep it appropriate for
class). When the students are done they raise the paper above their head.
The teacher takes the paper and passes it to the person the email is for. The
receiver must stop writing whatever message they are working on and reply to
the ‘email’ they have just received. Once you have picked it up they can
continue their own message
If the students don’t have a current ‘email’ they are working on, they can ask
for a new piece of paper to which they can write an email to anyone they want.
Continue for a while until students have had a chance to write a whole
conversation to each other.
This entails quite a bit of movement on the teacher’s part, and the teacher
needs to know the names of all the students in order for it to work.

Writing Storm
 The teacher tells the students they have 5 minutes to write about something,
and sets a subject that will encourage personal rather than general responses
e.g. 'the best thing to happen to me today'. The teacher tells the students they
are looking for ideas and is not going to correct language. Make this a group
activity by having students work together to make a story.

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 Numbers

First To 20
 This can be done as a whole class or in smaller groups. Someone starts by
saying ‘one’. Then another student must continue on counting consecutively
to 20. No student can say two numbers in a row and if two students say a
number at the same time, the group / class must start over. Getting to twenty
is quite difficult and will be surprisingly challenging. Spice up the goal by
rewarding the class / team if they can do it in a certain amount of time (this will
also put more pressure on the students causing them to mess up more
frequently).

Over & Under Ball Pass

 Students stand in two lines. The first person in each line gets a soft ball.
They start by saying number ‘1’ and pass the ball to the next person over their
head. The next person grabs the ball and says number ‘2’ and passes it
under his / her legs to the next person. The next person grabs the ball, says
number ‘3’ and passes it over his / her head, and so on until it has reached the
back of the line. The last student then must run to the front of the line and
continue passing the ball saying a number until the team reaches the goal e.g.
20. The first team to do so wins or gets a point. This can be done for
sequencing too, e.g. counting by 2’s, 10’s, etc.

Number Draw Race

 Divide students into two or three teams. The student at the back of the line
starts. Show the students at the back a number e.g. 87. The student runs to
their line and ‘draws’ or ‘writes’ the number on the back of the student in front
of them with their finger. When the student knows what the number is, he /
she can write the number on the next students back. Continue down the line
until the student at the front of the line knows the number and can shout it out
or write it on the board. The first team to do so gets a point.

Fizz – Buzz
 Students stand in a circle and begin counting off. When a student reaches ‘5’
he / she must say ‘fizz’ and when a student reaches ‘7’ he / she must say
‘buzz. Students continue counting until they reach of multiple of five or seven.
At every multiple of five, students must say ‘fizz’ and every multiple of seven
students must say ‘buzz’. If a student messes up he / she is out and can
monitor the other students. For younger classes it may be helpful to write the
numbers on the board indicating when the multiples land. This can also be
played in smaller groups and the winners of each group have a finale count-off
to determine the class winner.

21
 Students must count but the one who says 21 loses and has to do a forfeit.
Students sit in a circle and can say between 1-3 numbers then the next
student continues. You can change some numbers for actions if you play a
second game (e.g. instead of saying number 8 you must stand up and clap
your hands).

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www.awesome-esl.com
 Music

Musical Categories
 Elicit some topics or general questions to the board e.g. ‘what’s your name?’
or favorite animal, worst fear, ideal job, etc. Place pairs of chairs (facing each
other) around the room. Have students walk around while playing. When the
music stops, students race to sit in a chair. The teacher shouts out a topic or
question and the students must talk to their partner about it for 30 seconds.
Continue to play and stop the music. If there is an odd number of students,
have the last student standing choose the topic for discussion.

Musical Jobs
 Get all your students standing up and dancing or walking around the room
while you play some music. Stop the music and shout out a job. Students
have to mingle and talk to each other pretending to be that job. You may have
to elicit some phrases or words that various people in different occupations
use.

Music – Ordering Sentences Or Words

 Cut up a song either by lines, phrases or individual words. In pairs or small
groups, students listen and put the song in order. You may have to play the
song several times. The class can sing the song together once it is ordered.

Music – Gap Fills

 Give students a copy of the song with some words blanked out. In pairs,
students listen to the song and fill in the missing words. You may have to play
the song several times. The class can then sing the song together once it is
completed.

Music – Karaoke
 Blow up the lines from the song and cut up phrases onto card paper. Divide
the class into two groups and give a few people in each group several cards
with phrases (each group get a whole set of song cards). Play the song and
the students holding the song phrases hold it up as they hear it. The rest of
the group sings the phrases as they are being held up. The group which sings
the song the best according to the cards is the winner.

Music – Singing And Dancing

 This is very simple and easy to prep. Teach your students the song and put
some actions to the lyrics. Practice singing and dancing. Younger students
really like this activity and it helps them to remember the words if there are
actions with them. But you can play it with any age or level, and remember
most students will do anything you are willing to do.

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 TPR

Teacher Says (Simon Says)

 Start by standing in a circle with the students. You say ‘teacher says …’ and
give them a direction e.g. ‘…touch your toes’ and bend down to touch your
toes All the student then repeat ‘touch your toes’ and they touch their toes.
Continue with more directions. If you don’t say ‘teacher says’ the students
shouldn’t follow you do the action. Any students that do lose a life for their
team. Stop when one team loses all their lives. One student can then take
your place as the teacher / Simon.

Opposites Teacher Says

 This is the same game as above but students must do the opposite of what
you ask e.g. “teacher says put your hands on your head” and all the students
put their hands on their toes, or “teacher says sit down” and all the students
stand up. If you don’t say “teacher says” students shouldn’t do anything at all.

Shark
 Draw a circle on the floor big enough for lots of students to stand in. Draw
another circle on the floor big enough for 2 – 3 students. Draw one more
circle big enough for only one foot to stand in. Divide your class into two
teams (this is best done if it is boys vs. girls so you can determine who is on
which team). Each team starts with 5 points. Tell the students they are going
to the action you say but they cannot touch the ‘islands’ on the floor. When
you shout ‘there’s a shark!’ the students must race to fit in the circles. The
students left out of the circles lose a point for their team. The team who loses
all their points first loses the game. This is great for practicing present
continuous or ‘I can’, e.g. ‘we are hopping’ or ‘I can roll on the floor’.

Human Knot
 Have students stand in a circle. Everyone puts their hands into the middle of
the circle and grabs onto someone else’s hand, making sure that each student
grabs two other students’ hands. Then they have to untangle themselves by
stepping over or under linked arms until they are all standing in a circle holding
hands. Students must tell each other what to do using language such as, ‘Nhi,
put your right hand over Minh’s head’, ‘Thao and Cuong, step over our arms’
etc.

Duck Duck Goose

 This activity is aimed at low level young learners. Students sit in a circle. One
student goes around the circle saying a recently learned vocab word, e.g.
‘duck’ tapping students lightly on the head as they are passed. When the
student taps a student on the head saying a different vocab word, e.g. ‘goose’
the student who has been tapped must stand up and chase the other student
around the circle. The student saying the vocab words wants to get all the
way around the circle and sit in the other student’s spot before he / she is
caught. If the student is caught, he / she must sit in the middle of the circle. If
the student isn’t caught, he / she can sit in the circle with the rest of the
students. The chaser then becomes the tapper.
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Body Dice
 Take two big dice to class. Write a different body part on each number. Roll
the dice and which ever two body parts land face up are the two everyone has
to put together. For example, if you have one = head, two = arm, three = toes,
four = hand, five = knees, six = elbows and you roll a four and a five, students
must put their hands on their knees. Continue by rolling the dice again and
students put new body parts together.

10 Second Objects
 Put students into groups of four or five. Shout out an object and students
have 10 seconds to make that object with their bodies. For example, if you
shout out ‘hamburger’, students must make a human hamburger with two
students as the bun, one as the burger patty and maybe a piece of cheese.
Some other objects include: car, house, clock, etc.

Fruit Salad
 Good icebreaker game, especially for kids. Easy to learn and play, with little
preparation. Goal: avoid being left in the middle of the circle. Preparation:
Chairs (one chair per person)
 How to Play Fruit Salad:
1. Have everyone sit in a chair, arranged in a circle facing inwards. Select one
person to be in the middle and remove his or her chair from the circle.

2. Explain the rules: The person in the middle needs to say something that
applies to at least 2 people in the circle. For example, “Anyone who has a pet”,
“Anyone who is wearing jeans”, “Anyone who has a brother or sister”, “Anyone
wearing the color purple”. If the person’s statement applies to someone sitting
in the circle, that person has to move from his or her seat and sit in a different
chair. If the person says “Fruit Salad”, then everyone needs to move to a
different chair.

3. The person in the middle tries to sit down. There’ll be one person left without a
chair- this person will be the next person in the middle of the circle. The
standing person starts a new round by saying a different statement.

 Note: People cannot move to seats on their immediate left or right. For
example, a person is allowed sit two seats away, but they cannot move to the
left or right of their current chairs.
 This activity can be adapted for YL, by grouping students with the names of
fruits, call out “All the bananas swap places”. Fruit salad – everyone swaps
places.

Misc.

I Spy…
 Divide the class into small groups. Have one student (in each group) start by
saying, ‘I spy something …’ e.g. ‘I spy something blue’. The rest of the class
tries to guess what it is. If the first guess is wrong, the student continues with
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 another clue, e.g. ‘I spy something big’ and students guess again. The
student that guesses first gets to be the speaker.

Riddles
 Students love play on words. Riddles are a great way to get students thinking
about words and their meaning. There is a sample sheet of riddles (see
following pages) or you can make up some of your own. For a further
challenge, ask the students to make up some riddles or translate some from
Vietnamese into English.

True Or False Statements

 Students write three statements on a piece of paper. Two are true and one is
false. Then, in small groups or as a game, they say their sentences and the
other students have to guess which sentence is a lie. Encourage your
students to be creative but to remember that the more believable the better!
You can specify a grammar point if you want to concentrate on one area.

Picture Flash
 Take a large poster or picture to class. Let the students look at the picture for
only a few seconds. They have to remember as much as they can and write it
down. Flash the picture again and then they can continue writing ideas. Have
students race to write all their ideas in teams. Teams get points for every
original word they come up with (duplicates are crossed off and no team
receives a point for that word).

Snow Ball Fight

 Give your students 5 A5 sized pieces of paper. Students then write
information about themselves on the 5 scraps of paper. They can write
anything but their name (or something that clearly identifies them) e.g. age,
favorite food, favorite color, etc. Then have all the students crumple the
papers into balls, stand up and throw them at each other creating a big paper
snow ball fight.
After a minute, everyone sits back down. Explain to the students that they are
going to pick up a piece of paper, read the information and then find who it
belongs to by asking questions in a mingle e.g. ‘how old are you?’, ‘what’s
your favorite color?’, etc. Once they have found the wonder of that paper,
they pick up another and repeat the drill. The student with the most identified
pieces pf paper wins.

Betting Games
 There are many games to play using fake money. Just divide your students
into groups, give them a set amount of money and begin asking or eliciting
questions. Students then decide as a group what their answer is and how
much they are willing to bet on their answer. If they are right, they get the
amount they bet, if they are wrong, they must give it to you.
 Example questions topics are:
o How often do you…
o Student pretends to be someone else in the room
o Questions about the teacher

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 o What’s your favorite
o Quizzes

Cough Dictation
 Tell the students you have a cough today but you are still going to do a
dictation. If they don’t hear words, they will just have to guess what you said.
Read out a joke like the one below and dictate as usual but don’t read all the
words – cough instead of saying certain words e.g. ‘Eleven people were cough
on a rope, under a helicopter, ten men and one cough.’ Students have to
guess what the missing words are and write them in, either individually or in
pairs. After checking whether they guessed correctly, they could discuss the
joke and why / if they found it funny. They could also try telling jokes they
know in their mother tongue in English.
o The joke
o Eleven people are hanging on a rope, under a helicopter, ten men and
one woman. The rope is not strong enough to carry them all, so they
decide that one has to leave, because otherwise they are all going to
fall. They are not able to name that person, until the woman makes a
very touching speech. She says she will voluntarily let go of the rope,
because as a woman she is used to giving up everything for her
husband and kids, or for men in general, and is used to always making
sacrifices with little in return. As soon as she finishes her speech, all the
men started clapping their hands.

Croquet
 Divide your students into two teams. This works best if they are divided boys
vs. girls since determining who is on which team is difficult otherwise.
Students stand in a circle (in any order) with their feet spread shoulder length
apart. Their feet must touch the students’ feet next to them. The students are
not allowed to move their feet at any time. The teacher throws a ball into the
circle. Each student bends down making a fist with their hands. They can
knock the ball only if their hands are in a fist, forming a mallet. The object is to
try to get the ball through another student's legs. If the ball goes through their
legs, the teacher (or a designated student) can ask a question. If they get the
question right they are safe, if they get it wrong, the other team gets a point.

Basketball
 This game works well for any board activity, e.g. spelling relay, race to the
board, split board games, etc. Divide your class into teams. Have them do a
board race of whatever is appropriate for the class. The team that wins the
round gets a chance to score some points. To score points, the team must
throw a soft ball into a basket the teacher is holding. There are designated
lines the students must stand behind (the further back the line, the higher the
point value for making the basket. The team with the most points wins.

Coup Co
 This is a favorite game among Vietnamese students, so incorporating it into
your class is always exciting. The actual game doesn’t have a lot of language

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 value, so you must add some into it. To play, divide your class into two teams,
each line standing at opposite sides of the room. Number off each student in
each line (1 – 9 or however many students you have in each line). Place a
small object in the middle of the classroom - the eraser works well. Call out a
number. The students in each line with that number race to the middle to grab
the object. Once the object has been touched, the other student wants to tag
the student holding the object. If the student who grabs the object can get
back across his / her team’s line before being tagged, they have the
opportunity to win a point. BUT, they must first answer a grammar, vocab or
language questions correctly. If the student tags the other person before he /
she gets across the line, they can have a chance to answer the question for a
point.

Balderdash
 Write a difficult / new vocab word on the board. Assign one word secretly for
each pair or small group to look up in a dictionary. Then call out one of the
words on the board. Each group then guesses a definition for the word.
When every group has written a possible definition, the group that looked up
that word goes around the classroom and collects the definitions into a pile
which includes the dictionary definition. The group then reads out all the
definitions in random order. Then the players try to guess the real definition
from the ones read. Points can be awarded to groups for writing the correct
definition or for each person that guesses your definition.

Can I Come?
 Explain to the class they are going on a holiday but they are only allowed to go
if they take the right items. They have to guess what items they can take.
Take three students outside and tell them that the key to being allowed to go
on the holiday is taking an item that is a fruit: apple, orange, grapes, etc. You
model the structure to the students – ‘I am going on a holiday. I’m taking a
ball. Can I come?’ The students who know the key reply ‘No, you can’t!’ If a
student replies with a word that does contain a fruit, then the students at the
front of the room reply with ‘Yes you can!’ Students try to work out the key. If
they do they continue answering when it is their turn. They must not tell
anyone else and they should use different words. You can extend the game
by changing the key (and students at the front of the room): different colors,
animals, words that start with the first letter of the name of the student
speaking, a family member, a student in the class, plural words, words with
double letters, or it could just be that you are crossing your legs when you say
the item.

Word Plexers
 These are words moved around to make a riddle. See following pages for
examples. You can do this in groups or on the board as a challenge.

Cuisenaire Rods Pattern Game

 Take enough sets of Cuisenaire rods to class for each pair or group of three to
have one. Have one student be the pattern maker while the other student(s)
is (are) the follower(s). The maker quickly makes a simple pattern with the
Cuisenaire rods, hiding it behind a board or paper. Then the maker begins to
tell the follower(s) how to make the pattern e.g. the big green rod is in the
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 middle and the small red rod is on the green rod in the middle. Continue until
the follower(s) is (are) finished. Then switch makers and followers and do it
again. This is great practice for prepositions, colors and comparative lengths.

Jumping Over Ladders

 Divide students into two groups. Students sit foot-to-foot in pairs on the floor,
in two rows. Each pair gets a number. Teacher calls out number, students
need to run to the front (jumping over the others’ legs or ‘ladders’) to the front
on the class, peal round clockwise (right side) or anti-clockwise (left side), turn
around and run back, behind other students’ backs, jump over the remaining
legs, back to their places. First student to sit wins a point for their team.

 Rick’s Bomber Game

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www.awesome-esl.com
Ship or Sheep?

Left Right

Sheep Ship

Eye High

Cap Cup

Spots Sports

Box Books

Ear Hear

Cash Catch

Wash Watch

Sheet Seat

Cheap Chips

Chief Cheep

Leaf Leave

And Hand

Tree Three

Tanks Thanks

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 Pyramid Grid Template

The pyramid is rated on a point scale. The bottom row of words is worth 25 points
while the top word (and the hardest word) is worth 100 points. Start with word 1 and
work your way up to word 10. The team with the most points at the end of the game
wins.

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Letter Game Template

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 ! Email Chat!

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www.awesome-esl.com
 Shout it Out!

Kinds of music: Shops: Items of Clothing:

 Classical  Book shop  Dress
 country / western  Butcher  Gloves
 dance  Chemist  Hat
 metal  Clothes shop  Shirt
 jazz  Hairdresser  Skirt
 opera  Music / CD shop  Socks
 pop  Newsagent  Tie
 reggae  Sports shop  Trousers
 rock  Supermarket  T-shirt
 R&B / Hip Hop  Toy shop  Underwear
Big Countries: Jobs: Currencies:
 Argentina  Actor  Euro
 Australia  Dentist  Dollar
 Brazil  Doctor  Franc
 Canada  Hairdresser  Peso
 China  Lawyer  Pound
 India  Police officer  Riyal
 Kazakhstan  Shop keeper  Rupee
 Russia  Soldier  Dong
 Sudan  Teacher  Yen
 United States  Vet  Yuan
Animals in the zoo: Makes of cars: The 10 most common words in
 Bear  BMW English:
 Camel  Cadillac  A
 Crocodile  Lexus  And
 Elephant  Ford  In
 Giraffe  Mercedes  Is
 Lion  Nissan  Of
 Rhino  Toyota  It
 Snake  Volkswagen (VW)  That
 Tiger  Volvo  The
 Zebra  Honda  To
 I
Languages: Sports: School Subjects:
 Arabic  Baseball  Art
 English  Basketball  Biology
 French  Football  Chemistry
 German  Golf  Economics
 Chinese  Swimming  Foreign Language
 Japanese  Skiing  Geography
 Latin  Racing  History
 Russian  Table tennis  Math
 Spanish  Tennis  Music
 Vietnamese  Gymnastics  Physical Education
Character Adjectives: Vegetables: Parts of the body:
 Ambitious  Aubergine / eggplant  Arm
 Boring  Bean  Chin
 Bossy  Carrot  Eye
 Confident  Broccoli  Head
 Friendly  Mushroom  Knee
 Honest  Onion  Leg
 Lazy  Pea  Nose
 Optimistic  Pepper  Shoulder
 Sociable  Potato  Stomach
 Shy  Spinach / lettuce  Wrist

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 Word Plexers

Try to figure out the word or saying represented by the combinations in each of the
boxes below. Write your answer on the line under each box.

CHAIR

CYCLE LANG4UAGE
CYCLE
CYCLE

1. _________________ 2. ________________ 3. _________________

U
P
R E A D I N G ECNALG S
I
D
E

4. ________________ 5. ________________ 6. _________________

Answer key:

1. tricycle
2. foreign language
3. high chair
4. reading between the lines
5. backwards glance
6. upside down

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