Adjective game Ask one or two students to stand outside the classroom
briefly. While they’re outside the classroom, the rest of
the class chooses an adjective they’re all going to act out,
e.g.,
talkative . The students outside come back into the
classroom and have to guess the adjective by nominating
students in the class to perform actions in the manner of
the adjective, e.g.,
Pick up a book . The student performing
the action has to do so talking all the time, to demonstrate
talkative. When the students guess the adjective correctly,
other students can take turns leaving the room.
All change! Go around the class assigning one of the new words
to each student so that there are at least two students
for each word. Call out, e.g.,
Tacos! All change! All the
students given the word
tacos stand up and change seats
without running. The game works with any plural noun.
Anagrams Write anagrams of target vocabulary on the board.
Students work in pairs to solve them. When they’ve solved
each one, they raise their hands, say a word, and spell it
out correctly. This can also be played as a team game.
Bingo Students choose and write down four words from a
vocabulary set. Make a sentence using each word, e.g.,
for camping equipment,
You need a flashlight at night. Students who have written the word
flashlight cross it out.
The first student to cross out all four of their words calls
out
Bingo! This game can be made more challenging by
giving definitions of each word, rather than just using it in
a sentence.
Bluff Invite three students to the front of the class. Give each
one a word card or picture and ask them to keep their
picture secret from the class. The three students decide
(without telling the rest of the class) who’s going to
be the
bluffer (the one who doesn’t tell the truth). The
three students then say a sentence that might or might
not correspond with the card or picture they’re holding.
Students guess who’s bluffing. Students say
Bluff and the
name of the student they think is the bluffer. Check by
showing the cards or pictures and then repeat the activity
with other groups of students.
Can I have? Put the word cards in a pile face down on a table at
the front. Call two students out to the front. One takes a
card and uses the word on it to ask
Can I have (paella), please? The other student then collects the word card and
hands it over, saying
Yes, of course. Here you are .
Categories Use word cards from different vocabulary sets. Write the
category headings for each set on the board. Distribute
the word cards to different students in the class. Students
with a card take turns reading it aloud. The class decides
which category the word is from. Students can then come
to the front of the class and put their cards into piles for
each category.