How to Choose the Right ESL Grammar Games

[Т А Кузнецова]

How to Choose the Right ESL Grammar Games

http://www.fluentu.com/english/educator/blog/esl-grammar-games/

 

It’s important to recognize the purpose of a grammar game in your ESL lesson.

By no means whatsoever should you use it as just another “time filler.”

Yes, perhaps these particular games are funny and entertaining for your learners, but that’s not the point of using games in the classroom.

The point is to learn and to take something away from the session. Think of games like interactive lessons.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s completely possible for a grammar-focused ESL game to be both fun and educationally sound. If you’re not sure about which kind of grammar-based games are suitable for the ESL classroom, you can ask yourself the following questions:

• Does the grammar game practice any skills? If yes, which ones?
• What’s the purpose of the game?
• What kind of game is it? Is it a strategy game? A communicative grammar game?
• Does the grammar game mesh with the learners’ ages?
• Is the game the right fit for your learners’ levels?
• Are all learners involved in the grammar game? Does it require maximum student involvement?
• Do your students enjoy the game?

Additionally, you can also ask yourself:

• What specific grammar points do you plan to introduce or practice through this ESL grammar game?
• Is it possible to maintain absolute control over your class while playing this particular game?
• Do you need any special materials to play this grammar game? If you do, can they be easily obtained?
• How will you be able to maintain student progress and keep your learners on track when playing this particular game?
• How long do you need to play this game?
• At which point of the lesson will you incorporate your grammar game?
• Are the rules clear? How will you successfully explain the game without too much TTT (teacher talking time)?

At the end of the day, every learner of English (or any other language) wants to have a fun language learning experience.

Many learners dread grammar and just the mention of the irregular past participles and passive voice may be enough to make them run and hide. Like in any type of ESL learning situation, things need to be changed up a bit and games can definitely be overused. Use them sparingly and at the right times to either introduce a point or to reinforce, but not for both.

If you’ve been against using games to teach ESL grammar, you ought to give it a shot. You’ll not only motivate them, but you’ll also encourage your learners to use English more authentically.

 

7 Golden Grammar Games for a Winning ESL Lesson Plan

So, without further ado, here are our 7 favorite grammar games for the ESL classroom.

Would You Rather

This classic sleepover and bus trip game, ideal for getting participants to know more about each other, can be a perfect giggle-inducing grammar game to reinforce recent lessons. The game is simple enough, driven by straightforward questions and answers.

The main use for this game in the ESL classroom is to practice using conditionals and discussing hypothetical situations (would you):

Would you rather get stung by a bee or bit by a spider?

Would you rather dance in front of ten thousand people or in front of the President of the United States?

Not to mention, being able to compare things in English is something that students will encounter frequently in interaction with native speakers. They’ll also get lots of practice using verbs in their different contexts.

You can have students play this game in pairs, groups or as a whole classroom. Prepare questions ahead of time and provide students with lists, or let their imaginations run wild with freestyle play. Either way, a great way to add another tricky element to this game is to see how many students would rather do one thing as opposed to the other after playing for a while.

For example, you could ask one student: “Sara, how many of your classmates would rather dance in front of the President of the United States?” Then this student must tell you how many people chose this option in her group or in the class.

Blackboard Race

 

This game is plain and simple—a good, old-fashioned classroom favorite for the ages.

Divide the board into two halves, and divide the class into two teams. Call out a theme or category for learned vocabulary words and have students run to the board and write as many related words as possible.

For example, you might call out something like, “Animals you will see at the zoo!” and one student from each team must run up to the board and write as many English zoo animal names as they can think of within a certain time limit. This game gets students thinking quickly and creatively.

Conjugation Pyramid

Similar to blackboard race, the conjugation pyramid is a race-to-win classic that is beloved by language students everywhere. Set this one up for the very end of class when there are a few minutes remaining—this will really get the pressure cooking.

Draw a pyramid on either side of the board and break it up into blocks—kind of like a food pyramid, but with as many blocks as there are rounds in the game. So, if you want to go 10 rounds, draw 10 blocks in each pyramid.

Then you’ll give your students a verb and a person (first person singular, second person plural) and they will have to run to the board and conjugate the verb into each tense accordingly. Depending on the skill level of your students and what you’d like to practice, you can also choose a tense and have students conjugate the entire verb chart for that tense. The student who gets the conjugations right wins their team a block in the pyramid!

When a student wins a pyramid block, fill in that block with chalk or marker to indicate the progress. The first team with enough blocks to build their whole pyramid wins!

Tic-Tac-Toe

Draw up the grid for tic-tac-toe on the board. Fill in each square of the grid with a part of speech you want students to practice. What exactly you choose to include here is totally flexible, and depends on what lessons you’d like to reinforce. If you’re studying verb conjugation in the present tense, for example, fill in the grid with verbs in their infinitive forms.

Students will be divided into two teams for this game. The first team goes by choosing a square from the tic-tac-toe grid. They then have to figure out, as a group, how to properly conjugate that verb. If they get the answer right, then they claim that square of the grid. If they get the answer wrong, then they lose their turn.

Keep playing until one team scores a tic-tac-toe!

Shootin’ Hoops

 

Go down to the school’s gymnasium, playground or set up a makeshift basketball hoop in the classroom. You can manage this without damaging school property by simply setting up a hula hoop or other plastic ring as the “hoop” and by playing with a small inflatable or foam ball.

Break the students into two groups or have them play individually against the rest of their classmates.

There are two ways to go about playing this one. Before being allowed to take a shot, each student must either:

1. Answer a question with the appropriate featured grammar pattern.
2. Create a basic statement using the featured grammar pattern.

If the student gets their answer or statement wrong or doesn’t phrase it properly, they won’t get to take a shot.

If the student passes this part of the game, they get to take a shot. If they score, they get 2 points. If they don’t score but got the question right, they get 1 point.

Hot Potato

Use a foam or inflatable ball, and start up a fast-paced round or two of hot potato.

The objective, of course, is to pass the ball around in a circle as fast as possible. Before passing the ball to the next student, the student holding the ball must show off their English grammar skills.

When a student catches the ball, they must quickly think up a word that fits your given criteria, spit it out and pass the ball before the allotted time runs out.

This is super flexible and can be adjusted to practice virtually any bit of grammar you’ve recently introduced or would like to review.

For example, tell students learning the present tense that they must each say one verb conjugated in the present tense, using first person singular or “I form.” Each student will then have to say something like, “I run,” “I dance” or “I cry.” The ball gets passed around and around, with students being eliminated whenever they draw blanks or conjugate their verb wrong.

For easier games, give each student 6-8 seconds. For harder, faster paced games, give students 2-3 seconds. You can also start slower and gradually increase the pace of the game as it progresses.

Word Chain

In this tricky game, students will have to think quickly and creatively.

Start the class off by giving them a word which fits your desired theme. Restrict them to only certain parts of speech, such as nouns or verbs. For an extra challenging session, limit the words to certain moods and tenses. For example, every word given might need to be in present or past tense. If you’ve been practicing nouns in class lately, say a noun.

The student who starts off the game will have to think of a word that begins with the last letter of the word you provided. If you’re practicing nouns and said, “food,” then the student could say “dog” or “dish.” If you’re practicing with adjectives and started with “beautiful,” then the next student might say “lazy” or “loud.” Go around the classroom playing this way and eliminating students who can’t think up words quickly enough.

And that’s that! 7 great grammar games to pep up your English classroom.

Have fun, and get those students learning English grammar!