Greg Strandberg - Fun English: 10 Fast and Easy ESL Games

FUN ENGLISH

10 Fast and Easy ESL Games

Greg Strandberg

Big Sky Words, Missoula

Copyright 2014 by Big Sky Words

D2D Edition, 2015

Written in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Also by Greg Strandberg

Selected Non-Fiction

Write Now! 20 Simple Strategies for Successful Writing

English Rocks! 101 ESL Games, Activities, and Lesson Plans

English Last: True Accounts of Teaching in China

Please Say Something! 25 Proven Ways to Get Through an Hour of ESL Teaching

Teaching Abroad: Making the Move To and From ESL Teaching

Teaching English: 25 ESL PowerPoint Ideas That Get Students Talking

Teaching English: 10 Proven Ways to Make Shy Students Talk Now

Bilingual Teaching: Making Your English Students Ready for America Fast

Bilingual English: 25 More ESL PowerPoint Ideas That Get Students Talking

Connect with Greg Strandberg

www.bigskywords.com

www.esladventure.com

Part I Low-Level & Young Learners

Part II Mid-Level & Pre-Teen Learners

Part III High-Level & Teenage Learners

T his book is written for ESL teachers that are about to embark on busy summer teaching schedules.

Yes, when youre an ESL teacher that means you work more in the summer. Students are out of school and that means training centers are ramping up their schedules to make more money.

Unfortunately for you that means twice the work for the same pay and with half the appreciation. Hey, I did it for three summers at English First, one of Chinas largest private English training centers.

It sucked, and when I had class for three hours each day I typically had just an hour and a half worth of lessons lessons provided to me by the training center!

Sure, they said they were three hours, but anyone who tried them in class quickly found out that each lesson lasted half as long as it was supposed to and bored the kids twice as much as had been intended.

Thats a drag, and thats why you have to come up with extra games and activities on your own.

Dont worry, thats what this book and two more just like it are for. Im writing this short ESL series for you so that you have those extra materials that I didnt. And Im giving you these books at a good price because I know youre not making a lot of money, which is a shame for how much crap you have to put up with.

But worrying wont stop those kids from acting up or staying quiet on you for 3 hours each day this summer but this book will. Its got 10 fun English games that are fast and easy to set up and dont require much in the way of planning or materials.

In other words, theyre perfect for when you run out of everything else to do! And if you still cant think of any ideas and this book just doesnt help you at all, well gosh Ive got 90 ESL teaching videos on YouTube and my website that you can watch for free!

Oh, and did I mention there are dozens of free ESL files on my website and also a free ESL eBook available if you sign-up for my mailing list?

Yep, your bases are covered this summer, and I know itll make your life easier. So get your copy of Fun English now and save yourself a lot of headaches this summer!

Part I Low-Level & Young Learners

When I first taught low-level and young ESL learners I was nervous. These were little kids, sometimes 3- to 4-years old! What was I supposed to do!

It didnt take me long to realize that its not that hard keeping their attention, and most of the silly games you play can be used over and over with just slight variations. These three games should work well for you, and ease your nerves in the process.

1 Into the Air

One of the simplest ESL games you can do with young students is called Into the Air.

You can call all of the games in this book whatever you want, but I just call them by the easiest names for students to remember.

In this game you lay out 9 flashcards in a 3x3 grid on the floor. Put them face up or face down, depending on the skill level and just how you feel.

After that you need something to throw into the air. You want the students to throw something up so it falls onto the flashcards, and what I always found worked well was puppets.

We had little hand puppets for introductions and goodbyes at the training center I worked at in China. These worked great because they wouldnt fall too fast and they wouldnt bounce all over the room like a ball would.

Let a student throw up the puppet and then have them read the name of the card it landed on, or make a sentence, or ask a question, or...

As you can see, there are many possibilities, and thats what makes this a great game to use with older students as well.

Y ep, Ive done this with older teenagers! All you need to do is have them make more complex sentences or even better, 5-sentence short stories.

Its fun, and to make it more fun, have two puppets...or three! Yes, throw more into the air and at the same time so that students get more excited. This is fun with younger students, and with older students you get some really interesting and funny story combinations.

All in all, its a great game that takes little planning and very little in the way of materials. Try it out in your class for some laughs today!

2 Race to Cards

When you hear race you probably think of running, and thats exactly what you get with this game students running in class.

Maybe thats a bit too much for you, and thats fine. I had a young girl fall down once and almost cry. She probably would have if it wasnt just a one-on-one tutoring session and no other students or teachers were around to give her attention.

Anyways, students will run, and that can create a risk. But you also have a fun activity that burns off a little of that...sorry, a lot ...of that excess energy.

S o what do you do? Simple put four flashcards on the floor in four corners of the room. Let students run to one, shout out its name as they touch it, then run to the next and do the same.

To make it more fun you can time them and write the times on the board. Students like this, especially the young 5- to 6-year old students I used to play this with.

When youre dealing with that age-range you want something simple, easy, and fast to set up, and something that can be transitioned out of quickly so that you can get students back under control and moving to the next activity, pronto!

Race to Cards is that game, and I hope you give it a try today.

3 Out of a Hat

Back when I was teaching public school I had it rough. There were fifty kids in a class and most of them were more interested in goofing off than in learning English.

It was the start of my second year, and just the first week of class. I thought Id be prepared, what with all that experience, but the sad truth was I wasnt. Instead I was standing there amid a class of students and I had no idea what I was going to do.

Everything Id tried didnt work and things were going south fast. So I took off my hat, wrote up a quick list of vocabulary words from the unit the students were studying, and then began cutting them up. Into the hat they went, and then I stood there.