I love high-intensity ESL Games. They are fun, fast and frenetic. A Language Sprint is an excellent way to repetitively practice any target language without getting bored.
The only materials you’ll need are a timer a way of tallying points: pen and paper, white board, counting, etc. All you have to do is pick a language target and set a timer for one minute.
How to:
- Divide your class into pairs.
- The goal is to use the target language as many times as possible within a minute. In this example, we’re using the language target “If it’s rainy we can play in the rain“.
- Have one partner use the language target as many times as possible within a minute without repeating the variable. The variable in this example is “play in the rain.”
- The other partner simply has to tally points and make sure there’s no repetition.
- When the timer sounds. Tally the points.
- Have the partners switch roles and repeat steps 3-5.
- Combine both totals and the pair with the highest combined total is the winner.
- To make the game more difficult you can add a negative to the target language. E.g. “If it’s raining we can’t have a picnic”.