ESL Games are like recipes. Teachers use the basic frame work but more often than not use little tweaks to add flavor and specifically cater a game to suit their student’s specific needs and abilities.
This ESL game submitted by Gosia from Lesson Plans Digger is one of her personal creations based on a couple of classics: Scattegories (aka Stop the Bus) and Family Feud.
The Details:
- This ESL Game is best suited for high school students and adults.
- A game should take between 10 and 15 minutes depending on the size of your class and the ability of your students.
- This game challenges students to use their English vocabularies to think of as many words or phrases as possible that fall into each category heading within the given 4 minute time limit.
Material Required:
- One piece of paper and one pencil for each group of students.
- A white board and a marker (but you can make do without).
- A timer.
How to:
- Think of 4 Categories, e.g 1. Something you do on a plane 2. Something you eat with your fingers 3. Something you wear in the summer 4. Something you can find in the living room.
- Divide your class into pairs or small groups.
- Tell your class that they have 4 minutes to think of AT LEAST 4 items for each category.
- Set the timer for 4 minutes and press start.
- Once the timer sounds, teams get 10 points for each original item that no other group has, 5 points for a repeated item, and 2 points for each extra one (5th, 6th etc.) as long as no other group has it.
- Tally the points. Change the categories and repeat step 4 & % as many times as desired.
- The team with the highest combined score wins the game.
