ESL Games, Activities, and Lesson Plans

Without a knowledge of the Declaration of Independence and its ideals, students have little hope of understanding American rhetoric and literature. Provide your advanced students with the opportunity to read the Declaration of Independence and debate its ideals.

(My opinions on the importance–and pitfalls–of teaching English and American culture from source documents are forthcoming and will be linked here.)

Skill Level:
Advanced students.

Materials Needed:
Individual copies of the Declaration of Independence for each students.
I’ve uploaded a bilingual English-Chinese copy of the Introduction & Preamble to the Declaration of Independence in .pdf format. Please feel free to use it in your class.
I found it to be very helpful to let the students refer to the translation for words they couldn’t find in their dictionaries; you may want to consider providing a translated copy for your students. [Read more →]

Make your students want to remember vocabulary by playing Memory!

Skill level:
Beginning, Intermediate.

Materials Needed:
Pairs of cards with the lesson’s vocab, grammar, or sentences on them.
Hint: Make sure that you can’t read the writing through the back of the card!

Instructions::
Divide the class into team and mix the cards and tape them to the board. If you have a small class you can play in a circle on the floor, but I’ve found that playing on the board works best. Students from each team pick two cards & read them as they’re turned over. If the cards match, the student (and her team) keep the set. If the cards do not match they are both turned back over and it is the other team’s turn.
Team with most sets at the end of the game wins!

Bring America’s favorite game show to your ESL classroom.

Skill Level: Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced; students must be able to read to play the game.

Materials Needed:
Deck of specially labeled cards.
Blackboard (to keep score).

Instructions:
I play the game with cards because I’ve not been able to make a wheel that’s easy to move and durable enough to withstand my students. If you can come up with a good wheel design, let me know!
Teacher prepares a deck of cards with the same sorts of labels as the wheel on Wheel Of Fortune–some have dollar amounts, some are “Bankrupt!” cards, and the rest given whatever special label you want (Lose A Turn, Pick Again, Sing A Song, etc.). [Read more →]