Although you might never have played Dungeons and Dragons, I’m sure you’ve heard of this classic roleplaying game that’s been around since 1974 and is now onto is 5th edition. Click here for more information . Keep going until everyone has played at least once. Matching Pairs Games (20+) There are a couple of different ways you can play: by trying to use all the letters on the dials at least once to create words, or by tackling the “Clue Puzzles”, which are a bit like crossword clues. You then make as many words as you can from the resulting face-up letters. Required fields are marked *. Test your visual vocabulary with our 10-question challenge! In terms of ESL vocabulary activities for adults, you’re not going to get better than … Each level has a particular description (words should match with this), so you have to avoid any “decoy” words that don’t match. While small children might find it a bit too challenging or frustrating, due to the short time limit, this could be a great game for older children looking to extend their vocabulary. Each player writes down one line of a story and folds the paper over before passing it around the table to the next player. The advantage of this game over “describe it” is it can be a lot easier for beginner students to draw something than to try to think of a way to describe it in English. Hangman takes a little bit of explaining but… once your students understand it then they will love it! Student level: Beginner to IntermediateType of lesson: GroupStudent type: Children & Adults. (If you’re playing with adults, you might also want to consider Cards Against Humanity, a decidedly not-kid-friendly game that works in a very similar way.). Tell the class that they’re going to create a story together, on the spot. Many of the other games are suitable for children, too, so by all means try out other games as a family if you want to. Some of the options, like Fairy Tale, are great to use with young children – others may not be so suitable, so do vet the different options first. At first glance, it will appear as if you are staring at a giant mess of random letters. Whispers. Bidemi, try Wordept. The classic Japanese game – Shiritori! In case you haven’t played charades before, this is how to play: This is a great game for beginners as it works better with beginner vocabulary (run, sit, 4 etc. To set this game up you again need a collection of cards with the vocabulary on. Vocabulary games and activities. #2: Bulls and Cows (pen and paper) – you can play this with just a pen and paper (or if you’ve got a really good memory, with nothing at all). The benefit of this game is that it forces students to use synonyms/antonyms that they might not use usually. Check our data privacy policy. It works just like Scrabble, where you have seven letter tiles and add them to a board. #6: Spellspire (phone app) – a fun spelling/word-creation game your child can play on your phone (and probably a bit more educational than yet another game of Angry Birds). Games are a great way to get your students to engage and use the language without fighting for their attention every few minutes. Hop on my mailing list and stay up to date. You can chat with the opponent in a chat window, so do be aware of this if you’re allowing your kids to play. A very basic idea but we have a lot of room to work with this. Student level: Pre-Intermediate to AdvancedType of lesson: Group or IndividualStudent type: Children & Adults. Top 100 Vocabulary Words That Adults Should Know Educators often use words with meanings that students may not fully understand. It’s suitable for kids, and starts off very easy with just letters: if you set it to a harder difficulty, you need to type whole words. Note: all of these are free to download, but most allow in-app purchases, and you may find you need to make a purchase to get the most out of them. Older kids might have fun creating their own for their friends or siblings. You have to be able to explain why a word is related. Secret Word. Older children might enjoy it, and any adults with a strong competitive streak! This is a competitive typing game where you race a car against friends (or total strangers) by typing the text at the bottom of the screen. Spelling. You need to solve the clues and rearrange the letter types so you can create the answers to the mystery words – so it’s also a bit like an anagram. Ask them to circle only the words that appeared in the picture; whoever does this with the most accurately “wins” the game. Exactly what you are looking for…its a game where you have to find words from bigger words. This often results in hilarity! Draw the head (a circle) underneath the horizontal part of the post. So if we picked the category “countries” then it would go like this: You can then continue until all of the letters have been completed. Some games on this list can be a little silly and adult students would most likely feel more than a little patronized if they were to play them. #3: Boggle (board game) – this is simple enough for quite young children to get the hang of it: my five-year-old enjoys playing it with her Granny. You know that there is a new version of scrabble called scrabble GO from scopely games. You will improve your English in only 5 minutes per day, guaranteed! This game is best suited to children, they will enjoy using a ball to interact with. You can vary this one a bit depending on how many are playing. There are lots of different versions of these available, and they all work in a similar way. To add a competitive angle to this you can have the ones who get it wrong lose the game and leave the round, repeat this until there is a winner. You need very little to play this game, which makes it ideal as a backup activity as well. This one is great to stimulate some creativity. Like other types of roleplaying game, they’re a great way to practice storytelling and character-development skills. The other students have to guess and the first one to get it right can then have their turn. You can practice on your own, enter a typing race, or race against your friends if you prefer. This classic word-building game is hugely popular, and you can play against your Facebook or Twitter friends, or against a random opponent. A word search has a grid (often 10×10 or more) filled with letters, and a number of words written alongside or beneath the grid. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Thanks! It’s very much aimed at kids, so teens and adults may find the animated talking goat a bit annoying or patronising! The idea of this game is to get the students to spell a word out one letter at a time, each student takes it in turns saying each letter though which is what makes it difficult. You can compete as a “guest racer”, or you can create an account and login so you can level up and gain rewards like a better car. This continues until the word is complete. Since the easiest words to create are short, simple ones, this is a great game for children or for adults who want to get better at spelling. Simple ones are suitable for fairly young children, with a little help. Click to download the PDF of this Colours word search, student level (from beginner to advanced), Person 1 needs to whisper a message to person 2 (without anyone else hearing). It’s a fair enough question. Thank you a lot, I will definitely try it. Let me help you to become a successful teacher, working abroad or online from home. The idea is then for the students to think of something for each letter of the alphabet. Twine is a bit different from some of the other games we’ve looked at: it’s a tool for telling interactive stories (a bit like the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, or a text-based adventure game). Eventually you’ll have a (potentially goofy) story that puts all your vocabulary words into use, and consolidates them in your students’ memory. With six different modes (“normall”, “lightning”, “relax”, etc), it’s suitable for children and for people who are learning English, as well as for those wanting to really challenge their vocabulary skills. All of these are games that you can play in your browser: some involve a lot of writing and are essentially story-telling apps, whereas others are essentially digital versions of traditional pen and paper games. All games have answers available. You will also need a ball. They’re now distinctly retro-looking text-based online games, where players create a character and interact with other characters and the world. I found it was a bit slow to load, but it’s not full of ads like some other games. We know ads can be annoying, but they’re what allow us to make all of wikiHow available for free.