5 Engaging Games for Your English Conversation Class

Practicing conversational skills is often daunting for students. However, with these awesome activities, you’ll engage your students in speaking quicker as they will like the tasks.

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1. Ice-Breaker Jenga

Jenga is a favorite stack game to millions of people. Your students will get excited as soon as they see the blocks. For this activity, you need to customize the blocks a bit by writing 1 ice-breaking question on each piece. Students need to pull a block and answer the question before putting it on the top of the stack.

You can adjust this game to online classes by using online Jenga.

Also Read: Can I teach English as a foreign language online?

2. Get to Know You Bingo

Before the lesson, brainstorm as many personal characteristics as possible (e.g.: have a brother, go abroad, etc.). Students fill out their Bingo boards and then move through the classroom asking each other about the characteristics from the list. The person with 5 characteristics in a row should shout “Bingo!” and finish the round.

3. 20 Questions

Student 1 chooses an object, the rest of the class asks yes/no questions to determine what the object is. If the object is not identified after 20 questions, student 1 wins.

Also Read: How do online TEFL courses work?

4. Choose Your Victim

This game is concentrated on practicing grammar. The teacher chooses a specific grammar point. Student 1 asks a question using the grammatical structure and tosses a ball to another student. If “The victim” answers correctly, they ask a new question and toss the ball. If they answer incorrectly, they return the ball and sit down. The last student standing wins.

5. I’ve Got a Contact

One person chooses a word and gives the first letter of that word. The rest of the class asks yes/no questions. If two students think of the same word, one of them should shout “I’ve got a contact” and then they say the word together before the host says it’s incorrect. In this case, the host must open the second letter. The round continues until all letters are opened or the word is guessed correctly. The student guessed the word takes their turn as a host.

The teacher can limit the word choice to a particular topic.

Also Read: Should I take a TEFL course online or in a classroom?

Example

• S1 chooses the word “Travel” and gives its first letter - “T”.
• Class - “Is it something we wear on the body?”
• S1 - “No, it’s not a T-shirt”.
• S2 - “Is it what we use to watch movies?”
• S3 - “I’ve got a contact”
• S2+S3 - “Television”
• S1 opens the second letter.

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All of these games can be used as ice-breakers or as a part of the Engage phase of your lessons to help students practice speaking in a playful manner. Students will definitely enjoy playing these games!

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