photo credit: Oneras

ESL Games are a great way to teach English as a second language to elementary school aged children. As anyone who has studied a second language knows, repetition is vital for picking up new vocabulary. Children however often do not have the discipline nor the attention spans necessary for repetitious study.

ESL Games on the other hand provide children with a tool to practice repetitious material without boredom. So what kinds of games are good for practicing ESL? Well that depends on a couple of factors. One is class size. Some games are difficult to play with small groups and others difficult with large groups. Your classes previous exposure to the vocabulary is also important because different games give students different levels of autonomy.

Let's look at one game we often use in our school: The Hot Potato Game. The Hot Potato game is a classic children's game that I've adapted for ESL classes. The children play in groups of five and each group gets a hot potato card. The game master starts some music and the child holding the card says one of the vocabulary words before passing the hot potato card to someone else. When the game master yells out hot potato, whoever is holding the hot potato card becomes the penalty person. The penalty person has to answer a question or risk having to do a silly dance. The game is very easy to set up and can go on for as long as the teacher likes.

Hopefully I have given you some ideas on how and why to use ESL Games in your classroom. If you'd like to know more, head on over to Naruhodo-eigo.com where you'll find lots of other ESL classroom game ideas as well as things to print.