Wonder how speaking games for ESL can possibly help you? Hear me out! Do you have a group of students or even just one that is reluctant to talk? Or do your students just not want to practice a grammar point in action? Then you need to make a game out of it. Playing a game is not stressful or a performance, so it relaxes the person that is playing. It’s in this relaxed atmosphere I find my students really let loose and just go for it, when I usually wouldn’t hear them much in class.
It IS hard to speak a strange language that you’re still learning. Nobody wants to be judged or assessed, because speaking another language is very personal and intimate. That’s why the way to make practicing speaking it is so much easier if we make a game out of it. Games are fun and low-pressure. They’re not assessments, and so the player cannot be judged and deemed unworthy. It works really well for my students to play speaking games, and I hope you will try the following games with your students too!
Before I tell you all my favorite speaking games, you can also grab my FREE PDF of My 7 Best Whiteboard Games to play in the classroom, by clicking here!
Speaking games for kids
Here is my list of favorite speaking games for kids:
- Dilemmarama
- This or That
- Who it it/ What is it
- Find someone who
- Four corners
- Grammar games
Dilemmarama
This game gives the player a ridiculous dilemma to choose the best option from. And when I say ridiculous, I mean it. These are hilarious! Example: You can only type with your nose OR You always wear a sweater made out of bacon. Which one would you choose? Imagine how much fun your students would have with this game. Mine always have the funniest reasons to choose one of the other!
It’s easy to create this game yourself. All you have to do is come up with two ridiculous situations to choose from!
This or That
This or That is similar to Dilemmarama actually, in that there’s always a choice between two things, but the options in this game are a bit more normal. And less elaborate. There can be the choice between ‘Pizza or French fries’, ‘Cats or dogs’, or ‘Cake or Candy’. This game will keep your students slightly calmer, while also having them argue why they choose something over something else. I use this one when I have a more rowdy class on my hands.
It’s easy to make your own version of this game. You only have to come up with two choices to give to students!
Which Would You Rather is much the same as This or That. I made one myself for my specific group of students, and I have it in my store. Click here to check it out!
Who Is It / What Is It
A Who Is It game or What Is It game has students find out who their partner’s mystery person or object is by asking each other questions about these 20 people or objects on the card. By process of elimination they will find the answer in this game. Who Is It a great game to get students speaking to each other and asking useful questions!
I’ve played this game many times by just having students come up with names to guess for their group members, put those names on sticky notes, and stick them to foreheads.
Find Someone Who
One of my favorite back to school activities is Find Someone Who! It’s my favorite game because it helps students introduce themselves and get to know their classmates in a super casual way that even gets competitive. In this game, students have to find a number of names to match the prompts on the sheet. Example of a possible prompt: Find someone who… ‘has a dog’. Students will have to find the name of a classmate that actually has a dog and write that name down.
You can easily create this game by filling a bunch of boxes on a sheet with prompts to ask each other about!
Four Corners
Four Corners the way I play it works like this: On the board, I put up a question to pose to students as a whole group and I give them four options to choose from. The options correspond with the corners of the room. When I ask a question, students must choose the answer that applies to them and stand in the corner that matches the answer. Then I ask specific students why they have chosen an answer. This helps students introduce themselves, share about their likes and dislikes, and learn a lot about each other fast. Example: What is your favorite food? a. pizza, b. french fries, c. sushi, d. pasta.
Grammar games
To make learning grammar easier I’ve also created some grammar games for my students. For example, I’ve got a burglary mystery that is a speaking game for the Past Continuous tense. I also have an information gap game to practice using the Present Simple tense. These can be found in my Speaking Games Bundle that’s for sale on TPT. And then I’ve got about 14 speaking board games for most of the verb tenses and other grammar points, to practice using them in context by answering questions. They can be found in my store too, if you click here!
So those are my favorite speaking games ESL students like mine love! They are easy to set up and play with your kiddos, and they provide a stress-free way to practice speaking a foreign language. Have fun with them!
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