Skill-Developing Games for ELLs

By Sarah Elia

Elia writes about four games that she uses with her students. These require almost no prep.

1. 20 questions: She decides on a theme based on a topic they are learning in a content class. Students choose their own words based on this. She writes the questions on the board as students ask them. Finally, students copy the sentences, and they may translate them. Newcomers may use their phones to find images to generate questions and then translate them.
2. Endless Story: Desks or chairs are arranged in a circle, and students each contribute their ideas to create a story. Elia types the corrected sentences on a computer and projects them. Students copy the story as follow-up. Her suggestion for more advanced MLs is to have them include literary concepts such as personification or irony in their stories.
3. Word on My Head: She asks students for vocabulary from their content classes. She chooses one of these words, and gives it to a student, but doesn’t show the student what the word is. The other students have to use English to give clues so the student can guess what the word is.
4. Themed Scavenger Hunt: Elia gives small groups of students hall passes so they can walk around and make a list of the objects that they see. When they return to class, they write sentences for the words that they think are most useful. They may also be asked to write a paragraph describing the experience and what they observed. An alternative is to first list what they think they will see, and then try to find those objects.

Elia has found that “Not only does game-based learning activate eagerness to engage in academic material and create a joyful mindset about learning, but also it can cultivate relationships in the classroom and a joyous sense of community.”

At the end of the article, the author invited readers to share their ideas. One of these suggested having students discuss idioms or colloquial sayings from their native languages.

Here are the details to play the games.