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14 ESL Writing Activities to Spice Up Your Next Class

Ben Bartee

  • October 27, 2020
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Writing is one of the four basic English proficiencies next to reading, speaking, and listening. Developing a well-honed ability to write fluidly, naturally, and confidently — while using well-crafted grammatical structure and a wide array of vocabulary — carries several benefits for English learners.  

A developed writing ability is essential for scoring well on standardized tests that include essay sections and a well-chosen ESL writing activity can increase the ability to express increasingly complex ideas succinctly and fully, thus improving communication skills across all four proficiencies.

How to Use ESL Writing Activities

As an ESL teacher, part of your teaching scope likely includes improving the writing skills of your students. Fun, engaging activities can be effective tools for achieving the gains in their writing abilities that you hope to see in the classroom. 

When to Use ESL Writing Activities

Depending on the type of activity, writing activities can be used:

  • At the beginning of a lesson to pique students’ interest and generate excitement about the upcoming lesson.
  • Mid-lesson to assess students’ absorption and retention.
  • At the conclusion of a lesson to review previously learned vocabulary/grammar.

Setup for ESL Writing Activities

Some ESL writing activities featured here require virtually no setup. Others require a whiteboard and/or projector with computer access. A handful require some preparation before class and pre-printed materials for handout.

Here are a few of the premier ESL writing activities for students divided by age and skill level.

ESL Writing Activities For Young Learners

Flash card writing.

Young learners are often best engaged with visual cues, so ESL flashcards are great tools for the classroom at the primary level.

To conduct the flash card activity, do a warm-up session by going through each card and, together as a class, writing the correct spelling on the board letter by letter.

Then, heat things up by dividing students into teams and having one member of each team write the vocabulary term on the board as quickly as possible when you prompt them with the corresponding flashcard.

The first student to finish earns a point for his or her team. Incentivize the students, if necessary, with a prize for the team with the most points at the end.

What’s Happening?

Building on the theme of combining imagery with writing for younger ESL learners, consider showing students a picture (the more vibrant, colorful, and detailed, the better) and asking them to write what they see. Consider using images with recently learned phrases as a review method.

Write a Letter to Santa (or Spiderman, Harry Potter, or Whomever)

Letter writing is an essential aspect of a young student’s English. Make it fun by having them write to their favorite superhero, celebrity, or best friend.

If your students need extra guidance, prompt them by suggesting what to write about; if writing to Santa, for example, encourage them to discuss what they would like for Christmas.

Help them frame their letter logically by providing a structure guide and helpful suggestions as necessary.

Postcards to Pen Pals

Capture young learners’ imagination by introducing them to a fictitious young boy or girl (or one inspired by real life) who is their same age and who lives in an exotic far-off land.

If your students are interested in a particular region or city, such as San Francisco, adjust your character’s geographic location accordingly.

Have them write a short composition to their new faraway friend that will fit on a postcard about who they are, what they like doing, etc. You can even make your own DIY postcards in the office using colored cardboard or other material.

This is a great opportunity to teach basic introductions and conclusions in English writing, a foundational component of almost any form of writing.

ESL Writing Activities For Adults

Write a business email.

Many adult learners are businesspeople, office workers, or other teachers themselves, so chances are all or most of your students have to send emails at some point in a work-related capacity.

Learning how to use professional, natural-sounding business language is a practical, valuable skill that adult ESL learners will appreciate —  in fact, you may find that sounding “native” in both written and spoken word is a major goal of many English students, particularly adults.

Using a projector, create a relatable and entertaining work-related scenario and write an email to a boss or co-worker together about the situation.

Then, have your students craft their own email either in response to the example you provided or in a fresh scenario.

Illustrative Descriptions

Fluent English writers and speakers have the ability to translate visual experiences into the written word, an advanced skill set that can serve your students well in a variety of real-world English-speaking contexts.

Consider using a well-known piece of local imagery with important cultural meaning (such as a portrait of a well-known historical figure or leader) and help your students to write verbal descriptions of the visual cue.

Paraphrasing Activity

Paraphrasing is the ability to quickly recreate sentences with different grammatical structure and vocabulary while retaining the meaning and content of the original sentence.

The ability to paraphrase off the cuff is an important skill that can come in handy for adult learners who interact with other English speakers. Practicing paraphrasing encourages a greater understanding of the nuances of the language and developing alternative ways to construct sentences.

Offer your students a sentence, then ask them to capture the essence of what is communicated and reconstitute the critical elements into a new sentence structure.

Personal Ads for Dating Sites

Due to human nature, social conditioning, or a combination thereof, adult ESL learners’ ears tend to perk up when the topic of conversation moves to the birds and the bees.

If your adult students don’t use personal dating apps like Tinder, chances are they did at some point or their sons and daughters do.

Have your students write a personal ad – either about themselves or about one another in pairs – to be placed on a fictional dating app. Depending on the context of the learning environment, you can spice the activity up by encouraging uncouth language if/when you feel it is appropriate.

ESL Writing Activities for Beginners

Acrostic poem.

This simple writing activity encourages creativity in use of the English terminology as well as recall of vocabulary. To create an acrostic poem activity for your students, write a short series of letters such as BIRD on the board, one on top of the other. Each of the four letters is its own line of poetry like this:

Create an example first for your students, such as:

  • Barbara and
  • I went to the garden where
  • Red flowers grow
  • Down by the creek

Then encourage students to think of their own poems to create.

Fill in the Letters

Mastering the letters and their phonetic sounds is a foundational element of ESL writing for beginners.

Present your students with words containing missing letters. You can either use pre-constructed worksheets from other teachers, create your own, or write the words with missing letters on the whiteboard.

After your students complete the words, take the time to sound out the terms again to strengthen students’ phonetic grasp on common English sounds and their corresponding letters. This will build their capacity to conceptualize letters when constructing words and sentences.

Letter/Word Chains

Print a series of words with one giant letter on each page. For example, if the word is HOUSE, then print an H, O, U, S, and E, each on its own respective page.

Scramble the papers up, then call an equal number of students to pages to the front – in this example, five. Say the word they should spell (house) and then watch them scramble to organize themselves in the correct order – helping them when necessary.  

Although beginning ESL students don’t put pen to paper in this activity, it is nonetheless a writing activity in that it instills proper spelling and a basic grasp on phonetics that are critical at this stage of language development.

Students also enjoy and may benefit from the social, team-building aspect of this writing activity.

If single words are too easy, you can up the difficulty level by printing entire words on separate pages that form complete sentences.

ESL Writing Activities for Intermediate Students

Western ESL teachers might remember Mad Libs from their youth, a game in which a handful of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are extracted from a prewritten story and left up to the participants to fill in.

Mad Libs and its variants like Mad Takes can be wildly entertaining for ESL learners.

Fantasy Dialogue Using Pop Culture

Most of your students, especially in the mid-secondary school age range with a typical skill level for that group, will find this writing activity engaging.

Create a fantasy meeting between two well-known pop culture figures – for example, in Thailand, this would be something like Lady Gaga meeting Harry Potter if selecting from Western celebrities.

You can make the activity more exciting by setting the dialogue against an unusual background – for example, backstage at a concert in Bangkok.  

Writing Descriptions of Visual Stimuli

Flash an image of a busy street corner in a major city in your student’s country, or of a well-known piece of historic architecture or famous landform – anything that your students are likely to know well.

Write the question words on the board:

Then ask your students to craft their own descriptions of the images you show for the question words. Some might not fit well – for example, the answer to who? may not appear obvious in an image of an island with no inhabitants. Encourage creative, “out of the box” answers in this regard and reward them with positive feedback.

The Directions Game

Giving and receiving directions is an intermediate English skill that ESL learners who want to travel will need to have. Additionally, this activity is useful to include at the outset of a lesson because the competitive nature captures students’ interest.

Draw a handmade map or grab one off of the internet. Divide the students into two teams. Then, have one student from each team come to the whiteboard with marker in hand.

Ask how to go from point A to point B on the map. Each student, with the help of his or her team, must quickly write coherent directions (turn left, turn right, go east, go west, etc.) from start to finish.

The first team to complete intelligible directions wins.

ESL Writing Activities for Advanced Students

What happens next.

This writing activity has the potential for several modifications to spice it up, but the essential idea is that the class, as a group, creates a story line by line.

The simplest version of Collective Story Time is to begin, as the teacher, with the introductory sentence on the whiteboard or projector: “Billy went to the skatepark.” The next sentence is completed by a student chosen at random, who then passes the baton to another student of his or her choice.

Depending on the age, maturity level, and preferences of students, you might put content limitations in place or interject with your own sentences from time to time to keep the story on a productive track.

Social Media Posts

Nearly everyone uses social media; they identify with it; they engage with it. Instead of fighting students to stay off of their phones in class, why not consider crafting your own Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram posts together as a class?

Use projection technology to supersize the browser or app and brainstorm a Tweet or post about a popular topic or the latest news in your learners’ home country.

Getting to the Point/Cutting Out the Fat

In English writing, more is not always better. The stage at which ESL students begin to develop advanced writing skills and become more confident is the right time to begin to introduce the concept of brevity and its benefits.

Start by offering your own writing sample that is chock full of redundancies, extraneous details, and non-sequiturs. Point some of them out yourself so that they know what to look for. Ask your students to shorten the story by half while keeping the original meaning and the critical details.

Transcription Practice (Dicto-Comp)

For some advanced ESL students who are either working already or will soon join the workforce, the ability to translate spoken English into written form quickly and accurately is an important skill.

Help them develop this skill set by selecting a text that is commensurate with their comprehension level. If you can’t find a suitable sample on the web, consider writing one yourself. The text should be about 500 words.

Students will listen and transcribe what they are hearing as quickly as possible. Emphasize the equal importance of accuracy and speed.

Read a few sentences at a time, pausing when you think appropriate.

Where to Start as an ESL Teacher

Devising effective ESL writing activities — and, equally importantly, adapting them to match the needs, interests, and social context of your students – requires a good bit of trial and error. Inspiration from other teachers’ examples and outside resources can help.To get started developing high-quality writing activities for your students, take a look at our list of free lesson plans . They are full of effective teaching strategies that are backed by years of practical success in ESL classrooms around the globe.

Ben Bartee

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10 Creative ESL Writing Activities For Young Students

By VIPKid  |  February 7, 2018

Ready to start teaching English online?

ESL Writing Activities

If you are an ESL teacher on VIPKID then you must consider the following things before selecting ESL Writing Activities for your students;

  • You must choose the activities that can easily be done online because communication between you and your students will be done using VIPKID’s online video chatting software. Therefore, games that require outdoor activities may not work that well.
  • You must avoid picking group activities because each of your online classes will consist of one student only. If you pick games that require more than one student, it is quite possible that you may end up confusing your students instead of helping them develop their writing skills.
  • VIPKID provides the teachers with its own teaching material; therefore, the games you pick for your students must be relevant to the material you are given otherwise you may not be able to achieve any progress.
  • The ESL Writing Activities you pick must be age-appropriate, which means you should pick games according to the age of your students. For your younger students, you need to choose easier to understand activities that teach English writing at the most basic level. Older students who understand English a bit may benefit from slightly more complex games.
  • You must include ESL Writing Activities both in-class lessons and your students’ homework. This will allow them to practice more, which will help them develop and improve their writing skills.

The key to using writing activities as a teaching tool for your ESL students is to know which activities will help achieve your lesson’s learning objectives. If you use activities that are all fun and games, then your students may not learn anything useful from them.  

ESL writing activities are important because they teach students to express their thoughts and use arguments so they can support their points of view in English. Therefore, it is important to do ESL writing exercises not only as homework   but also as a classroom activity . In this article, we will outline some interesting ESL writing activities that are suitable for interactive work in a classroom or while teaching ESL online.

These are some of the best 10 ESL writing activities

Writing tweets.

esl writing

Most of your students should be familiar with Twitter and tweets, so it can be a good starting point for an ESL writing exercise. Encourage students to write short tweets on the given ESL writing topic . You can even create a Twitter account for your class where the learners can share their thoughts. By the way, recently Twitter has exceeded the number of characters per post from 140 to 280, but still you can stick to the old 140-character format and maintain the conciseness.

Writing Emails

Emails are the main source of communication between people around the world, and that’s why email writing is a key to effective communication . Explain to your students the difference between formal and informal emails , outline the structure and vocabulary, and encourage the students to write their own emails. They can write emails to each other based on a specified topic, such as organizing a surprise party for a friend’s birthday.

Writing Ads and TV Commercials

Advertisements and commercials are a great example of creative writing , so they can be used as writing activities for ESL students . Give your learners some sample ads as well as typical expressions that are used in advertising, and then ask the learners to create their own ads. You can bring some familiar objects to the classroom and tell the learners to advertise them. The students can work solo, in pairs, or in groups. For even greater creativity, encourage them to support their ads with images . For example, they can cut out those images out of newspapers or magazines, or print them from the web. Bonus points go to teachers who have their students present them as pitches for an extra speaking activity .

Error Correction

esl writing activities

This ESOL writing exercise focuses on the ability to detect and correct mistakes in an already written text. One of example is to give the students a letter from an “imaginary friend” who does not speak English very well and has asked you to correct his or her letter. Each line of the letter should contain at least one mistake, which the students should identify and correct.

Collaborative ESL Writing Activity

Ask your students to write a story together. Each student should write a sentence and pass on the sheet to another student, who should continue the story. In the end, someone can read the story aloud. Such activity can both train the writing skills and spice up your ESL writing lessons, making them more fun and exciting. If you’re Teaching English as a Second Language online, you can go back and forth with the student and drive the story toward the vocabulary you’re focusing on.

Don’t forget to check our article about Teaching English as A Second Language.

Association game

Play an association game with your students: tell them a word and ask them to create an association chain for it, i.e. to name the association with each next word. For example, airport – travel – holidays – fun – party – night – moon – space, and so on. When the association chain is ready, ask the students to write a story by using all of these words.

Structural Writing

During this ESL writing game, you should write an essay together with your students, but in a slow-paced manner, sentence by sentence . When writing, you will teach them the typical essay structure, such as introductory, supporting, and concluding sentences. As a result, your students will not be afraid of long essays, as they can easily break down the essay structure into smaller chunks.

Image-Based Story Writing

esl writing games activities

For this ESOL writing practice, you should mix up cards with various images in a bag or basket, and then ask each student to take three random images. Then the most interesting part starts: the students should write stories that involve each of the three depicted objects .

How-To Instructions Writing

During this ESL writing exercise, you should ask your students to describe how something works in the form of a step-by-step procedure . Of course, they should describe the functioning of simple objects from daily life, for example, a toaster. Another option is to write a recipe for a simple dish, such as scrambled eggs or cornflakes with milk.

Shortening The Texts

Give your students a bulky text overloaded with long expressions and ask them to shorten the text and remove everything that seems odd, thus making the text clear and concise. You can shorten one of the texts together with the students and then have them work in groups or pairs.

We hope that our examples of writing exercises for ESL students will help you liven up the writing activities and turn them into an exciting adventure. Good luck with the next lesson plan !

ESL Writing

Benefits of ESL Writing

Here are some of the benefits of ESL writing activities:

They help to improve writing skills – Yes, this is an obvious benefit. Writing is an important part of learning English as a Second Language, especially if you are teaching adults who are looking for job opportunities or applying to universities for higher studies in native-English speaking countries. You will have to make sure that they know the basic knowledge of how to compose emails, take notes, prepare assignments and communicate with their peers and colleagues.

They help you build your vocabulary – ESL write up activities are a great way to build your students’ vocabulary. Not only do they learn new words, but they will also know how to use them in different sentences.

They help students understand the English language better – When you write a sentence you learn new words, you learn how to use them and how to build content around them. This can be a great way to improve your students’ comprehension, which can help them with their fluency in the language and play a role in developing their communication skills.

Remember, in order to make sure that your students benefit from writing, you should select exercises that are age-appropriate, related to your lesson, and easy to understand.

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ESL Writing Exercises: Activities, Worksheets, and Ideas!

We have several free ESL writing lessons on this page, including sample essays, sentence patterns, writing assignments, and more! If you like these lessons, consider buying our ESL writing textbooks to get even more content just like this!

Beginner Writing Lessons

The four units below are all taken from our book Write Right: 9 Beginner ESL Writing Lessons , available for instant download!

Sample Essay: “My Hobby” – Introductory sample essay that students can reference later when writing their own essays

Sentence Pattern: Start/stop verb+ing – Practice adding “ing” to verbs after “start/stop/quit/begin”

Grammar: Past Tense – Simple introduction to past tense verbs

Error Correction Worksheet – Correct the errors in this sample “My Hobby” essay

Assignment: “My Hobby” – Use the grammar and sentence patterns from Unit 1 to write an essay titled “My Hobby”

Sample Essay: “A Funny Story” – Introductory sample essay that students can reference later when writing their own essays

Past Tense Error Correction Worksheet – Review of past tense; rewrite the paragraph and correct the past tense errors

Indention and Quotations – Teaches students to indent new paragraphs and use quotation marks correctly

Indentions and Quotations: Error Correction Worksheet – Identify and correct the mistakes in the paragraph

Writing Assignment: “A Funny Story” – Students use the grammar and sentence patterns from Unit 2 to write an essay titled “A Funny Story”

Sample Essay: “My Favorite Place” – Introductory sample essay that students can reference later when writing their own essays

Sentence Pattern: Although / Even though – Introduction to “although” and “even though”, with sample sentences and practice exercises

Sentence Pattern: not…at all – Introduction to the sentence pattern “(not)…at all”, with sample sentences and practice exercises

Error Correction Worksheet – Identify and correct the mistakes in the paragraph

Writing Assignment: “My Favorite Place” – Students use the grammar and sentence patterns from Unit 3 to write an essay titled “My Favorite Place”

esl writing games activities

NEW! UNIT 4: “Letter to a Relative”

Sample Essay: “Letter to a Relative” – Introductory sample letter that students can reference later when writing their own essays

Writing Lesson: The Elements of a Letter – Introduction to the elements of a letter (greeting, body, conclusion)

Writing Lesson: Conjunctions – Introduction to the conjunctions and/but/or/so, with an explanation of how to punctuate them correctly

Error Correction: Conjunctions – Identify and correct the mistakes in the letter

Writing Assignment: “Letter to a Relative” – Students use the grammar and sentence patterns from Unit 4 to write an letter to one of their relatives

Intermediate/Advanced Writing Lessons

The writing lessons and worksheets below are taken from our book Write Right: Transitions , available for instant download!

Writing a Formal Paragraph

Topic Sentences (Introduction) – Introduction to topic sentences and their function in a formal paragraph

Introduction to Similes and Metaphors – Using similes and metaphors to write interesting topic sentences

Similes and Metaphors Review – Practice describing people and things using similes and metaphors

Topic Sentences (Review) – Practice writing topic sentences

The Body of a Paragraph (Introduction) – Introduction to the body of a paragraph and the information that should be contained therein

The Body of a Paragraph (Review) – Practice thinking of information to use in the body of a paragraph

Concluding Sentences (Introduction) – Introduction to concluding sentences and their function in a paragraph

Concluding Sentences (Review) – Practice writing concluding sentences

Punctuation and Conjunctions

Sentence Fragments and Complete Sentences – Introduction to sentence fragments and a review exercise to practice identifying them

Run-on Sentences – Worksheet to practice correcting run-on sentences

Comma Splices and Conjunctions – Worksheet to practice using conjunctions correctly to fix comma splices

Commas and Conjunctions (“and”) – Explanation of how to correctly use commas with the conjunction “and”

Semi-colons – Introduction to this often baffling piece of punctuation, with a review exercise

Transitions and Connectors

Listing Things in Order – Practice listing items or events in order using words like “First”, “Next”, “After that”, “Finally”, etc.

In addition / Additionally / Moreover / Furthermore / Plus / …as well – Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with several sample sentences

In addition / Additionally / Moreover / Furthermore / Plus / …as well – Review worksheet to practice writing sentences with these transitions

However / Nevertheless / Still / Despite that / Nonetheless / Even so – Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with several sample sentences

However / Nevertheless / Still / Despite that / Nonetheless / Even so – Review worksheet to practice writing sentences with these transitions

Therefore / Consequently / As a result / Thus / For this Reason – Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with several sample sentences

Therefore / Consequently / As a result / Thus / For this Reason – Review worksheet to practice writing sentences with these transitions

Review of these Transitions and Connectors – Review worksheet to practice using all of the transition words above

More Transitions and Connectors

Although / Even though – Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with several sample sentences and review exercises

Though – Introduction to “though” and it’s various uses in a sentence

Despite / In spite of – Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with sample sentences

Despite / In spite of – Review worksheet to practice writing sentences with these words

Despite vs. Although – Explanation of how to use these similar transition words, with several sample sentences

Despite vs. Although – Review worksheet to practice using “despite” and “although” correctly

Because vs. Because of – Explanation of how to use these similar transition words correctly, with several sample sentences

Because vs. Although – Explanation of the difference between these two words, with several examples and a review exercise

Because of vs. Despite – Worksheet to practice using these transitions, which have nearly opposite meanings

Regardless of – Introduction to this commonly used transition, with several sample sentences

Regardless of / No matter – Review worksheet to practice using these transitions correctly, including an explanation of “embedded questions”.

Review of Transitions and Connectors

Transitions and Punctuation – Explanation of how to correctly punctuate transitions using commas, periods, and semi-colons. Also includes a review worksheet.

Transitions and Punctuation (2) – Students rewrite a short essay, adding punctuation around transition words as needed.

Review of Above Transitions and Connectors – Fill in the blanks with an appropriate transition word to complete the essay

Additional Review of Transitions and Connectors – Review of several transition words/phrases (For this reason / Despite the fact that / No matter / Due to / Consequently / As a result / In spite of / Regardless of / Owing to)

Additional FREE ESL/EFL Writing Worksheets, Activities, and Ideas:

Useful phrases and sentence patterns.

Instead of / Rather than – Handout explaining how to use these phrases, with sample sentences

Instead of / Rather than – Review – Worksheet to practice using “instead of” and “rather than” correctly

Instead – Worksheet reviewing different ways to use the word “instead” in a sentence

Would rather – Handout explaining how to use “would rather”, with sample sentences

Would rather – Review – Worksheet to practice using “would rather” correctly

Prefer – Worksheet to practice using “prefer” correctly

Regardless / Regardless of / No matter – Examples and practice sentences

Gradually / Eventually / Sooner or later / At some point / In the end / …end up… – Examples and practice sentences

More sentence patterns and phrases (in no particular order):

vary / varies from __ to __

that which / those who

Just because [A] doesn’t mean that [B]

If it weren’t for [A], then I never would have [B]

If I hadn’t [A] then I wouldn’t have [B]

I wish I had / I should have

Found myself

(Currently) in the process of

Writing Activities

Putting pen to paper doesn’t always have to be boring. Here are some activities and game-like things to make writing a bit more enjoyable.

Interactive Stories – Students collaborate to write each others’ stories.

The Lying Game – Guess which statements are true and which statements are lies!

Idiom Worksheets – Give advice using idioms. Less a “game” than an “assignment,” though the idioms tend to make things a little more interesting.

Explain the Idiom – Try to guess what the idioms mean, and use them in a dialogue.

Writing Scenarios

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100 ESL Games | Ready-To-Use ESL Activities For Your Class

Welcome to our ESL Games page, where you can find many games for teaching English. These ESL games are great for teaching English both in the classroom and online to kids and beginner English language learners. Our ESL games are absolutely FREE! Simply show them from this website or from our YouTube Channel. See below for all the latest ESL games available. And don’t forget to check out our other FREE resources including,  Flashcards ,  Board Games ,  Worksheets ,  Lesson Plans , and  PowerPoint Games .

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Below you will find over 100 free ESL games on many different topics for kids and beginner English language learners. Browse through the games below, which are arranged alphabetically, or search our whole site for resources.

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  • Countries – Guess The Country From The Picture
  • Countries – Guess The Country From The Map
  • Daily Routine Activity
  • Describing Appearance Game – Draw A Monster
  • Directions Games
  • Easter Game For Kids
  • Emoji Game – Spot The Odd One Out
  • Family Members Game
  • Feelings And Emotions Game
  • Food – Guessing Game 1
  • Food – Guessing Game 2
  • Food – Top Five Quiz
  • Food – ‘What Am I?’ Quiz
  • Fruit And Vegetables Guessing Game
  • Future Tense Activity
  • Hangman Alternative – Save The Teacher
  • Halloween Find The Odd One Out Game
  • Halloween Guessing Game
  • Halloween Game – Pass The Pumpkin
  • Hobbies and Interests Game
  • ‘How Much Is It?’ Game 1
  • ‘How Much Is It?’ Game 2
  • ‘How Often Do You…? – Adverbs Of Frequency Game
  • Idioms Guessing Game
  • Jobs – ‘What Am I?’ Quiz
  • Jobs Vocabulary Game
  • Jobs And Occupations Guessing Game
  • Jobs Telepathy Game
  • July 4th Game
  • Kitchen Vocabulary Game
  • Living Room Vocabulary Game
  • Logo Quiz – Odd One Out
  • Magic E Words Game
  • Musical Instruments Quiz – Guess The Instrument From The Sound
  • New Year’s Resolutions Game
  • Opposite Words Game
  • Parts Of The House Vocabulary Game
  • Past Tense Game – Mystery Box
  • Past Tense Irregular Verbs Game
  • Past Tense Regular Verbs Game
  • Person Place Or Thing Quiz
  • Phrasal Verb Quiz
  • Places Around Town Game
  • Prepositions Memory Game
  • Prepositions Of Time Game – At On In
  • Present Continuous Tense Activity
  • Present Continuous Guessing Game
  • Present Simple Tense Review Game
  • Present Perfect Tense – Review Game
  • Restaurant Vocabulary Game
  • Riddles For ESL Students
  • Rooms Of The House – Telepathy Game
  • Rooms Of The House – Vocabulary Game
  • Seasons Game For Kids
  • Some or Any – Review Game
  • Speaking Activity – Level Up Game
  • Sports Vocabulary Game
  • Sports – Winter Sports Vocabulary Game
  • Sports Quiz
  • Summer Quiz
  • Superlatives Quiz
  • Telling The Time Game
  • Thanksgiving Game – Guess The Thanksgiving Food
  • Thanksgiving Quiz – What Am I?
  • There Is / There Are Game
  • These / Those Game
  • This / That Game
  • This / That Telepathy Game
  • Top Five Quiz 1
  • Top Five Quiz 2
  • Top Five Quiz 3
  • Transportation Vocabulary Game 1
  • Transportation Vocabulary Game 2
  • Valentine’s Day Game For Kids
  • Verb ‘To Be’ Activity
  • Weather – How’s The Weather Game
  • ‘What Am I?’ Quiz – Easy
  • ‘What Am I?’ Quiz – Funny
  • ‘Whose Is It?’ – O/X Game
  • Winter Clothes Vocabulary Game
  • Winter Top Five Quiz

More ESL Games

On Games4esl you can also find many other kinds of ESL games and lesson materials including PowerPoint Games , Online Quizzes , Board Games and Board Game Templates ,

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  • How-to Videos

Writing Games and Activities

Most of these ESL writing activities and games can be integrated right into your lesson. Most can be used with whatever content you are teaching them on that day. Many incorporate not only writing, but speaking and other skills as well. Follow the link to watch the activity on video.

  • Pass the marker Most levels ; writing vocabulary, speaking, listening
  • Sprite Elementary+ ; writing vocabulary, speaking, listening
  • Sentence relay Elementary+ ; writing sentences, speaking
  • Essay writing Elementary+ ; writing basic essays, drawing
  • Comics I Middle school+ ; writing comics
  • Comics II Middle school+ ; writing comics
  • Mind maps Middle school+ ; writing
  • Dictations Elementary+ ; writing sentences, listening
  • Writing rearrange Most levels ; writing sentences, speaking
  • Writing relay Elementary-middle school ; writing, speaking, listening
  • Give them a letter Most levels ; writing vocabulary, speaking, listening

Specific writing activities

  • What would you do if...? Middle school+ ; writing, speaking
  • Past, Present, Future Lower intermediate+ ; writing, grammar, speaking

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ESL Kids Games

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Category Archives: "ESL Writing Activities"

esl writing games activities

ESL Three Picture Story

ESL Three Picture Story is a simple activity to get students speaking and creating a story. This minimal prep game is great for teens and even adults. Materials needed: Three pictures (see  download below for an example) Method Find three images on the internet or in a magazine. The first image should show some people […]

ESL Game Half

ESL Game: Half

Half is a simple game to get students thinking by finishing some sentences. With Half,  students can practice listening skills, writing and speaking in one simple no-prep activity that is sure to get them talking. This activity can be used as a simple warmer at the beginning of class or as a fun cooler. You could […]

Read My Lips

Can’t see the video? Click here “Read My Lips” is a great game for practicing sentences, speaking and writing. It’s simple and can be used with all grammar points and vocabulary. This activity is great for revision and is always enjoyed by students. Activity Time: 10 mins + Materials required: paper and pencil. Skills practiced: Speaking and […]

ESL Comic Strips

Can’t see the video? Click here “ESL Comic Strips” is a great way to get young learners writing in a way thats meaningful to them. This activity can be a fun and creative way to produce English in the classroom.  Activity Time: 10 mins + Materials required: Comic strips for each student.  Skills practiced: Vocabulary, writing and spelling.  Level: Young […]

5 ESL Writing Activities For Children

This post will look at 5 ESL writing activities for children. These activities are great for  developing writing skills with young learners in the ESL classroom.   Trace Develop motor skills with very young learners with tracing activities. Children trace shapes, letters or words from picture prompts on their partners hand’s or back. The children take turns […]

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Enchanted ESL

9 Superb EFL/ESL Games & Activities Using Just Pen & Paper

EFL/ESL games don’t have to be complicated. In fact, sometimes, the simplest ones are best – you just grab some paper and pens and get started. Who needs lots of special equipment?

The 9 games and activities on this list are great to use as last-minute ideas, or to base a whole class around. They’re flexible and exciting. Without a doubt, your students will want to do them again and again.

And all you need is plenty of sheets of paper, and some standard pens.

esl writing games activities

If you don’t even have pen and paper, check out my list of 9 EFL/ESL Games With No Materials or Preparation Needed . And on the subject of materials and equipment, find out which 9 Items Every EFL/ESL Teacher Needs for Brilliant Classes .

  • Folding stories
  • Say and Draw
  • Advanced Bingo
  • Call My Bluff
  • Most Likely
  • Written Narrative Telephone
  • Paper airplanes
  • Two Truths and a Lie

Spending your hard-earned money and valuable time getting elaborate resources is a waste of time. That’s why the games in my free ebook of 20 EFL/ESL games have very few resource requirements. You can get the free ebook by signing up to the Enchanted ESL Newsletter .

Not only will you get access to the detailed instructions and guidance on adapting games and resources for all sorts of classes (online, individuals, big groups, etc.) but you’ll get monthly emails with more games, role-play scenarios and lesson plans. All for free!

esl writing games activities

1. Folding stories

If you want to practice a little writing and let your students be creative, folding stories are a fantastic activity.

Estimated time: 10-15 minutes per round Energy level: 2/5 English level: Any

You can play this game with 2 or more people, but it works best in groups of 3-6. Avoid using it with really young kids. I wouldn’t do it with students under the age of 7 unless they had a very high level of English.

How to play Everyone starts with a blank sheet of paper. First, they should all write “Who:” at the top of the sheet, then the name of a person, celebrity, or fictional character. Next, they should neatly fold the top of the paper over so it just covers what they’ve written. Everyone passes their sheet to the player to their left. Without unfolding the paper, they should all now write “Where:” and a location of their choosing. They can be creative. “Paris” is just as reasonable as “in the microwave” or “on the moon”. Again, fold the paper and pass to the left. The game continues like this with “When”, “What” (the action they were doing), “Why”, and “With who”. When all the question words have been done, players pass to the left again. Now they unfold the sheet and can take turns reading out the silly stories that have emerged.
  • Take part in the game and add some creative ideas.
  • Don’t expect all stories to be funny. Some will be hilarious, but others will fall flat or not make any sense at all. That’s part of the randomness.
  • Challenge confident students to be more specific. A t school is fine, but even better would be under the teacher’s table or on the roof of the gym .
  • Alter the question words to focus on particular grammar points. For example, include “How:” after “What” if you’re practicing adverbs.

Folding stories is one of my favourite activities. It features on one of my other lists: 9 EFL/ESL Games and Activities for Intermediate Learners , so go check that out for more ideas.

2. Say and Draw

A super simple activity which people of all ages can enjoy. It also scales to advanced levels with more complexity and speed.

Estimated time: 2 minutes per turn (try to let all students have a turn) Energy level: 1/5 English level: Any

One student describes a scene. The other students have to listen carefully and draw it as accurately as possible. The first time you do it, model the kind of speed and detail you’re expecting. For example:

First of all, draw a beach with the sea next to it. PAUSE. In the middle of the beach, there’s a palm tree with three coconuts. PAUSE. Under the palm tree, draw three baby turtles and their mum. PAUSE. It’s sunny, with two small clouds in the sky.

esl writing games activities

For beginner students, you’ll have to use shorter, simpler sentences. The more advanced you get, the more details you can include and the faster you can talk.

When students describe their imaginary scenarios, you may need to prompt them to give information like where to draw something, or how big it should be.

  • This is not an art contest. It’s an activity to practice listening, not draw the perfect picture.
  • Students might get a bit stressed by the speed of the description. You want them to be in a bit of a rush, but don’t let them get overwhelmed.
  • Allow creativity. Turtles on the beach are nice, but hamsters riding unicorn-dragons on the moon will have everyone laughing.
  • Make things a little crazy by having students close their eyes while drawing. The results are hilarious.
  • Or, play some gentle music and let everyone chill out.
  • Avoid letting the describer pick their favourite picture. It ends up as a popularity contest, or players trying too hard to please. Instead, praise students who followed the description best.

Say and Draw is a great option for beginners who are gaining confidence speaking. For more ideas like this, read my list of 9 EFL/ESL Speaking Games & Activities Perfect for Beginners .

3. Advanced Bingo

Bingo is an EFL/ESL favourite thanks to its simple rules and endless re-playability. But don’t settle for basic bingo. Stretch the rules and use it to really boost your students’ learning.

Estimated time: 10 minutes Energy level: 3/5 English level: Any

You can play with just paper and pens, but if you have the time, print out some 3×3 grids and put them inside an A4 dry-erase pocket to speed things up.

How to play All players draw a 3×3 grid and write a number in each box. Basic rules use numbers 1-40. See below for advanced variations. Randomly choose numbers and call them out. If a player has that number on their grid, they check it off. First person to get mark all 9 of their numbers shouts “bingo!” Check their numbers. If they’re correct, they win.

esl writing games activities

  • Change the range of numbers. 60-100 works, and you could also do 10, 20, 30… all the way up to 400.
  • Use 6 digit numbers like 645,821. Instead of calling out individual numbers, call out a number for a specific place value column. For example, “five thousand”. A player could check off the number 645,821 because it has a 5 in the thousands column, but they couldn’t check off 554,555 because the thousands column has a 4.
  • Use vocabulary. Use a brainstorm elicitation activity to get around 40 words on the board. (for more on elicitation, read my article: How to Elicit Vocabulary in EFL/ESL: 7 Effective Activities ). Tailor this to the topic you’re learning in class at the moment.
  • Let students pick the numbers/words instead of the teacher.
  • To make the game longer, use 4×4 grids or even 5×5. With the larger grids, you can reward rows and columns, too.

4. Call My Bluff

Call My Bluff is a classic UK quiz show which you can adapt to your classroom to challenge your students’ English and deception abilities. Click here to watch an episode of the show on YouTube .

Estimated time: 5 minutes per round Energy level: 2/5 English level: Advanced (can be used with mature intermediate students)

You may have to do a bit of preparation to think up some obscure words your students definitely won’t know. But if you feel confident, you can come up with words on the fly.

Below are the rules in written form, but I recommend you check out this video I made on how to play.

How to play Divide the class into teams. For classes with fewer than 10, have two teams face off. With classes of 10 or more, split them up 4 or even 6 teams and have teams play head to head in separate contests. Give each team a piece of paper showing an unusual word and its definition. Each team should get a different word. Make sure they’re words that your students wouldn’t know. For example, “to chortle” with the definition “to laugh in a noisy, happy way”. Give teams a couple of minutes to write two more definitions for the word – the bluffs. For “to chortle” they might think of “to eat so fast you get sick” and “to walk with confidence”. Now, they read the definitions to the other team. The other team has to identify the correct definition, getting a point if they do so. If the bluffers trick the team into choosing a wrong definition, they get a point.
  • Encourage teams to make their bluffs seem plausible. If there are obvious mistakes in the definition or they don’t make sense, the other team will see through the bluff.
  • Make sure the words aren’t similar in their native tongue, especially if they speak Germanic or Latin based languages.
  • Short words are just as useful as long words, if not better. Slurp, eaves and trike are some great examples.

I made a big list of words and definitions you can use in Call My Bluff . And it’s free! All you need to do is sign up to the Enchanted ESL Monthly Newsletter and you’ll get to my free resources for subscribers (it’s packed full of other fantastic games and activities, too!)

5. Most Likely

This is a fun game that works best with people who know each other quite well and are mature enough to justify their opinions respectfully. It’s best in groups of 5-10.

Estimated time: 10-30 minutes per round Energy level: 3/5 English level: Intermediate & Advanced

How to play Ask the class a question which begins “Who is most likely to…” For example, “ Who is most likely to become a famous singer? “ Everyone secretly writes who in the group they think is most likely. When everyone is ready, share your answers together and determine who got the most votes. Chat about why people voted the way they did.

esl writing games activities

  • Encourage students to create “most likely” questions.
  • Keep things clean and respectful. If you sense things are getting personal and students are looking uncomfortable, stop the game before things get out of control.
  • This isn’t a competitive game. There’s no prize for getting the most votes – it’s just a fun way to provoke some conversation.

esl writing games activities

6. Written Narrative Telephone

This is a variation of the spoken Narrative Telephone game, which I discovered thanks to Critical Role. You can check out how to play the spoken version in this video:

Estimated time: 45-60 minutes Energy level: 2/5 English level: Intermediate & Advanced

You need at least 4 students in the class to play this game.

How to play Choose one player as the storyteller. The first time playing, it’s usually best for the teacher to be the storyteller. They write a short story (2-3 paragraphs, or fewer for less confident students). Pass the story to another student. Give them 2 minutes to read it. After two minutes, take the story away. They now have to rewrite the story as best they can in under five minutes. When the time is up, they should pass their story to the next student. They repeat the process, reading, then rewriting the story from memory. After 5 or 6 turns (or until the story has been around everyone), stop and read the final story out loud. See how much it has changed!

I strongly recommend a variation of these rules where everyone is a storyteller. They all write an original story, then pass it round a circle. This way everyone is always busy.

  • If students are finding it easy, reduce the time limits. Or, if it’s too hard, give them an extra minute.
  • Don’t make people feel bad about missing out parts of the story. That’s part of the fun.
  • Encourage students to fill their initial stories with lots of information and specific details.
  • Collect all the stories at the end – you can share them with your students and laugh at the changes over time each repetition. You can also identify strengths and weaknesses in your students’ writing abilities.

Written Narrative Telephone is great for making writing fun. For more ideas to get your students enjoying writing in English, head to my list of 9 Exciting EFL/ESL Activities for Writing & Spelling .

7. Paper airplanes

If you’ve got a big pile of scrap paper, making paper airplanes is a great way to reuse it. This activity is best with kids, but teens and adults can definitely enjoy it, too.

Estimated time: 10 minutes or longer Energy level: 4/5 English level: Any

Here’s a great video explaining how to make a simple model, and then going over the science behind its aerodynamics.

Make sure this activity doesn’t just become a classroom full of students throwing airplanes and not learning anything. To avoid this:

  • Treat the instructions like a listening exercise.
  • Have groups modify and improve the design to see if they can make it fly better.
  • Set up a flight zone and measure how far airplanes go, using English measurements.

Arts and crafts are a great way to vary your English lessons. But they’re easy to get wrong. To find out how to best use them in your lessons, and get lots of amazing ideas, check out my article: How to Use Arts and Crafts in EFL/ESL + 7 easy activities .

8. Two Truths and a Lie

A great game for students to get to know each other, while practicing the arts of persuasion and deception in English.

Estimated time: 10-15 minutes per round Energy level: 2/5 English level: Intermediate and Advanced (you may be able to play with more confident, mature beginners)

The game works best with groups of 5-8.

How to play All players write three sentences about themselves. Two are true, and one is a lie. In turn, they read their sentences to the other players who have to pick the one they think is false. Players who pick the lie get one point. For every player who chose incorrectly, the writer gets a point. Play goes on until all the players have revealed their sentences and the lies picked out. Whoever got the most points wins.
  • Tell students to keep it light and not include information that is overly personal.
  • Encourage creative sentences.
  • Join in yourself! Students will enjoy getting to know you, and you can introduce some sentences and structures they might not have thought of.
  • To vary the game, have students write 2 truths and a lie about things that aren’t personal, but might be little-known facts, or urban myths.

esl writing games activities

A lot of EFL/ESL teachers will know this game. It’s great to throw in at the end of a lesson, and once students know how it works, it doesn’t take long to set up.

Estimated time: 5 minutes per round Energy level: 3/5 English level: Any (except for absolute beginners)

How to play Put students into 4 to 6 groups (students can play as individuals in small classes). Decide on 6 categories, e.g. sports, food, body parts, etc. Groups should create 6 columns with the categories as the title. Choose a letter. To do this, say the alphabet quickly in your head and get one of your students shout STOP! Use the letter you’d reached in your head. Or just pick a letter you think would be a good challenge. If you have a timer, set it for 3 minutes. If not, try to keep a rough track of time. Say “GO”. The groups must write down a word beginning with the chosen letter for each category. At the end of the 3 minutes, shout “STOP!” and everyone must stop writing. OR, when a group has filled every category, they can shout “STOP!” Groups pass their sheets to another team for marking. Have the groups read out the answers, taking each category in turn. When all the answers have been read out, do the scoring. Award 1 point for each correct unique word (that no other groups wrote) and half a point for correct words which were repeated by another group. Total the points from each category. The team with the most points wins.

The best strategy is to think of unusual words. If the letter is “B” and the category is “sports”, writing “basketball” isn’t the best option. Others will choose it, too. “Biathlon” or “billiards” both have a good chance of scoring full points.

  • If the letter is something like X or Q, choose a different one. J, Z and W might be too hard for lower-level groups.
  • Challenge confident students with subcategories. Instead of “food”, choose “dairy products”.

Scattergories variation

Scattergories is a very similar game to STOP. The rules are identical, except instead of writing just ONE word for each category, players try to write as many as they can. Unique answers still earn 1 point, while answers repeated by other groups earn half. You may want to extend the time limit to play this.

STOP and Scattergories are classic vocab-games. For more games that review vocabulary in an engaging way, head to my list of 9 High Energy EFL/ESL Games for Boosting Vocabulary .

Tailor games and activities to your class

I hope the 9 entries on this list give you inspiration to make your EFL/ESL classes great, even if you don’t have lots of fancy equipment available.

A great teacher doesn’t rely on elaborate materials and flashy gadgets. They use their creativity and innovation to work with what they’ve got, adapting and re-designing to suit the needs of their specific group. So take these ideas, make them your own, and make your classes the best they can be!

For 20 more EFL/ESL games that don’t need expensive resources, get my free ebook by signing up to the Enchanted ESL Newsletter . You’ll also get exclusive access to a whole load of other free resources as well as monthly emails with lesson plans, role-play scenarios and even more games!

If you’re looking for more games and activities, check out my other lists: 9 EFL/ESL Speaking Games & Activities Perfect for Beginners 9 EFL/ESL Games & Activities for Intermediate Learners 9 EFL/ESL Games and Activities for Advanced Learners 9 High Energy EFL/ESL Games for Boosting Vocabulary 9 Engaging Homework Ideas for EFL/ESL: No worksheets! 9 Exciting EFL/ESL Activities for Writing & Spelling 9 Fun EFL/ESL Games & Ideas With Standard Playing Cards 9 EFL/ESL Games With No Materials or Preparation Needed 9 EFL/ESL 5 Minute Games Every Teacher Needs to Know 9 Superb EFL/ESL Games & Activities Using Just Pen & Paper 9 Classy EFL/ESL Games & Activities for Adults (+ tips) 9 Confidence-Boosting EFL/ESL Speaking Games for All Levels 9 Exciting Flashcard Games for EFL/ESL Classes

esl writing games activities

I’m Will, a teacher, blogger, and fantasy author. I grew up in England, but now I live in Spain where I teach private English classes to dozens of wonderful students.

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ESL Writing Game

ESL writing game boy running with pencil

Easy, fun ESL writing game for grammar or vocabulary

Here’s an easy ESL writing game for all ages; it’s great for grammar and spelling. And, it’s ideal for beginner to intermediate students learning English.

Class size: This game is suitable for any number of pupils from only one to about thirty. You need some room between desks in class, or you could play in some space. Either way, students need to move around the classroom. You can adapt this to your circumstances unless you are in a lecture theatre-type environment with no room to move; if that’s the case, then sorry, you can’t use this game. Instead, you can use the games for very large classes in 176 English Language Games for Children .

Play this ESL writing game once your students are familiar with the target vocabulary and sentences and you are ready to practise or revise. This game is perfect for working on specific grammatical points or spelling.  It also adds an entertaining twist to worksheets!

How to play

I suggest dividing the class into pairs, threes or fours, but no more than four per group. 

Each group has two pencils, one worksheet, and one blank paper (see materials section for examples). 

On the word Go! The first child of each pair or group runs to the worksheet and fills in the first item. The pencil stays with the worksheet, so the children are not running with them. They then run back to the blank piece of paper and write the word or phrase there. If you have long sentences, ask the class to write out the relevant part so the game is not long and laborious.

As soon as the first child reaches the blank piece of paper, the second child can run to the worksheet, fill in the second item, leave the pencil on the desk, and run to the blank piece of paper. The first child should have finished writing out the item by now, so they either run back to the worksheet to do the third item or wait in line until their turn comes round again.

ESL writing game example

Here is a concrete example of how that works. Using this worksheet for a/an , the first child runs to the worksheet and fills in item 1, in this case, ‘an’ before ‘elephant.’ The child then runs back to the blank piece of paper and writes out ‘an elephant,’ while the second child runs to the worksheet and fills out item 2, and so on. 

A variant is to have two worksheets – identical for reinforcing newly learned things or different ones for revising more items. 

When the worksheets are all filled up, the game is over. 

ESL writing game boy with pen and paper

For marking, I suggest that everyone marks their own, or the group marks the sheet. Each person or group can have three lives, which means that as you go through the answers, they can rub out three incorrect answers and replace them with the correct ones. This means that it is highly likely that the whole class will get 100% which is great for the feel-good factor. In addition, erasing wrong answers and rewriting the corrections helps students learn far better than a big red cross from the teacher. Now, if any children rub out more than three incorrect answers, then I say so what? Let them and pretend you haven’t noticed. 

If a child squeals on another, you could say thank you for helping, but it’s better if you concentrate on your own worksheet. That has got to be better than putting the spotlight on the child who has got so many wrong answers that they have to keep rubbing them all out! 

Language ideas to use with this game 

This game lends itself to any English as long as sentences are short – being a writing race, it isn’t practical to have great long texts to write out. However, if you use worksheets with gap-fills, then sentences can be as long as you like. 

If you wanted to reinforce some spelling, you could have one worksheet which the children run to, memorize the first word, run back to the blank piece of paper and write that word down from memory. Meanwhile, the second child runs to the worksheet, and so on. You could use that idea for short sentences or vocabulary. For example, one worksheet could have pictures; the child looks at the first picture and then runs back to the blank paper and writes down the word. 

This ESL writing game allows students to practise anything, from question forms, verb endings, parts of verbs, vocab, pronouns, etc. 

Materials to use with this game 

Here are two example worksheets for this game. One covers a/an, and the other does the present tense, including question forms. 

Younger children might appreciate pictures for visual interest, but time is short, so don’t feel obliged.  These example worksheets are pretty dense, so if there is too much for your class, use one section and leave the rest for another lesson. 

You can access an example worksheet for a and an on the link below.

Writing_Race_a_an_Worksheet

I hope you enjoy using this game with your pupils soon.  Do let me know how you get on!

Kind regards  Shelley Ann Vernon 

Get more ESL writing games from my tried and tested ESL games books

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ESL Expat - Resources for Teaching English Abroad

ESL Writing Activities for Kids & Adults

Three-word stories esl writing activity.

This ESL writing activity is an adaptation of the Three-Word Stories game from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon . The aim of the activity is to create stories by collaborating with classmates using three words at a time.

Student Level: Beginner , Intermediate , Advanced

Age Group: Kids , Adults

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The 5 Whys ESL Writing Activity

This activity is an adaptation of Sakichi Toyoda’s technique for determining the root cause of a problem. The 5 Whys Method was originally used within the Toyota Motor Corporation.

Let’s explore how we can use this technique as a language learning activity.

Dictogloss ESL Writing Activity

The Dictogloss writing activity is an excellent collaborative English lesson that incorporates all core language skills. Students work in groups to reconstruct a text after listening to the teacher’s reading of the text.

Student Level: Intermediate , Advanced

Running Dictation ESL Writing Activity

Have you ever tried doing a running dictation in your English classroom? This ESL writing activity will also help students elevate their listening, speaking, and reading skills. It is a great collaborative activity for pairs and group work.

Family Tree ESL Writing Activity

This activity is appropriate for all ages and levels. By using the Family Tree ESL Activity in class, students can develop their descriptive writing skills. You can easily adjust the level of difficulty depending on your context.

Christmas Story ESL Writing Activity

Do you need a fun writing activity for the Christmas season? The Christmas Story ESL Activity is a great way to develop your students’ creative writing skills. In this activity, they can create their own unique story and get peer feedback from their classmates. It is ideal for younger learners, but adults could try it too.

The Cube Test ESL Writing Activity

The Cube Test ESL Activity can help students improve their writing skills and have fun evaluating their classmates’ personalities.

The original Cube Personality Test was developed by Tadahiko Nagao and Isamu Saito who co-wrote the popular Kokology book series. The test analyzes people’s personalities by using guided storytelling. However, you can also use it in your language class.

Daily Diary ESL Writing Activity

This daily diary ESL activity could be used as a project-based assignment that you can have your students do throughout the term. However, you can use it as an activity in a single class. It works quite well for all ages and levels.

Movie Subtitles ESL Writing Activity

The Movie Subtitles ESL Activity helps develop students’ writing skills by watching films. It can be used with movies and films on YouTube or other movie sites. Students should create their own dialog from what they see with the volume turned down.

Age Group: Adults

Five Senses ESL Writing Activity

The Five Senses ESL Activity encourages students to write more descriptively using all five of their senses with a piece of chocolate. It is recommended for adult learners; however, kids could try it as well if their level is high enough.

News Report ESL Writing Activity

This is an effective activity for improving students’ writing skill by summarizing information from a news broadcast. The goal of the news report ESL activity is to create a brief summary of a news story that they watch in class. Students can also improve note-taking skills.

Postcards ESL Writing Activity

It may be a bit old-fashioned for the times, but some people still like to keep old traditions alive. This postcards ESL activity can be a useful method for getting students interested in writing a personal message to a friend from a travel destination of their choice.

Comic Strips ESL Writing Activity

Creating dialog for comics is a fun way for students to spark some creativity and improve their writing skills. This comic strips ESL activity can be done with any popular comic strip that you can find online and edit accordingly for your students’ levels.

Other ESL Activities for Developing Core Skills

  • ESL Listening Activities
  • ESL Speaking Activities
  • ESL Reading Activities

Other Interactive ESL Activities and Games

  • ESL Vocabulary Games
  • ESL Board Games
  • English Idioms and Phrases

Need more ideas for your lessons?

View the complete collection of ESL activities for kids and adults on the main page.

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39 Fun ESL Games and Activities for an Exciting English Classroom

Getting playful with the English language is a great way to push your students’ creativity and show them how useful their knowledge really is.

And the best way to do that is with fun ESL games for the classroom!

There’s nothing like a room full of friendly competition and laughter to make learning more fun.

Read on below for 39 ESL group activities that will get your students engaged and practicing their English. We’ll also discuss grouping strategies for effective gameplay.

ESL Vocabulary and Spelling Games

1. vocabulary showcase game show, 2. how’s yours, 3. fly swat, 4. shiritori showdown, 6. jeopardy, 7. backdraw, esl listening games, 10. flash art, 11. find someone who…, 12. telephone, 13. song puzzle, esl games for communication and teamwork, 14. question volley, 15. my name is x, and i like x, 16. reporter, 17. secrets, 18. find a partner, 19. what sweet treat am i, esl speaking games, 20. who am i what am i, 21. question master, 22. time trials, 23. balloon truth or dare, 24. word warm ups, 25. mayor (a.k.a. don’t vote for me), 26. reading race, 27. i took a trip to the usa, esl games for creative thinking, 28. storytelling memory game, 29. two truths and a lie, 30. funny papers, 31. dictionary, 32. oral storytelling, 33. written storytelling, esl grammar games, 34. would you rather, 35. conjugation pyramid, 36. tic-tac-toe, 37. shootin’ hoops, 38. hot potato, 39. word chain, 4 ways to group your students, group by varying skill levels, group by same skill level, group by same first language, group by different first languages, why esl games are an essential part of the classroom.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

esl games

Best for: Big groups; communication

In the Vocabulary Showcase Game Show, students will learn new words through firsthand communication. Students must explain the chosen word to their teammate without saying the word.

All you need is a whiteboard, a timer and a list of vocab words that students already have a fairly good grasp on.

How to play:  

  • Review the vocabulary words if needed or desired.
  • Divide the class into two teams. Team A will choose their first contestant to start the game.
  • Student A from Team A will stand with their back to the whiteboard.
  • The teacher writes a vocabulary word on the board and starts the clock. Two minutes per word is best practice in order to get multiple students involved.
  • Once the clock starts, Team A will do their best to describe the vocabulary word. They cannot use the word or spell it out.
  • If Student A guesses the correct word, Team A gets a point.
  • Switch. Now Team B will send up their first member to guess a new vocabulary word. Same rules apply.
  • At the end, the team with the most points wins.

Best for: Small groups; beginners

This ESL game will have students guess the object everyone is talking about by asking the eponymous question: “How’s yours?”

You don’t need anything to play this game, though it may be helpful to have some slightly more challenging words to offer your students if they’re struggling as the game leader.

  • Select a student to go first (or ask for a volunteer).
  • This player is sent into the hall or somewhere out of earshot.
  • The teacher will be game leader first. Pick a body part, type of clothing, common person or common object and inform your students of the secret word. Possibilities might include: shoes, mouth, car, mother, teacher or ring.
  • The first player comes back into the room.
  • The player’s goal now is to figure out what the secret word is by asking each student, “How’s yours?” Each student should respond in just two or three words. Remind them—no pointing!
  • Once the first player has an answer from each student, they must guess what the object is. Use points or rewards as desired.
  • Continue by having the first player become the game leader; a new student will go into the hall and be the guesser.

Tip: Pick the shy students early so they can play more confidently after they’ve been the guesser.

The secret word is “teeth.”

When the player asks their question (“How’s yours?”), students might respond:

Best for: End of the lesson; practicing synonyms/antonyms/homonyms

This fun ESL game is a race to the board! Students will compete to be the first to find the answer and swat it with their fly swatter.

You’ll need two fly swatters, PowerPoint and a projector. You can substitute the PowerPoint/projector combo for a simple whiteboard, but just know you’ll probably have to do some rewriting throughout the game. It also helps to prepare your questions ahead of time.

  • Using PowerPoint, prepare a slide with vocabulary words scattered everywhere.
  • Split the class into two teams.
  • If needed, inform students they can only swat one word on their turn to make sure they really think about their answer.
  • In turns, each team sends up one person to the board. They are each given a fly swatter.
  • Read a question/definition aloud. The first student to swat the answer on the board wins the round!

Feel free to ask the same question more than once (repetition is part of the learning process!).

Best for: Warm ups; quick thinking

The word shiritori is Japanese for “chicken’s behind.” Each student will use the last letter of the previous word to make a new one. If the timer goes off—you’re out!

It can be played in any sized group, and the only thing you need is a timer.

  • Choose a student to start the game.
  • Enter the time on the timer, perhaps 1-2 minutes depending on the class. Begin.
  • The chosen student starts the game by saying any word they’d like.
  • The next student has to say a word that begins with the last letter of the previous word.
  • Play continues until the timer goes off.
  • The student who failed to think of a word may have to write on the board, or elimination can continue each round until there’s one winner.

(Teacher sets the timer to 30 seconds.)

Teacher: I’ll start. Mois t .

Student 1: Umm… T owe l .

Student 2: Hmm… L ik e .

Student 3: Like. Like. Like. Umm…

(Timer beeps. Student 3 is out.)

Best for: All lesson types

Hangman is an oldie but a goodie. Students must guess the letters of the alphabet to figure out a word or phrase before the hangman’s drawing is complete.

All you need is paper and pencils—or just a whiteboard if you want to play as a class. Let students take turns picking the word and drawing the blanks. Encourage using new vocabulary words so they can practice spelling.

(I found the original drawing inappropriate for younger students, so I usually drew my stick figure on the plank of a ship over a sea of monsters. As a bonus, students loved being chosen to draw one of the sea monsters on the board before the game began!)

  • The leader draws the setup and the blanks for the chosen word or phrase.
  • Students take turns guessing letters of the alphabet to fill in the blanks. Correct guesses are written into place in the blanks. For each incorrect guess, the leader adds one body part of the “hangman” to the drawing.
  • If the guessers get the correct word first, they win. If the picture of the person is completed first, the leader wins.
  • Switch out the leader and play again!

For extra fun, watch a video clip first, then play Hangman using only words from the clip. And for extra practice, at the end of each round, ask students to talk about the definition of the uncovered word or try to use it in a sentence.

Best for: Big groups; comprehensive review; critical thinking; speaking skills; teamwork

Jeopardy is another classic English classroom game that helps students build their confidence. You’ll set it up just like the TV show: a big board with answers and points, where students will need to provide the missing question.

For Jeopardy, you’ll need PowerPoint or an internet connection with an online jeopardy board, plus a projector.

  • Prepare a jeopardy board with questions on the chosen subject matter. You can do this on PowerPoint with a premade template , or use Jeopardy Labs  for easy set up.
  • Assign point values that align with the difficulty of each question to ensure a fair distribution of points. Don’t forget to include a “Daily Double” for extra fun!
  • In class, split the students into even groups of four, five or six. Adjust the number according to the number of students in the classroom. For the ideal playing situation, there should be 4-6 groups.
  • After the class has been split into groups, the first group chooses a subject and point value.
  • Read the corresponding question aloud. Anyone in class can raise their hand to answer the question.
  • The first hand up gets to answer. If they’re right, their group receives the points and gets to pick the next question. If they’re wrong, subtract the points from that team; another group gets a chance to answer.
  • The group with the most points at the end of the game wins!  

Note: You may want to select a spokesperson for each group to keep chaos to a minimum. Rotate the spokesperson every few turns so everyone gets the opportunity to speak.

Best for: Big groups; all lesson types; spelling and vocabulary skills

Backdraw is one of the most popular games in classrooms and works for any level. In this game, the students aren’t allowed to talk.

  • Put the students into equal teams and line them up facing the blackboard. All the students must face the blackboard and cannot turn around.
  • Inform the students that they cannot speak during the game, or their team is out.
  • Give a word to the last student in each team (the student furthest from the blackboard). Usually, it’s best to write the word down and have them read it, so nobody can overhear it.
  • When the teacher tells them to begin, the last student must silently write the word on the back of the student in front of them. Once they’re done, the next student then writes the word they “felt” on the student in front of them. This continues until the first student has the word.
  • The first student goes to the blackboard and writes the word, spelled correctly.
  • The first team to complete the task correctly is the winner.

Best for:  Big groups; teambuilding; from beginner to advanced students 

This game focuses heavily on spelling and team skills, and it’s a great way to cement the difficult words on your vocabulary list.

  • Divide the students into teams. The number of teams doesn’t matter.
  • Approach the first team and give them a word to spell. The following steps should be conducted with each team, one at a time. The other students may listen, or practice silently spelling the words, but there shouldn’t be talking from the other teams.
  • The first student on the team may only give the first letter.
  • The next student says the second letter, and so on.
  • Once the word is complete, the next student must repeat the whole word, to signal they’re done spelling.
  • Each correctly spelled word earns the team a point.

This game can also be made more or less challenging by choosing higher or lower level words. Also, for more advanced students, they can be asked to spell the word backward.

Best for: Beginners; big groups; pronunciation practice

This game is an excellent way to use physical activity in the classroom while also engaging the brain in language learning.

  • Line up the students in the front of the classroom. If you have a large classroom, have them line up in groups of six students at one time. While each group of six students plays, the other students are encouraged to watch and be engaged in the game.
  • Assign each student a different word. Encourage them to repeat the word back to you.
  • Now the game begins. The teacher (or a designated higher-level student) must say one word at a time.
  • The student who is assigned that word must repeat it back and do a squat right away. A deep squat means they hold their arms out in front of them and bend their knees until the thigh bones are horizontal.
  • If the student forgets, says the word incorrectly or is extremely late, they’re out and must sit down.

This game can be made more challenging by having the teacher speak faster, or having the students say and spell the word.

esl games

Best for: Creative students; reading comprehension practice

You’ll give your students scenarios in English and let them create quick interpretations through drawing. This ESL game offers a break from tough topics and traditional book learning.

For this game, you need plenty of paper and drawing materials like colored pencils, markers or crayons.

  • Decide whether you want to work on students’ listening comprehension, reading comprehension or both.
  • Say a scenario out loud or write it on the board.
  • Students will transcribe or copy the scenario on a piece of paper.
  • Give students an allotted amount of time to draw out the scenario on their paper.
  • At the end of the session, students may present their drawings. You may also have them vote on their favorite piece for each scenario.

Note: You may only have time to do one or two Flash Art scenarios per session.

Examples:  

  • There is a man running in a park. He is being chased by a dog.
  • A mother and daughter are baking cupcakes.
  • Many cars are stuck in traffic due to rain.

Best for: Big groups

Students must be quick to listen and comprehend the spoken statement, or they’ll end up in the middle where they’ll have to come up with the next statement themselves.

The teacher can have a prepared list of “Finds,” or students can make up their own in this fun ESL game.

  • Have everybody begin in a big circle.
  • The teacher calls out something like: “Find someone who… is wearing glasses.”
  • Everyone runs to grab the hand of a person wearing glasses. Assuming each student has two hands, only two people can be partnered with each glasses wearer.
  • Whoever is left without a hand to hold stands in the middle.
  • Select a student in the middle to call the next statement.

The possibilities are endless! Students can find someone who:

  • is wearing red.
  • has words on their shirt.
  • can curl their tongue.

Best for: Big groups; speaking skills; pronunciation practice

Telephone is another classic. Students will whisper a given phrase down the line. The last person will announce the likely convoluted sentence to the class for everyone’s amusement.

This ESL game is easy to play—no materials needed!

  • Have all of the students sit or stand in a straight line or a circle.
  • Make up a phrase or sentence and whisper it in the first student’s ear.
  • That student then whispers the phrase to the next person, and so on and so forth.
  • If a student would like the phrase repeated to them, they can say “Operator!” This can only be done once per person.
  • The last person to hear the phrase will repeat it out loud. It’s always funny to see how different the phrase turns out!

To make this game competitive, split the class into two teams and see who gets closest to the original phrase.

Best for: Small groups; sentence order review; listening practice; speaking skills

Song Puzzle is a fun ESL classroom game that will get your students jamming along to music. You’ll play a song while they arrange the lyrics in the proper order.

To set up this game, select an appropriate song (if you have young students, check out this resource for some suggestions). Print a copy of the lyrics for each small group in your class. Cut each one into strips to create a complete set of lyrics for each group.

  • Make sure all your materials are prepared before class begins (the song is printed and cut into strips, and you have enough sets for each group).
  • Separate students into small groups of two or three. Give each group a complete set of lyric strips.
  • Play the song. Groups will try to organize the lyrics into the correct order.
  • Continue replaying the song until a team is done. Check the order of their lyrics.
  • The first group to organize the lyrics correctly wins.
  • Continue playing until all groups have figured out the correct order of the lyrics.
  • Use the lyrics to sing the song aloud as a class!

Depending on the song you choose, you can use the lyrics to teach a specific set of vocabulary or a grammar concept. For example, check out this list of songs with passive voice in the lyrics !

esl games

Best for: Big groups; speaking skills

In Question Volley, students will ask and answer questions on the spot to boost their confidence in responding to questions naturally and quickly.

All you need for this fun ESL game is a small ball! For added fun, you can always change up what you’re tossing around: a potato, a soccer ball, a frisbee, etc.

  • Tell students the topic so questions remain relevant.
  • Teacher starts! Have a student toss you the ball and ask you a relevant question.
  • Answer the question.
  • Toss the ball to a different student. Ask them a question.
  • They will answer, and then pass to another student and ask them a question.
  • Continue passing, asking and responding until everyone’s had a turn.

Make sure to encourage quick questions and answers to give this a real-life feel.

If your lesson topic is sports, some questions might be:

  • What sports do you play?
  • What sports do you like to watch?
  • Who is your favorite athlete?

For more example questions, try this resource —and check out our dedicated post on ESL movie activities . 

Best for: Combining with a vocabulary lesson; big groups; speaking skills; memory recall

Students will introduce themselves and something they enjoy. Depending on the level of your class, they may learn introductions, transitive verbs and first- and third-person sentence structures.

You don’t need anything for this game, but note that the more randomly you call on students, the more likely they’ll pay attention to others’ responses instead of counting how many more turns until they have to participate.

For beginners:

  • Sit in a circle with your class.
  • Introduce yourself using this format: “My name is X, and I like X.” For example: “My name is Mr. Smith, and I like to read.”
  • Have the next student introduce themself using the same format.
  • Continue until every student has had a turn.

For more advanced students, include memory recall. Ask students to introduce themselves and the previous student. That is: “His/her name is X, and he/she likes X. My name is X, and I like X.”

The most advanced way to play this game is to include questions, like so:

  • Pick a student, either the next in a circle or at random.
  • Ask them: “What’s your name? What do you like?” and let them respond.
  • Introduce them in the format: “His/her name is X, and he/she likes X.”
  • That student will now choose a classmate and ask them the questions.
  • The student who asked the questions must introduce their classmate using the answers provided.
  • Continue until each student has asked questions and introduced someone.

Best for: Listening comprehension; conversation practice; speaking/writing skills

In Reporter, students will ask their partner questions in the form of an interview. You may ask them to present or submit their partner’s response in writing.

If you choose to focus on writing practice, you’ll need paper and pencils. Otherwise, simply have some sample interview questions prepared to get the class started with this game.

  • Brainstorm questions for 5-10 minutes, either individually or as a class.
  • Have students pair up.
  • During an allotted amount of time, students will ask their partner questions.
  • Students may need to write the responses, take brief notes or simply try to remember the answers.
  • After the time is up, switch the role of reporter and interviewee.
  • At the end, students may present their partners to the rest of the class using the answers provided during game time. Or, students can hand in their interview notes.

You can also turn this into a more elaborate game by assigning the interviews as homework.

In that case, have students present their partners to the class without giving the identity of the partner. The class has to guess who the person is based on the presentation.

Best for: Quiet/lethargic classes

Students will use questioning skills to work out whose secret they know. Get them moving around the room and chatting with this fun ESL classroom game.

You’ll need some slips of paper and something to hold them in—a hat or a small bowl will do nicely.

  • Ask each student to write down a secret on a piece of paper. Check that the secrets are written down correctly, but don’t betray students’ secrets to their classmates!
  • Have each student fold their paper and put it in a hat.
  • Each student will then draw a secret from the hat.
  • Once each student has a secret, they will walk around the classroom asking other students questions to find out whose secret they have. They can’t directly say what’s on the paper!

The secret says, “I have five cats.”

The person holding the secret might ask a classmate:

  • Do you like animals?
  • How many animals live in your house?

Best for: Big groups; speaking skills; combining with a vocabulary lesson

In this ESL game, you’ll give students a category. They’ll write their favorite thing in that category on a piece of paper. Then they’ll search for someone who wrote the same thing—without actually using any of the words they wrote down!

All you need for this one is some small pieces of paper.

  • Decide the topic (books, food, movies, etc.). Make sure it’s something that students can talk about in some detail.
  • Each student writes down their favorite book (or food, movie, etc.) on a piece of paper and hides it in their pocket or textbook.
  • Without using the words they’ve written down, students then go around the room, asking their classmates questions.
  • Students who think they’ve found a classmate with the same answer can sit.
  • Once everyone’s discovered a partner or once the allotted time is up, students reveal their papers to each other.

To make sure this game is working as intended, the teacher must moderate effectively. Walk the room to ensure students are practicing proper English. Correct them as needed based on topics you’ve covered in class.

Best for: Beginner and intermediate students; speaking practice

Students will take turns asking questions to figure out what sweet treat they are in this fun ESL classroom game.

For this one, you’ll need tape and as many kinds of candy as you have students in class (so, 10 students means 10 different types of candy). Make sure it’s candy they’re familiar with.

  • Tape a candy wrapper to each student’s back.
  • Put the students in a circle.
  • Tell students how many questions they can ask before they’ll need to make a guess, and decide what will happen if they get it right/wrong (points, guess again, player is out, etc.).
  • Select someone to go first.
  • The first player stands up and turns around so everyone can see their candy wrapper.
  • The player can ask the group yes or no questions to get clues about their candy.
  • After the set number of questions, the player must guess.
  • Continue until all sweet treats have been guessed and revealed.

The standing player might ask some of the following questions:

  • Does it taste like strawberries?
  • Does it have chocolate?

esl games

Best for: Advanced students; practicing asking questions

This is a slightly more advanced version of the “What Sweet Treat Am I?” activity. It can be modified to include writing if you ask the students to create the cards, rather than doing it yourself.

How to play:

  • Before beginning the activity, you may want to brainstorm the types of questions that will help students figure out their cards. 
  • Using sticky notes or index cards, list common household or school-related objects on each one.
  • Have each student pick a card without looking at what it says.
  • Have them stick it to his or her own forehead.
  • Students then ask their fellow students yes or no questions in order to figure out what their card says. 

For more advanced students, cards can list literary characters, book titles or even idioms. Another option is to keep all of the cards related to one theme, like health words, clothing, colors or even slang.

Best for: Experienced speakers; creative thinking

Question Master helps your students figure out what to ask in a given situation. Set up the scenario and let them ask away!

All you need for this game is a timer. Any amount of people is good, but note that this ESL game works best with more experienced speakers who are comfortable creating sentences on the fly.

  • Choose a scenario for the class, like at a café, at the airport, or even on a date.
  • Set the timer. Begin.
  • Each student must ask a question relevant to the scenario. Encourage creativity with this one!
  • Continue until the timer goes off. The student is out or the game is over.

(Teacher sets the timer to a minute and thirty seconds.)

Teacher: Okay, the scenario is at a shop. Go!

Student 1: How much is this?

Student 2: Do you accept credit cards?

Best for: Individual students

Instead of racing against others, students are trying to get their own personal best time for English speaking. They’re aiming for speed and  precision.

While you could do this with an ESL class, it’s particularly helpful for individual learners. You’ll just need a topic and a timer that starts from zero.

  • Select something for the student to read/say. This could be anything! A passage in a book, a set of statements, etc.
  • Start the clock from zero once the student starts reading/speaking.
  • When the student is done, stop the timer.
  • Tell the student their time.
  • Give them tips on how to improve their speaking speed.
  • Have them practice, either in class or out, until they get to a more natural time.

Teacher: Okay, tell me your name, age, where you’re from, and what you do. Ready? Go! (Starts timer.)

Student: My name is… (continues talking)

(Teacher stops the timer when the student finishes.)

Best for: Outgoing students

This is a slight twist on the classic truth or dare. Inside balloons are truths (personal questions) and dares (silly actions), which students must complete in front of the class.

You’ll need balloons (at least enough for each student in the class) and slips of paper, as well as truths and dares. Feel free to adapt statements using vocabulary and grammar suitable for the level you’re teaching.

  • On slips of paper, write student-friendly dares and questions. Make sure they’re things that most students would be willing to do and answer.
  • Put each slip of paper inside a balloon and blow it up. You may want to color code (red balloons = dares, blue balloons = truths), or let it be random.
  • Scatter the paper-filled balloons around the room.
  • Select a student to go first. They will pick a balloon and pop it, then read their truth or dare aloud before completing it.
  • Continue having students choose a balloon, pop it, read the prompt and complete the task until everyone has gone.

A small tip: You may want to start with your more outgoing students. But don’t let your shy students be last either–try to call them out around the middle to help manage their anxiety.

For some possible dares, you might write:

  • Do a popular dance.
  • Sing a class song by yourself.
  • Pretend like you’re riding a horse.
  • Snore or snort.

And for some possible truths, you might write:

  • What did you look like when you were 10 years old?
  • If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
  • When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Best for: Warm ups; grammar review; creative thinking

In Word Warm Ups, students will attempt to use the given English concept in a sentence before time runs out.

You’ll need a timer. If the timer is your phone and you don’t want it passed around the room, you’ll also need a small ball or another easily passable item.

  • Set the rules for sentence structure. For example, students must make sentences using “should/shouldn’t.”
  • Enter a designated time on the timer. Begin the clock and hand the timer/ball to the first student.
  • The first student makes a sentence using the grammar construct, then passes the timer/ball to another student.
  • Students continue making sentences and passing the timer/ball until the timer goes off.
  • You can make additional consequences as desired for the student holding the timer/ball when it goes off.

Teacher: Okay, so sentences using the phrase, “even though.” Go!

Student 1: Hmm… I like Canada even though it’s very cold.

Student 2: Okay. Even though she’s only 30, she’s too old for me.

Student 3: Hmm, I… umm. Even though, umm…

(Timer goes off. Student 3 is out.)

Best for: Advanced students; speech-giving practice

Mayor requires both higher English ability and an appreciation of irony. If your class has both, this game may get shy students to take risks and even be a bit silly. Students will run to NOT become mayor.

No materials are needed. Note that you may want to lower the intensity for your shy students by having everyone stand at their desk to speak rather than the front of the classroom.

  • Explain that you’re going to have a mock election for mayor in your classroom, but it’s a job nobody wants. Each student must convince the class that they should NOT be mayor and why.
  • You may need to go first to show the possibilities.
  • Select the first student to give their speech. You can set a time limit so no one speaks too much or too little.
  • Continue until each student has given their speech.
  • The winner is the one who comes up with the best reason not to be mayor, which can be decided by vote. It’s an election, after all!

“I would hate to be mayor. Do not vote for me. I do not like to be around smelly, old citizens. Children are noisy. Who cares about education?”

Best for: Reading class; small groups; reading speed; pronunciation practice

This English classroom game will have students race against the clock to finish the reading passage. The key is that they must do so with no mistakes.

You’ll need a timer and reading material to play, so this game is especially great if your class has a reading text they’re working through. 

  • Provide students with the reading passage you want them to practice. Make sure everyone’s on the correct page.
  • Set the time and begin the timer.
  • Each student will attempt to read the next sentence (or the whole passage) perfectly .
  • If they mispronounce a word or rush through a sentence, correct them. They must start again from the beginning.
  • Once they’ve read the given part with no mistakes, it’s the next student’s turn.
  • The student who’s reading when the timer goes off is out!

(Teacher sets the timer to two minutes.)

Teacher: Okay, reading race, page 7. Ready? Go!

Student 1: (Reads passage perfectly)

Student 2: (Reads passage but has an error with pronunciation)

Teacher: (Tells student correct pronunciation) Sorry, reread!

Student 2: (Reads passage perfectly)

Student 3: (Reading but struggling a bit)

(Timer goes off. Student 3 seems to be having some trouble with these games! They’re out.)

Best for: Big groups; listening skills; memory recall 

This speaking game  puts an emphasis on listening , focus and memory-building skills while also encouraging students to recall vocabulary.

  • Teach the students the speech they must learn for every turn in the game: “I took a trip to the USA, and with me I took…”
  • The first student says the sentence, and names an object starting with an “A.” For example, “…and with me I took an apple.”
  • The next student must repeat the first word, then add a word that starts with a “B.” For example, “…and with me I took an apple and a banana.”
  • Every following student must repeat every word previously said, and add a word starting with the next letter of the alphabet. For example, “…and with me I took an apple, a banana, and a cat.”
  • The game continues until a word cannot be named or a word is forgotten.

This is a very flexible game that can be adapted to any classroom. First, be specific on wanting students to use articles and the word “and” before the last word. Also, you can give the classroom a category to follow, such as asking them to name animals or foods.

esl games

Best for: Speaking skills; memory recall; vocabulary building; sentence structure review

Together, the class will tell a story out loud by finishing each others’ sentences in this ESL game.

Smaller groups make this game easier, while larger groups will really test students’ memories. No materials needed!

  • Begin by sitting in a circle.
  • The first person (this can be you, but it doesn’t have to be) starts the story with a fragment, such as: “It was a dark and stormy night…”
  • The next person in the circle must repeat what the first person said and  add a phrase of their own.
  • Continue going around the circle until someone messes up. You can start over, prompt them or something else.
  • In the end, you could have students write down the story. Or write it on a poster board and hang it up in your classroom for students to remember and get a good laugh!

Teacher: It was a dark and stormy night…

Student 1: It was a dark and stormy night and no one was around.

Student 2: It was a dark and stormy night and no one was around. Suddenly, there was the sound of…

Best for: The first class; advanced students; speaking/writing skills; conversation practice

In this game, each student will present three statements about themselves—two are true, and one is false. Their classmates must ask questions in order to determine which statement is the lie.

Two Truths and a Lie only requires a whiteboard (or anything you can write on).

  • Ensure the class understands the meaning of both “truth” and “lie.”
  • You’ll go first as an example. On the board, write two truths and one lie about yourself.
  • Tell the class that one of the statements on the board is not true .
  • Students may ask you non-specific questions about what you wrote. You may want to give a question limit to raise the stakes of the game.
  • Once the questioning is over, students will write down which statement they believe to be the lie.
  • You can ask them to share their guesses and why they came to that conclusion.
  • Reveal the lie!
  • Select a student to take your place. The game repeats until everyone has had a turn.

One statement says: “I enjoy running every morning.”

Students may ask things like:

  • What kind of running shoes do you have?
  • What time do you begin your run?

Best for: Writing practice; collaboration; pair or small group play

Funny Papers is a fun ESL game where students are asked to fill in the blank speech bubbles of a comic strip.

Using the Sunday funny papers or some blank comic strips online , white out the text of each character’s speech bubbles or dialogue boxes. Make enough copies for your class.

  • Give your students an example. Show them the comic strip and ask what they think is happening in the scene. Write some of their responses in the speech or thought bubbles above each character.
  • Now, split the class into groups for the activity.
  • Hand out the comic strips and let each group create their own Funny Paper.
  • Visit each group to offer insight and answer questions they may have.
  • Once the comics are complete, students can present them to the class.

Best for: Any level; speaking skills; writing skills

If you know the game Balderdash , you’ll recognize Dictionary. One team member will lead the way. Players will guess the definition of a difficult word, and a judge will decide their favorite answer. In the end, someone wins a treat!

You’ll need dictionaries or vocabulary lists (with definitions) for this game. You’ll also need sticky notes for each group and some prize candy.

  • Split the class into groups of five or six students.
  • Give each group a packet of sticky notes and a dictionary/vocab list.
  • For each group, select a leader and a judge. (Tip: Try picking the shyest students to steer the groups first.)
  • The leader finds a word in the dictionary/on the list that they do not believe anyone else knows. The leader writes the correct definition of the word on the sticky note.
  • The leader spells the word out loud, and everyone except the judge writes it down on their own sticky note.
  • Everyone except the leader and judge will now make up their own definition of the word and write it on their sticky note as well. The students can come up with a silly definition, try to guess the correct definition or try to fool the judge with something that sounds convincing.
  • The leader collects the definitions and gives them to the judge.
  • The judge reads each definition out loud. (If your judge has a flair for the dramatic, all the better!)
  • After reading all the definitions, the judge decides which one they like best. The player who wrote it gets a piece of candy.
  • The roles switch. The judge becomes the leader and a new judge is selected.
  • Keep playing until every student has had a chance to be both the judge and the leader.

The leader picks the word “sundry.” She spells it out for the players.

The leader writes the correct definition on her note (“miscellaneous”).

One player thinks about the literal meaning and writes: “wet clothes left outside.”

Another player guesses: “popcorn.”

Another player decides to be silly and writes: “lying to your teacher.”

The leader mixes up the definitions and hands them to the judge. The judge reads each definition out loud, and everyone has a good laugh.

The judge decides she likes the “wet clothes left outside” definition. The player who wrote this gets the candy and then the leader explains that the correct definition is “miscellaneous.”

Best for: Listening comprehension; speaking practice

Students have to be able to follow along with the story, listening closely to what the people before them just said, and they have to think critically to build a correct sentence of their own.

For beginning ESL students, consider speaking sentences out loud yourself and asking them to add one word at a time. They could even draw or hold up pictures to add to the story.

  • Have students sit in a circle. Begin telling a story by speaking one sentence aloud.
  • The student on your left should add to the story by speaking a second sentence aloud.
  • The student to his or her left should speak the next sentence aloud, and so on. 
  • Keep the story going around the circle one sentence at a time until it comes to a logical conclusion.

Remind students that each sentence should build on the one before it.

It’s easy for students to add in something offbeat or random to try to be silly, but the goal of this lesson is to create a logical story. One way to keep the story on track might be to record it. 

Best for: Working as a team; writing practice

This is a bit like a word association game, but requires that the students expand on that to create a story.

For more advanced students, consider assigning topics that require students to discuss customs or cultural norms, like privacy, personal space, hygiene or dining.

How to play: 

  • Divide the class into small groups.
  • Each group gets to choose three random words from a bag and must incorporate each word into a short story. 
  • Depending on your students’ level, you can assign specific numbers of characters, amount of dialogue, length, etc. to be included in the story.
  • At the end of the lesson, groups can take turns reading stories aloud.
  • For increased participation and extra practice with speaking, you can ask the students who are listening to the story to comment on their classmates’ work. For beginning students, sentence starters like, “I liked….” or “what did you mean by…?” can be helpful to encourage feedback.

Both the written storytelling and the small group discussion that follows are valuable practice time. Together, they’ll help students practice written and spoken English in one swoop. 

Teacher standing at whiteboard

Best for:  Making learning conditionals fun and and lively

This classic sleepover and bus trip game, ideal for getting participants to know more about each other, can be a perfect giggle-inducing grammar game to reinforce recent lessons. The game is simple enough, driven by straightforward questions and answers.

The main use for this game in the ESL classroom is to practice using conditionals and discussing hypothetical situations ( would  you):

Would you rather  get stung by a bee  or  bit by a spider?

Would you rather  dance in front of ten thousand people  or  in front of the President of the United States?

How to Play:

  • Put students in pairs or play as a class.
  • Provide questions on handouts.
  • Let students answer the questions and make corrections if needed.

Example: “Sara, how many of your classmates would rather  dance in front of the President of the United States?” Then this student must tell you how many people chose this option in her group or in the class.

Best for:  Learning verb conjugations

Similar to blackboard race, the conjugation pyramid is a race-to-win classic that is beloved by language students everywhere. Set this one up for the very end of class when there are a few minutes remaining—this will really get the pressure cooking.

  • Draw a pyramid on either side of the board and break it up into blocks—kind of like a food pyramid, but with as many blocks as there are rounds in the game. So, if you want to go 10 rounds, draw 10 blocks in each pyramid.
  • Then you’ll give your students a verb and a person (first person singular, second person plural) and they will have to run to the board and conjugate the verb into each tense accordingly. 
  • Depending on the skill level of your students and what you’d like to practice, you can also choose a tense and have students conjugate the entire verb chart for that tense. The student who gets the conjugations right wins their team a block in the pyramid!
  • When a student wins a pyramid block, fill in that block with chalk or marker to indicate the progress.
  • The first team with enough blocks to build their whole pyramid wins!

Best for:  Learning parts of speech

  • Draw up the grid for tic-tac-toe on the board.
  • Divide students up into two teams.
  • Fill in each square of the grid with a part of speech you want students to practice. What exactly you choose to include here is totally flexible, and depends on what lessons you’d like to reinforce. If you’re studying verb conjugation in the present tense, for example, fill in the grid with verbs in their infinitive forms.
  • The first team goes by choosing a square from the tic-tac-toe grid. They have to figure out, as a group, how to properly conjugate that verb.
  • If they get the answer right, then they claim that square of the grid. If they get the answer wrong, then they lose their turn.
  • Keep playing until one team scores a tic-tac-toe!

Best for:  Getting students physical as they reinforce grammar lessons

Go down to the school’s gymnasium, playground or set up a makeshift basketball hoop in the classroom. You can manage this without damaging school property by simply setting up a hula hoop or other plastic ring as the “hoop” and by playing with a small inflatable or foam ball.

  • Break the students into two groups or have them play individually against the rest of their classmates.
  • There are two ways to go about playing this one. Before being allowed to take a shot, each student must either:
  • Answer a question with the appropriate featured grammar pattern.
  • Create a basic statement using the featured grammar pattern.
  • If the student gets their answer or statement wrong or doesn’t phrase it properly, they won’t get to take a shot.
  • If the student passes this part of the game, they get to take a shot. If they score, they get 2 points. If they don’t score but got the question right, they get 1 point.

Best for:  Encouraging quick thinking about grammar points

  • Use a foam or inflatable ball, and start up a fast-paced round or two of hot potato.
  • The objective, of course, is to pass the ball around in a circle as fast as possible.
  • Before passing the ball to the next student, the student holding the ball must show off their English grammar skills.
  • When a student catches the ball, they must quickly think up a word that fits your given criteria, spit it out and pass the ball before the allotted time runs out.
  • This is super flexible and can be adjusted to practice virtually any bit of grammar you’ve recently introduced or would like to review.

Example: Tell students learning the present tense that they must each say  one verb conjugated in the present tense, using first person singular or “I form.”  Each student will then have to say something like, “I run,” “I dance” or “I cry.” The ball gets passed around and around, with students being eliminated whenever they draw blanks or conjugate their verbs wrong.

For easier games, give each student 6-8 seconds. For harder, faster paced games, give students 2-3 seconds. You can also start slower and gradually increase the pace of the game as it progresses.

Best for:  Thinking quickly and creatively

  • Start the class off by giving them a word which fits your desired theme.
  • Restrict them to only certain parts of speech, such as nouns or verbs. For an extra challenging session, limit the words to certain moods and tenses. 
  • The student who starts off the game will have to think of a word that begins with the last letter of the word you provided.
  • If you’re practicing nouns and say “food,” then the student could say “dog” or “dish.” If you’re practicing with adjectives and started with “beautiful,” then the next student might say “lazy” or “loud.” 
  • Go around the classroom playing this way and eliminating students who can’t think up words quickly enough.

Students grouped around a table

You’ve got your pockets full of group ideas that work in class. But believe it or not, how you group your students might be more important than the actual activities you do.

But what’s the secret to grouping students the right way?

Here are four ways you can put your students together and why you might choose to group them each particular way.

Did you know that even native speakers change the way they talk based on who they’re talking to and that person’s language use? It’s part of the feedback mechanism of the brain and why you might acquire a bit of a Southern accent when talking to your friend from Alabama or why you might start dropping final g’s if you hang out in New York for any length of time.

Because when you group lower level students with higher level students, they’ll automatically and subconsciously improve their English usage just by hearing and talking to more advanced students . Crazy, isn’t it?

While a more advanced student will likely speak more like their lower level student partner, too, they aren’t losing out on the deal.  We learn more when we teach . And when you group advanced students with lower level students, they’ll learn by teaching the other members of their group even if they don’t realize what’s happening. If you have a mixed level class, don’t despair. Your students can learn as much from each other as they do from you when they’re in these types of groups.

While students can learn a lot by working with classmates at different language skill levels, that isn’t always the way you want to partner up your students. Sometimes mixed level groups can be dominated by advanced speakers and beginning students can get lost in the mix.

Not so when your groups are selected for their similar language proficiency.

In a group of all beginners, someone will have to speak up, and that means your lower level students will be talking more in class. In your group of all advanced students, everyone may want to drive the conversation. That means the members of that group will have to work on their discourse skills like taking turns speaking and using  active listening . If you have students who dominate the conversation in class, this might be the right type of group for you.

Have you ever heard that grouping students with others who speak the same first language is taboo? Forget about it. Your students will actually be able to help each other in very unique ways when they’re grouped with others that speak the same first language.

More advanced students understand the specific language struggles faced by beginning students and can help them through struggles that they themselves have already overcome. Your advanced students can also explain using their native language which is a great advantage when you’ve tried everything to communicate to your students and they still aren’t getting what you’re trying to say.

Grouping by the same first language is also an advantage when you’re discussing some sensitive topics, those that might hit a cultural hot button. While not every speaker of a language comes from the same culture, many do, and if you’re afraid of cultural flare-ups because of a certain topic, try grouping your students this way to minimize the drama that might otherwise come up.

Have I convinced you that grouping by the same native language is a good thing? Well, stop it. At least sometimes. Because mixed L1 groups are useful to students in other ways. When all the members of a group speak different first languages, they’ll all be forced to speak English in order to work together.

This is particularly useful if you have students that just won’t speak in English because they always have the chance to speak their first language. A mixed L1 group also gives your students the chance to experience different accents in English and as a result improve their listening skills. Culture can also come into play in these groups. By talking with people from different areas of the world, your students can develop a better appreciation for each other and their home cultures. It’s a great way to learn about people around the globe along with their traditions.

ESL games are as versatile as they are fun! They’re also a super important part of your lesson plans. Here’s why:

  • They’re invaluable for building on your presentation (the first part of your PPP lesson plan ).
  • They’ll help your students cultivate essential skills, both directly and organically.
  • They’ll often get your students up and moving, which helps get the brain working.
  • They’ll help your students internalize grammar and vocabulary through usage.
  • They’ll aid the development of students’ English listening, reading, speaking, writing and thinking skills.
  • They’ll improve your students’ communication, collaboration skills and confidence.
  • They’re usually active —great for both classes that need somewhere to direct their energy and classes that need to kick it up a notch.
  • They can be used at any time during class: as a beginning warm-up, as an end-of-class time-filler or in the middle as the bulk of your lesson.

Games can be implemented alongside any other teaching tools as well.

They’re useful during difficult or frustrating lessons to supplement traditional book learning time. They can also be used in conjunction with videos to keep your classes engaged from start to finish.

For level-appropriate videos with helpful tools, the FluentU  language learning program uses authentic clips made by native speakers to teach your students English.

The clips are organized by content and level, so you can ensure they’re the right amount of challenging for your class. The videos also have interactive subtitles, so students can hover over a word to see its definition or click on it for more information, including example sentences and contextual notes.

As the teacher, you can assign FluentU videos for homework, track student progress and create vocabulary lists for students to review with the digital flashcard feature. Then in class, you can practice the vocabulary together using one of the games listed above.

Working some fun ESL classroom games into your lesson plans every week creates an atmosphere of enthusiastic learning. Your students will have a blast while working on their English skills!

From artistic creativity to comedic scenarios, your students can experience English in a whole new way through these games. Even grammar can be exciting with games !

So, get started with these fun ESL games and bring learning to life!

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A Guide on Creative ESL Writing Activities

Table of Contents

If you want to learn about some of the best tips about ESL writing activities , you might find this article helpful.

What is ESL?

ESL means English as a Second Language . Foreigners who don’t speak English study this level of language. Individuals whose society’s speak English as a main or second language practice this.

The program intends to support learners of English. The focus of ESL teachers is to develop conversational and job-related communication skills for their students. Students enroll in such programs to learn the language at work, school, or in another country.

In all countries, students study English as a Second Language, from Japan to Spain. English-speaking teachers in countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia travel abroad to teach English. Many ESL teachers visit countries such as Vietnam, Spain, China, South Korea, Japan, and the UAE.

It’s taught as a subject in many schools with students who have a different native language. ESL teachers will help students with speaking, reading, writing and listening.

These teachers can be native speakers, who move abroad to teach English, or local teachers who are fluent in English. In many countries, ESL is a public school subject. It’s taught in private schools, international schools, graduate schools, by private tutors, and through online learning platforms.

ESL education can take place in a variety of settings in reality. Some students learn English talking to friends, playing video games, or even on the radio.

However, in most cases, ESL is taught in a formal setting, normally taken at a school, a college, university or a library.

What are ESL Writing Activities?

ESL Activities are ways to enhance and practice students’ writing skills, interest, and ability to connect with one another. Students typically have difficulties in developing and/or completing simple writing projects such as writing a book review or speaking essay. ESL Writing Activities are designed to challenge students to improve themselves, their experiences, and their ideas through writing.

Language learning is very common in the world of education, such as ESL or English as a Second Language. It is used to enhance language learning when a user uses a foreign language. ESL includes tutorials, information on topics, and grammar lessons.

Basically, a writing activity is like a mini lesson on grammar, composition, spelling and punctuation. More often than not, it is a little bit more challenging as it’s much more in-depth than a traditional grammar session. The best part is, they’re suitable for many learning levels and ages, too. Writing activities offer a helpful way to gauge whether your student is plateauing or just not interested in language-learning.

ESL refers to English as a Second Language, and it is the use of English by someone who is not a native speaker. This includes second or third generation natives or the children of immigrants. They are interested in improving their language skills and general education by means of college and professional courses in an English-speaking country.

One of the most important facets of blending in with the mainstream population is to learn the language.

For this reason, the following activities are a great way for beginning ESL students to incorporate their language goals into the curriculum. These activities are designed to push the students toward their language goals.

Also, it gives them something to look forward to as they practice their English.

How to Make the Best Writing Activities?

Three things.

You won’t have a lot of time to prepare for an emergency situation if you just have to do something quick and easy. The three things series is perfect since it requires nothing but a pen and paper and does not require prep time.

Students think of three random things in this way. They then give those words to a partner, who then writes a short story using them.

You can make it serious or silly, it all depends on what words you select.

Instruct Students to Keep a Journal

Try to ask your students to keep a journal during writing classes.

Students can improve their writing fluency and have some freedom to write about topics they want to write, not just the ones assigned.

Write Postcards

If you’re looking for a simple, fun ESL writing activity, you may want to get your students to write some postcards. If you had a stack of blank, unused postcards, you might want to get your hands on one.

Students can design their own, but if not, trade with someone else to fill the back.

Remember that writing is more than just a 5-paragraph essay. Typically, students write anything, even if they only provide one word.

Then you might want to try this English writing game for beginners.

Basically, you name a topic. For example, “animal jobs are popular”.

Students must then think of a word for every letter. Provide the students a certain amount of time, the team with the most words wins.

“Dictogloss”

Have a great time trying out this Dictogloss ESL activity if you want to challenge your students with serious listening and writing. To do this, you need to find a passage or write one that is appropriate for your students.

Next, put the student in pairs and read out the passage at a slightly faster pace than usual. Students are expected to take notes and then recreate what they heard by writing.

Students add to what they are learning when reading the passage again. Lastly, they can compare their version to the original.

Things to Remember when Choosing Writing Activities

Avoid group activities.

It is important to avoid group activities, since all of your online classes will consist of one student only. You may be able to confuse your students rather than help them develop their writing skills. This happens if you design games that require more than one student.

Select Age-Appropriate Activities

ESL Writing Activities you choose must be age-appropriate, which means you should pick games according to the age of your students. There are easier to understand activities that teach English writing at the highest level.

Students who understand English a bit may benefit from slightly more complex games.

Include Writing Activities Both on Lessons and Homework

ESL writing activities must be included in all in-class lessons and your students’ homework. It will allow them to improve their writing skills through practice, which will help them to develop and improve their skills.

Students who want to use writing activities as a teaching tool should know which activities will help them meet their learning goals. Using activities that are all fun and games may not help your students learn anything useful from them.

ESL writing activities are important because they encourage students to express their thoughts and use arguments to support their points of view in English. Therefore, it is important to do ESL writing exercises not only as homework, but also as a classroom activity.

Teach Students About Modern-day Communication

Many of your students should be familiar with Twitter and tweets, so this can be an excellent starting point for a teaching exercise. Teachers should write short tweets about the given topic of ESL.

In general, most students should be familiar with Twitter and Twitter hashtags. This can serve as a good starting point for an ESL assignment. Give students the opportunity to write short tweets on the given ESL topic.

You can also create a Twitter account that lets learners share their thoughts with your class. By the way, Twitter recently increased its commenting limit from 140 to 280, but it still retains its 140-character format.

Bring Familiar Objects

The learners can advertise some familiar objects in the classroom. The students are allowed to work independently, in pairs, or in groups.

Encourage them to support their lessons with images for even greater creativity. Print those images from newspapers, magazines, or newspapers can be used.

Teachers who use their students to present them with extra speech activities receive bonus points.

As educators, we have the responsibility in creating engaging learning environments for our students. To achieve this goal, we need to learn how to utilize a variety of ESL activities to develop creativity and ingenuity in our students.

These activities can be incorporated into ESL lessons and homework assignments to create opportunities for students. When we learn how to use these activities, students are more likely to stick with their learning while acquiring independence in their learning success.

A Guide on Creative ESL Writing Activities

Pam is an expert grammarian with years of experience teaching English, writing and ESL Grammar courses at the university level. She is enamored with all things language and fascinated with how we use words to shape our world.

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15 Of The Best ESL Speaking Games And Activities.

For English language learners speaking is probably one of the most important and most feared language skills they have to learn . They may be shy, in both languages, or they may be afraid of making a mistake in front of their friends or classmates.

One of the best ways to overcome this is to use English games and activities , introduce some fun into the lessons and these fears suddenly become less important.

We have been teaching English for a lot of years and here are 15 of the best English Speaking games and activities we have researched and trialed in our classrooms. They have been massively useful to us over the years, so we hope they are for you as well.

We have researched English Speaking Games for all levels, backgrounds and ages of students. Activities like the ”Yes/No game. Call My Bluff, On Call” can all be scaled to address student needs. Utilizing speaking games for students is a proven way of maximizing participation and retention of language.

It is important to try to over come students initial fears of speaking, No one likes to make mistakes or look foolish so creating a risk free and non judgmental environment in your classroom is vitally important.

I often try to speak in the students first language to show them that of course people make mistakes, and that is perfectly acceptable , of course some times funny, and nothing NOTHING to worry about!

This is a more difficult task with adult learners, but still achievable highlighting their motivations for learning the language and how it can benefit them at the beginning of sessions helps with this, especially if you go on to highlight how speaking is going to be the most important skill in the vas majority of these situations. In careers, social occasions and travel.

Speaking is the most important skill they will learn. One thing both younger and older students have in common? We all like to have fun. These speaking games below can all be adapted to suit either a Kindergarten classroom, ESL or otherwise, or a boardroom training session. There is something for every classroom situation.

Also where we have them on our site we will link to the files for you to download to make it more convenient for you. If you want to jump to a specific game just click on the list below .

Just before we jump into these 17 ESL Reading Games and Activities we have the four skills covered on the site. Speaking, Reading, Writing and Listening.

You can access the pages from the links below or click on the image to download them all in one PDF file for $2.99 or the price of a coffee ( a good one we admit! )

The Best ESL Games and Activities – 4 Booklets in 1
  • The Best ESL Listening Games and Activities.
  • The Best ESL Speaking Games and Activities.
  • The Best ESL Writing Games and Activities.
  • The Best ESL Reading Games and Activities.

English Speaking Games and Activities

  • 30 Second Speech
  • Logic Game – Downing Street
  • ESL Directions Game
  • Speaking Activities – Expressions
  • Speaking Activities – Responses
  • Mallets Mallet – Word Association Speaking Game
  • Make a Wish – Speaking Game
  • YES / NO Speaking Game.
  • Pictionary – English Speaking Game
  • Call My Bluff / Would I lie to you
  • Show and Tell

39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities: For Teenagers and Adults (Teaching ESL Conversation and Speaking)

1. 30 Second Speech

This English speaking activity is both fun and useful. The aim is to get students to speak for 30 seconds about topics that may or may not be out of their comfort zone. We have a list of topics here for you to choose from, and of course you can think of your own.

There are two ways to approach this, you can introduce the task by asking them to work individually first, or move straight onto the game below.

  • Introduce the idea to the group and say that we will be focusing more and more on their speaking and presenting skills and that this lesson will be a bit of fun and good practice.
  • Ask how long 30 seconds is…. Is it a long time? (Relative of course!)
  • Say that they are going to be talking for 30 seconds about something they know about and that they have only 1 minute to prepare.
  • You can work your way around the class, or split your class into teams to do this depending on
  • Work your way round they class giving people a go at trying to speak for 30 seconds.

The 30 Second Speech game

As they practice the task above write the rules on the board and split class in half

  • 1) Pick a subject
  • 2) Talk for 30 seconds
  • 3) No hesitation or repetition ( although of course they are learning so be lenient with this!)
  • 4) If you can’t talk for 30 seconds the other team will get a chance to finish your time.
  • 5) If they can finish the time they will get the points instead.

Adaptations:

  • You can change the amount of time depending on the age and abilities of your students.
  • You can choose topics that will appeal to your students, if professional students you can choose topics from their careers for example.
  • To do this with varying abilities it is possible to change all aspects. From length of time speaking to the topics chosen.
  • you can work as teams and make it competitive or run it as a whole class activity.

2. Logic Speaking Lesson – Downing Street

esl writing games activities

These type of activities used to be in puzzle magazines all the time. There sis a fair deal of explaining required to them but basically it s a logical fill in the blanks. It is better suited to higher level students, but its a great English Speaking game when adapted properly.

We have a separate page for the full details, and it is in this speaking exercise book ( free download ) but will highlight the basics here to see if it is something that fits your teaching needs.

The aim is to fill in the table with all the information so you know everything about the residents of Downing street. However you have to walk around and ask the rest of the class for that information, only once you have spoken to everyone will you be able to work it out . This is a great English speaking game that gets the whole class taking to each other, and forgetting about the language they are doing that in!

You will need the table worksheet for students to fill in and the list of information and clues both on the links includes here

  • Pass out one clue and a table worksheet to fill in to each Student.
  • If you have fewer than 20 participants, give each person more than one clue until you run out.
  • If you have more than 20 students, cut up more than one copy of each and pass out duplicates to the group
  • Do not let participants read each other’s clues.
  • As they get the information they can start to fill in their table.
  • They must speak and listen to identify, as a group, what they learn from each clue.
  • The teachers role is to make sure they are speaking English and to point in the right direction if it gets a little confusing.

Once your students have the answers then it can be gone through together on the board or white board and it adds another speaking element to the lesson. This is a great speaking game for ESL students and other. It really encourages them to speak to each other. As an added bonus for teachers we get to act as facilitator rather than be stuck at the front of the classroom.

Adaptations: It is possible to add clues (carefully to make sure they fit the answers) doing this makes it much easier. The aim is to get the students speaking to each other not just the logic side of the activity.

esl writing games activities

3. Giving Directions Lesson plan

esl writing games activities

Ask and respond activities give students the comfort of a script to follow, which means those who are a little self conscious have some scaffolding to work from. It also means these activities are suitable for lower level students who need that extra help

Resources •A copy of a town map, or any town map printable from google for groups of students, a list of place names for students to pick from. We have one designed for younger learners here.

The activity.

  • Chose a student from each team (make three teams if you can.) who will come to the front and pick a place to start from the bag and then will pick a place to finish.
  • The students mentions the start building and then has to give directions to their team.
  • His/her team has to follow as they describe the directions (obviously they cant say the name of the place or the building that they are supposed to go.) If the team has it right they get points.
  • You can pre teach turn left, straight on, turn right as needed of course.
  • Offer points as you see fit for each team
  • Make sure as many get a chance to come to the front and speak as possible.

It is possible to actually have the directions already prewritten for students. This means they can practice reading, speaking and listening in one activity.

Also it is possible to have your class spend a lesson coming up with the directions themselves and then putting them all in a box or bag at the front for the whole class to use. This means you add writing and they are actually using their own work to prepare a lesson.

4. Speaking lessons – Expressions

One of the main problems when teacher oral English speaking lessons is that the class invariably turns into robots. This is not intentional, so much effort goes into speaking in another language that putting emotion and expression into what they are saying comes way , WAY down the list.

esl writing games activities

So sometimes a little nudge in the right direction is all they need. We have designed an ESL speaking game and lesson to do just that.

  • We have a worksheet we have prepared for you with some sentences that will require a lot of expression.
  • Write the word expression on the board and ask what is says and what it means
  • Explain that although this word can mean making your voice have feeling or emotion, it is also your facial expressions.
  • Show them what a voice without expression sounds like (you tube most boring voice in the world or something) or demonstrate yourself.. Let them know intonation and expression are SO important in English that they should try to think about them more.
  • Give out the work sheet with examples of sentences on and see let them work out how they should say each sentence to make it more natural.
  • Father TED Video here is a reasonable example of boring and dramatic voice. ( there is a bra in it in the first 5 seconds so set it up first if it is likely to cause problems )
  • Remind them to try to use not only expression in their voice but in their face as well. Demonstrate how difficult it is to sound sad when you look happy and that by using facial expression it actually makes speaking English easier!
  • Have the group work through the sayings and ask them to perform them together.
  • As a fun activity write something random on the board (I like peas, where is my pen, I have won the lottery) and have emotions and feelings written on the board. Choose a student number and have them say a phrase normally and then point at a different emotion and see if they can say it like that. If you want to make it a competition see if the rest of the class can work out what emotion they are trying to act out.
  • E.g.: Sad but won the lottery, happy but lost their pen etc.

Adding expression to their speech is a large step towards sounding natural and developing English fluency.

5. Responses Lesson

In English to sound more natural we have a set of almost automatic set of responses on hearing good, bad or surprising news. It doesn’t take much to teach these in ESL Speaking lessons and for ESL Students in particular it is a definite confidence builder for them.

  • Greet the class and walk around offering compliments to people, you look nice; I like your hair, nice shirt…etc. See what responses you get from this.
  • Write RESPONSES on the board and see if they have seen the word and if they can tell you what it means.  Write up congratulations on the board and ask when they would say this. Illicit ideas from the group.
  • Repeat but with my cute little rabbit died yesterday and see what they think the correct response should be.
  • Give out the worksheet and ask them to work in pairs to see if they can write the correct response to the appropriate sentence. Give them a couple of minutes to do this. Longer if needed. Then choose a student to say one and another student / group to try to give the answer. Work through them all.
  • Give life to the responses and let them know if they say sorry their voice has to mean it otherwise it might sound sarcastic. Same with congratulations etc.  So expression is very important in English to make sure the correct meaning is conveyed!
  • There are two spaces at the bottom for two sentences for them to write a sentence and then the appropriate response.

As a game you can then repeat the same sort or exercise as the activity above. Have a selection of sentences than usually require a response and then ask for the incorrect response. No one expects you to say congratulations when you tell them your little rabbits died yesterday!!!

esl writing games activities

6. Word Association Speaking Game

This English Speaking game, together with the YES/NO game below are tied for my favorite game to play with any age student ESL or other wise. They can, and have been, played with second language kindergarten students all the way up to native speaking business people with the same amount of fun. The language from the business people was perhaps a little ruder than the kindergarten children but only a little!

It is a superb English speaking game for ESL students and native speakers. It gets really REALLY competitive. you will need an inflatable hammer they have packs of 12 on amazon for about 12 dollars and that’s it!

This game is based on a old TV show from the UK called Wacaday. In it they had a rather colorful character called Timmy Mallet who, among other things, played a game called mallets mallet. In this game the players, always children, had to think of a word associated with whatever Timmy said. There was no hesitation, repetition, or ummm or errrrrs allowed or they got a bonk on the head. (softly of course) the winner was the one who didn’t get hit!

This is easier to show you than explain so here is a video of it! ( it was the 1980s so excuse the poor quality of the video, and of course the hair styles!)

Two students at a time come to the front and the teacher/helper gives them a word. They have to say a word related to the previous word in 3 seconds or less. They can not repeat, pause or say something unrelated.

If they get it wrong they get a ‘bonk’ on the head and 3 times bonked and a new pair or students comes up or you could even play winner stays on. For fun they can play against the teacher as well.

Here are some ideas.

  • MacDonald’s

Water, drink, tea, coffee, sugar, sweet, sour …..

You can make this much slower than the video if you are working with second language or ESL students, and if you don’t want a hammer you can use a rolled up piece of paper or just play it as a point game without the hammer. (its more fun with one of course!)

7. Wish Speaking and Writing lesson.

This is a take on the TV Show Call my Bluff, where contestants have to guess who is lying. In this version students have to guess who wishes / wants what. They can do this by picking and reading a wish out of the bag and then trying to guess who it belongs to. They hav to give a reason why they think that.

Note: I have done this, or a version of this, many times without issue. However there was one time when a student wrote that they wished their parents would get back together which was pretty heartbreaking. Although it is superb to share, in front of a class of other students may not be the time or place. I did of course talk to her after and sought some help from others in the school. It may be worth while including instructions to keep it light.

  • I do this by telling the class that i am not their teacher now, I am the genie from Aladdin and that I am going to give them three wishes, but one has to be to make the world a better place, one has to be for their family or friends and the last one can be for them. (And it can’t be I will have x more wishes)
  • Give out some scrap paper and let them have a few mins to think about it then they have to write the wishes down but no names.
  • Once completed say that we are going to have an activity. The class will have to guess whose wishes are whose.
  • You will have three people at the front and need to mix up the pieces of paper. then hand them back to the students. Maybe they are mixed maybe they are not.
  • One student at a time will read one of the lists of wishes and the rest of the class have to guess who they think the wishes belong to.
  • You can continue till all the students have had a try.

Adaptations: This is also great as an Icebreaker activity for students and teacher to get to know each other. You can keep the activity as wishes or ask them to write three things about themselves. You can even change it to two things true and one lie to add some fun and creativity. ( and to create another English Speaking game called ”would I lie to you” or Call my Bluff.

8. Yes – No Game – Speaking Lesson 

When I said that The Word Association game above and this game were tied as my favorite English Speaking game I lied. This is my number one game. It is just perfect for all levels of English learner. It can be made easier for younger and ESL students and learners and more difficult for higher levels. No matter what level of learner is in the class you can use this game.

Now watch the video to see someone very VERY good at asking the questions in action. (these are native speakers so of course he tries very hard to catch them out and speaks very quickly)

It is better to teacher this to students with at least a basic abilty, but it doesnt have to be high level as you can level the wuestion you ask.

Write up questions on the board and say that today we are going to look at question that are answered with yes/no. .

  • The yes no game is from a TV show around the world, people have to come out and answer the questions the teacher (at first) asks. These will nearly all be yes or no questions.
  • The student must not answer with yes or no, or nod their head or shake their head, or say uh huh etc etc.
  • It sounds easy, but it isn’t!
  • They will get carried away with this so take time to calm them down between students, and it is excellent practice for adding language to answers.
  • Once they have the hang of it students can also be brought up to ask the questions. The activity then becomes student led and the teacher can observe and advise.

Tips: Ask questions starting with do you, can you , will you etc usually catch students out. Also you can repeat the students answer and add yes, or no to the end and it might catch them out to nod or repeat you.

It is simply awesome to play this and as I said earlier even 5 and 6 year olds quickly grasp this English speaking game. Once i have played it with my students it is the most requested speaking game every lesson following that.

9. Pictionary – English Speaking Game.

Allowing your students to communicate with each other takes off some of the pressure of a whole class environment and allows them to risk take with their English speaking in a less public arena 

In this game, each student in the pair draws a picture, keeping their paper shielded from the eyes of their partner. Ideally, pictures should be fairly simple. Once the picture is complete, they explain to their partner, using words only, how to replicate the image this can be done at a desk or as a whispers type activity across school halls if you want a more physical speaking game.

For example, if a student has drawn the stereotypical square house with a triangle roof, he might say: “draw a house, with a red roof and blue door. He may miss out how many windows, the family in front of it or all manner of details.

This allows the teacher to compare the two drawings with the students and ask what language they could have added to get more details into the picture. This really enables students to start to think about expanding and adding to the phrases they say.

The goal of this game is for each partner to replicate the other’s drawing by listening and understanding these spoken directions. The difference in drawings is often pretty funny as well.

esl writing games activities

10. Guess who 

Although you can use the Guess Who board game if you have it, its about 15 USD on Amazon if you have a need! It is probably easier and more adaptable for the culture or location you are teaching in to make a simple version with famous people from your area.

Students simpley draw the name of a famous person and photo if needed out of a hat (you’ll need to prepare these slips in advance!) and their partner or the rest of the class tries to guess who is on the paper by asking a series of yes/no questions.

it is a fun and engaging English speaking game that tests questioning knowledge.

11. Call My Bluff / Two Truths and A Lie

This is a similar game to the Make a Wish game above, but Call My Bluff is a more difficult and fun game which is perfect at the start of term as a ‘getting to know you’ kind of game. It is also a brilliant ice breaker between students if you teach classes who do not know one another — and especially essential if you are teaching a  small class size .

The game is excellent for practicing English speaking skills , though make sure you save some time for after the game to comment on any mistakes students may have made during the game. (I generally like to reserve this for after the game, so you don’t disrupt their fluency by correcting them as they speak).

With older groups you can have some real fun and you might be surprised what you’ll learn about some of your students when playing this particular EFL game.

  • Why use it?  Ice-breaker; Speaking skills
  • Who it’s best for:  Appropriate for all levels and ages but best with older groups

How to play:

  • Write 3 statements about yourself on the board, two of which should be lies and one which should be true.
  • Allow your students to ask you questions about each statement and then guess which one is the truth. You might want to practice your poker face before starting this game!
  • If they guess correctly then they win.
  • Extension:  Give students time to write their own two truths and one lie.
  • Pair them up and have them play again, this time with their list, with their new partner. If you want to really extend the game and give students even more time to practice their speaking/listening skills, rotate partners or run as a whole class activity.
  • Bring the whole class back together and have students announce one new thing they learned about another student as a recap

12. Doctors In

esl writing games activities

Actually this stems for a party (or drinking) game at universities and can be adapted to what ever vocabulary or topic you are teaching at the time. In the university version we all stick a post it to our foreheads and have to guess the famous person we are. Similar to the Guess who game above. In ESL or Classroom use we can do this with Jobs , animals, furniture, absolutely anything all you need are some post its or similar to stick to peoples heads or backs – anywhere they can not read it. It is a great ESL speaking game for classrooms with limited resources.

  • Write the terms, problems or vocabulary you want on to Post It Notes and stick to the students back.
  • The Students must walk about asking questions of their students on the word, yes and no questions work better, but longer ones can be used.
  • Hopefully Students will be able to get enough information to guess what their word is.
  • This game can be adapted for old or young students, or even university students 😉

13. Show and Tell

This classic classroom activity still has a place in modern classrooms. Students simply bring in something they would like to Show and Tell to their classmates. It practices students speaking ability, and their ability to prepare short written scripts that they will have to read. For those not talking it practices their listening ability, especially if you add a could of quiz questions at the end of each show and tell part.

You can change this by having a mystery box and they have to describe the item with out looking to their classmates and have them try to guess ( or the student of course) what it is.

Maybe its because i am writing this just a couple of days after Christmas, but I notice there are a lot of party games in this list. It might be that, but it might also be because they just work. Everyone, young and old, likes to have fun and these games provide that in abundance. Taboo is no exception.

It is simply a deck of cards, you can make your own or pick up a glossy set on Amazon for not much. On the card they have one target word and four words underneath. The player, in one minute or what ever time limit you decide to set has to try to explain what the target word is with out mentioning it, or the four related words underneath.

The beauty of this game is that you can adapt it to whichever topic you have been studying and make it easier or more difficult depending on the age and abilities of your students. It works in ESL and native speaking classrooms.

esl writing games activities

15. Think Fast

This is a nice physical game for warm up or for end of class consolidation. You just need a bean bag and some ideas.

It is similar to the Mallets Mallet Word assocation game above but involves the who class rather than pairs at the front.

  • First have your students stand facing each other in a circle, or as much of one as you can make if you are in a classroom.
  • Then explain that you are going to say a topic, maybe animals, or colors anything.
  • When you do you are going to throw the ben bag or ball at a student ( to catch not hurt!) and when they catch they have to then say something in that topic,
  • Then throw the ball on to another student in the circle.
  • That student has to do the same, but it has to be a different word. If they get it wrong, pause or repeat they have to sit down and wait fo the next round.

This is great fun and students of ALL ages get into it very quickly. You can also allow then to pick their own subjects after a few goes.

The simple fact is that students of all ages learn better when they are having fun. If you can try to incorporate some of these English Speaking games and activities into your lessons then you will find that more and more your students are willing to engage and practice the language you are teaching them. There are hundreds more activities, but these are our favorites. We have a booklet of ten of them for free download if you want an idea of some of the resources behind them, but we will also be putting them up on the site as time goes by so you can take them individually as you need.

Hope these helped you as much as they have helped us!

About Making English Funn

Hi I’m Marc. A teacher of over 15 years, English, General Studies and Outdoor Education. Thought it was about time to sharing both what I have learnt during that time and the resources I have put together. On this site we aim to teach the theory and share our thoughts, but also go that one step further and give you access to the hard resources you need for your class or for you children

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Making English Fun!

esl writing games activities

I have been a teacher of English for over 15 years, in that time i made hundreds and thousands of resources and learnt so much i think its worth sharing. Hopefully to help teachers and parents around the world.

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Odd One Out ESL Game | ESL Activities

Odd One Out ESL Game | ESL Activities

Odd One Out is one of my favourite ESL warm-up activities. If you’re looking to get your classes started off… Read More

Error Correction Relay Race Game for Kids, Teens & Adults

Error Correction Relay Race Game for Kids, Teens & Adults

Are you looking for a fun ESL game that makes something old and boring, new and fun? Then the Error… Read More

Journaling for English Learners: The Why and How

Journaling for English Learners: The Why and How

If you’re looking for information about why and how to use journaling for English learners, you’re in the right place…. Read More

Teach Past Tense: ESL Activities, Games, Lesson Plans & More

Teach Past Tense: ESL Activities, Games, Lesson Plans & More

Do you want to teach past tense in an interesting, engaging and student-centred way? Then you’re certainly in the right… Read More

Prefix Activities, Games, Worksheets and Lesson Plans for ESL

Prefix Activities, Games, Worksheets and Lesson Plans for ESL

In English, a prefix is some letters that added to the beginning of words to change the meaning of it…. Read More

ESL Review Games & Activities: Ideas for English Review in Class

ESL Review Games & Activities: Ideas for English Review in Class

If you’re looking for some of the best ESL review games, then you’re certainly in the right place. We’re going… Read More

Collective Noun List | Examples of Collective Nouns

Collective Noun List | Examples of Collective Nouns

Collective nouns are words used to represent a group of people, animals, or things as a single entity. If you… Read More

30 Creative Writing Prompts for Teens | Fun Journal Topics

30 Creative Writing Prompts for Teens | Fun Journal Topics

If you are looking for the best writing prompts for middle school or high school, you are at the right… Read More

Teaching Collocations: ESL Games, Activities, Lesson Plans & Worksheets

Teaching Collocations: ESL Games, Activities, Lesson Plans & Worksheets

If you’re looking for some of the best tips and ideas for teaching collocations, then you’re certainly in the right… Read More

Idiom Activity for ESL Students | English Idioms

Idiom Activity for ESL Students | English Idioms

Idioms are one of those things that can be really fun to teach your students, both children, teenagers as well… Read More

ESL Spelling Game: Word Challenge

ESL Spelling Game: Word Challenge

I’m ALL about activities that require basically nothing in the way of materials or preparation time. It’s ideal to have… Read More

The Best Webcam for Online Classes | Teaching Remotely

The Best Webcam for Online Classes | Teaching Remotely

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the demand for online classes has risen a lot. Not only are private lessons… Read More

TV ESL Conversation Lesson Plan for Teenagers & Adults

TV ESL Conversation Lesson Plan for Teenagers & Adults

If you’re looking for a sample from the book, 67 ESL Conversation Topics (available on Amazon), here’s one of them… Read More

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  1. ESL Writing Exercises, Games, Activities & Lesson Plans

    ESL Writing Activities, Games, Worksheets & Lesson Plans. If you're teaching writing and are looking for some of the best ESL writing activities, along with worksheets, lesson plans and more then you're in the right place. Keep on reading for everything you need to know about teaching English writing. Let's check out the top ESOL writing ...

  2. The Best ESL Writing Games and Activities.Making English Fun

    Acrostic Poems are a fun and creative writing activity where the first letter of each line spells out a word related to a topic. This game encourages creativity and helps students focus on vocabulary related to specific themes. Setup: Choose words or topics for the acrostic poems. Time to Play: 15-20 minutes.

  3. 14 ESL Writing Activities to Spice Up Your Next Class

    The Directions Game. Giving and receiving directions is an intermediate English skill that ESL learners who want to travel will need to have. Additionally, this activity is useful to include at the outset of a lesson because the competitive nature captures students' interest. ... Devising effective ESL writing activities — and, equally ...

  4. 73 ESL Writing Activities to Spark Your Students ...

    Writing Activities Based on Mysteries. There's nothing quite like a good "whodunnit," and students will always enjoy a good puzzle. You can base various pre-writing activities around the two games below to get the class warmed up for ESL writing practice. Conundrum.

  5. 10 Creative ESL Writing Activities For Young Students

    During this ESL writing game, you should write an essay together with your students, but in a slow-paced manner, sentence by sentence. When writing, you will teach them the typical essay structure, such as introductory, supporting, and concluding sentences. As a result, your students will not be afraid of long essays, as they can easily break ...

  6. 9 Exciting EFL/ESL Activities for Writing & Spelling

    1. Free word creation - give your students letters and challenge them to come up with as many words as possible, the longest words possible, or use unfamiliar letters like Q, Z and J. 2. Bananagrams main game - the rules come with the game or you can watch how to play in the video below.

  7. Writing Games & Activities for ESL Kids

    ESL Kids Games & Activities. Category Writing Game. Divide the classroom into two or three groups. Each group chooses their "captain". The teacher writes on the board a word like "FRUIT" or "COLORS" or "ANIMALS", etc. Each group has to tell their captain to write down as many words as they can which belong to that category. They have 1 or 2 mins.

  8. ESL Writing Exercises: Activities, Worksheets, and Ideas!

    Here are some activities and game-like things to make writing a bit more enjoyable. Interactive Stories - Students collaborate to write each others' stories. The Lying Game - Guess which statements are true and which statements are lies! Idiom Worksheets - Give advice using idioms.

  9. Storytelling 101: 6 Engaging Writing Activities for ESL Students

    This exercise is useful in encouraging students to "show" a setting with descriptive language rather than "tell" what it is directly. 2. Character. The next ingredient to consider is that of the people in the story. Show your students how the genre they are writing about may inform the characters they use.

  10. 100 ESL Games

    Describing Appearance Game - Draw A Monster. Directions Games. Easter Game For Kids. Emoji Game - Spot The Odd One Out. Family Members Game. Feelings And Emotions Game. Food - Guessing Game 1. Food - Guessing Game 2. Food - Top Five Quiz.

  11. Writing Games and Activities

    Most of these ESL writing activities and games can be integrated right into your lesson. Most can be used with whatever content you are teaching them on that day. Many incorporate not only writing, but speaking and other skills as well. Follow the link to watch the activity on video. Pass the marker Most levels; writing vocabulary, speaking ...

  12. ESL Writing Activities Archives

    Level: Young learners + Method 1. Each student needs paper and a pen to write. 2. One student comes to the front of the class and mouths a sentence to the other students. The other students must write down what they think the student said. 3. Try this activity in groups and pairs.

  13. 9 Superb EFL/ESL Games & Activities Using Just Pen & Paper

    Say and Draw is a great option for beginners who are gaining confidence speaking. For more ideas like this, read my list of 9 EFL/ESL Speaking Games & Activities Perfect for Beginners. 3. Advanced Bingo. Bingo is an EFL/ESL favourite thanks to its simple rules and endless re-playability.

  14. The Best ESL Writing Games and Activities.Making English Fun

    Our comprehensive guide introduces 17 dynamic writing games, each designed to spark creativity, improve language proficiency, and make writing an enjoyable experience for ESL learners. From crafting Acrostic Poems to participating in a Collaborative Writing Blog, these activities cater to a…

  15. ESL Writing Game

    Here's an easy ESL writing game for all ages; it's great for grammar and spelling. And, it's ideal for beginner to intermediate students learning English. Class size: This game is suitable for any number of pupils from only one to about thirty. You need some room between desks in class, or you could play in some space.

  16. ESL Writing Activities for Kids & Adults

    Three-Word Stories ESL Writing Activity. This ESL writing activity is an adaptation of the Three-Word Stories game from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. The aim of the activity is to create stories by collaborating with classmates using three words at a time. Student Level: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced.

  17. 39 Fun ESL Games and Activities for an Exciting English Classroom

    Use some fun ESL group activities to liven up your lessons! Choose from our list of 39 games, from classics like Hangman and Telephone, or new ones like Fly Swat and Secrets. ... speaking skills; writing skills. If you know the game Balderdash, you'll recognize Dictionary. One team member will lead the way. Players will guess the definition ...

  18. A Guide on Creative ESL Writing Activities

    Select Age-Appropriate Activities. ESL Writing Activities you choose must be age-appropriate, which means you should pick games according to the age of your students. There are easier to understand activities that teach English writing at the highest level. Students who understand English a bit may benefit from slightly more complex games.

  19. 15 Of The Best ESL Speaking Games And Activities.

    The Best ESL Writing Games and Activities. The Best ESL Reading Games and Activities. The simple fact is that students of all ages learn better when they are having fun. If you can try to incorporate some of these English Speaking games and activities into your lessons then you will find that more and more your students are willing to engage ...

  20. ESL Writing Games, Activities, Lesson Plan Ideas

    Check out the best ESL writing activities and games, along with lesson plans, worksheets, teaching tips and more. Have some in your English writing classes. ... Best-selling author and English teacher Jackie Bolen has been talking ESL activities and games since 2015. The goal is to bring you the best ideas, lesson plans, and activity ...