ESL Basketball Game Challenge: TEFL Speaking & Grammar Activity

If you’re looking for a fun ESL game that can be used for just about any vocabulary set or grammatical point, then consider ESL basketball. It’s engaging, interactive and students of all ages love it, particularly children. Keep on reading to find out all the details you need to know about it.

ESL Basketball Game for English Learners

Skills: Speaking/listening
Time: 10-15 minutes
Level: Beginner-intermediate
Materials Required: Empty trash can, “balls”

Basketball challenge can be used to target any sort of simple grammatical structure. It’s more difficult when getting into complicated grammar for more advanced learners though.

This is a fun game that children love! It’s possible to play with the entire class if fewer than eight students or in teams with more, but it requires a big space to play it, such as a large classroom with not that many desks, a gymnasium or outside.

Place the empty trash can in the middle of the open space. Arrange the students around the room as far from the basket as possible (touching the wall, behind the tape line, etc.) and give each student a ball. They can be real balls, but I find that a piece of scrunched-up scrap paper works best. Then, place a line of flashcards in front of each person or team leading toward the basket. Five per player works well.

How to Play ESL Basketball Game

Going in order, one student at a time; the students have two choices: aim for the basket, or make a grammatically correct sentence using the flashcard immediately in front of them and move up closer to the basket. It’s possible to limit the possible sentences to a certain kind of grammatical construction (simple past for example).

Another thing that works well for this is opposites. Put a flashcard that lends itself well to an opposite (hot/cold, up/down, black/white) and students have to say the opposite word for each one.

If they aim for the basket but miss, they are out of the game and must sit down. If they say the sentence correctly, they move up closer and wait until the next round when they have the same decision. Finally, if they say an incorrect sentence, they are also out of the game. Continue in a circle until all the players are out of the game, either because they missed a shot, got a shot in the basket or said a sentence incorrectly. Give a point or small prize to the first player to get a shot in the basket.

Optional Variation 

An optional variation is to give different points for various shots as in a regular basketball game. For example, from flashcards:

#5/4 = 3 points. Flashcards #3/2 = 2 points. Flashcard #1 = 1 point.

Procedure for this ESL Basketball Game

1. Place an empty trash cash in the center of a large playing area.
2. Arrange five flashcards per student leading from the perimeter to the basket.
3. Line students up at the perimeter behind a row of flashcards. Each student has to be holding a ball of some kind.
4. Students take turns in order and have two choices. The first choice is to shoot their ball at the basket. If they miss, they are out of the game. If they make the basket, they get a point. The other choice is to make a grammatically correct sentence using the flashcard closest to them and if correct, they move up to that location and waits until their next turn. If incorrect, they are out of the game.
5. The winner is the first student(s) to score a basket. Or, if giving different points for the various shots, play 3-5 rounds and add up the scores from each round.

Did you like this TEFL Basketball Game? 

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Have your Say about ESL Basketball Challenge

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Last update on 2023-09-30 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API