Top 5 ESL Warm-Up Activities ESL Warm-up activities are an excellent way to begin class because they ease students back into using English again. In many cases, the last time students thought about or spoke English was in your class last week! Here are five of my favourite ESL warm-up…
Never Have I Ever for ESL/EFL Students Skills: Speaking/listening Time: 10-20 minutes Level: Intermediate to Advanced Materials Required: Nothing Never have I ever ESL Game is taken from the classic party game that you can play in your ESL speaking classes as well. The way it works is that students…
Top 10 ESL Activities for Beginner-Advanced Students Top 10 ESL Activities for all Levels is what you need if you teach a wide variety of students from beginner to advanced. All of these activities can be adapted to make them very easy, or quite difficult. If you want to save…
Top 10 ESL Speaking Activities for False Beginners I taught English in South Korea for almost a decade and most of that time was spent teaching false beginners. False beginners are students who’ve studied English at some point in the past but had to stop for whatever reason. Or more…
Toilet Paper Ice Breaker Speaking Activity Skills: Speaking/Listening Time: 5-30 minutes Level: Beginner-Advanced Materials Required: Toilet Paper This toilet paper ice breaker speaking activity is the perfect way to start your first class off with a bit of fun. It also helps your students get to know each other, as…
Do you want to help your students remember each other’s names? Here’s a simple activity for doing this. It’s challenging, a little bit competitive and quite effective! How to Do the Name Game Skills: Speaking/ Listening Time: 10-15 minutes Level: Beginner-Advanced Materials Required: Nothing Age: Children A way that you…
Can Can’t ESL Game This can can’t ESL game is great for practicing speaking, listening and writing. It’s a game for children or adults, but the content is usually covered with children more than adults. Can/Can’t is a very basic grammatical concept. Related: ESL Activities for Advanced Level Students To…
If you want to have a bit of fun with your students, then considering using, “Draw a Picture” ESL speaking and listening activity. It makes an excellent warm-up at the beginning of a class. I’ve used it with kids, teenagers, university students and adults and have had great results with…
I’m sure you’ve played the game “20 questions” before. It’s basically where someone thinks of a secret noun (person, place or thing) and the other team or person gets to ask up to 20 questions to figure out what it is. It’s a fun way to get ESL/EFL students practicing…
Memory Circle Game for Kids Memory circle game is a fun way to help students remember names, or English vocabulary. It is a game that I often use with smaller (less than 10 students) and younger students (elementary school or kindergarten). However, I’ve also used it with university students in…
I always like to begin my classes with a warm-up activity. After all, you don’t really know where your students have been, what their frame of mind is, or whether or not they have spoken a single word of English since your last class I find that easing into it…
Tell a Story, the Bad Way In almost all general, 4-skills ESL textbooks such as Smart Choice, or World Link there are usually pages with discussion starters that require students to tell a story of some kind. You can most often find this activity in the unit related to the past…
We’re going to take a little trip down memory lane with this blog post. I’ve looked back in time and found the 10 most popular blog posts here at ESL Speaking. Find out what other people have found most helpful! #1: Small Talk ESL Activity This small talk ESL activity…
Vocabulary Auction: Preparation There are plenty of variations of auction games, but vocabulary has the least amount of preparation involved. It will be more fun if you have fake money, poker chips, etc. Begin by having the students list vocabulary they have been studying. Try to get at least 20…
