ESL Speaking

Games + Activities to Try Out Today!

  • Adult Activities
  • Kid Activities
  • Textbooks
    • ESL Textbooks for Adults
    • ESL Textbooks for Children
  • Teacher Resources
    • Resources
    • Online TEFL Course
  • Learn English
    • Learn English
    • Confusing English Words

in Activities for Adults· Activities for Kids

Name Game ESL Activity | What’s your Name Game for TEFL

icebreaker-name-game

Name Game ESL

Do you want to help your students remember each other’s names (and you too)? Here’s a simple ice breaker name game for helping your students (and you) with learning names. It’s challenging, a little bit competitive and quite effective at breaking the ice too! Read on for one of the best ideas to try out with your students.

The best part? This name game icebreaker for adults works equally well with kids. In fact, almost any class could try it out. This is good news because names games for adults often seem a bit juvenile. This certainly isn’t the case for this one though and it’s an excellent learning names game for any age of student. Try out this icebreaker name game today.

How to Do the Name Game Activity

Skills: Speaking/ Listening

Time: 10-15 minutes

Level: Beginner-Advanced

Materials Required: Nothing

Age: Children, teens, or adults

In short, this is one of the best name game icebreakers that is a super versatile activity. It can be used for a variety of students in almost any country or situation. Almost any level, or age of students can play it, as long as you adapt it a little bit. That makes it one of the best icebreakers to learn names.

Try out this icebreaker name game for yourself and have some fun with it! We love to have activities like this in our back pocket that can be used with any group of students and require nothing in the way of materials or preparation time.

Let’s Get to this Name Learning Activity

A way that you can get your students to remember names (and you too!) is to do this simple ice breaker speaking activity.

Go around the class, and have students say, “My name is ______and I like _______.” The next student repeats the previous ones, and adds their own.

It goes on until it finally gets to you and you can impress the students with your memorization abilities! It works best for smaller classes of less than 10.

For more advanced students, you can choose something more difficult than “I like,” such as “My name is _________ and last weekend, I __________.” Besides remembering names, you can also use this activity to work on regular/irregular verbs.

I usually finish off the activity by repeating all the sentences (if I can!). If I can’t, the students are usually very happy to help me out with the ones that I’ve missed.

Useful for Teaching Basic Grammar or Vocabulary Too

You can always use this memory circle kind of activity for helping students practice new grammar points, or remembering vocabulary words.

For example, if you just did a unit about animals, you could have each student choose an animal and go around the circle saying, “I like tigers, he likes elephants, and she likes cats.”

This also covers subject-verb agreement (I like, she likes).

As you can see, it works much better for beginner students than higher-level ones. However, if you’re using it for a name game icebreaker, it’ll work for any level.

My #1 Teaching Tip for Name Game Icebreakers

Unless you have a freakishly good memory, you’ll want to write down what the students say on a piece of paper. Something simple like John-pizza. You will most certainly be the one that students look to in case someone forgets something and it’s easy to get flustered and call a student by the wrong name or something like that.

As a fun way to finish this activity, go around the circle. If you forget, it’s usually not a big deal and I find that the students love to help me (especially kids) so I just ask them.

Check out this Name Game Activity

Are you looking for some simple but fun ice breaker name games? Then you’ll definitely want to check out this useful video below that’s filled with lots of good ideas:

Need More Ideas for the ESL Classroom?

Do you feel like you’re stuck in a rut and you need some more solid ideas for your English classroom? Did you find this ice breaker name game for kids useful?

Sign up for my newsletter. It’ll be the most useful email you get all week. I promise to never share your email with anyone for any reason.

ESL Games and Activities Straight to your Inbox



Name Game Activity

Check out this video below for another idea for learning names on the first day of class with your ESL/EFL students. It’s a fun icebreaker name game for kids or adults too.

Check This Out

Did you like this icebreaker name game? Then you’re going to love this book filled with similar activities!

ESL Icebreakers: For Teenagers and Adults

Get your courses started off on the right foot with some engaging, interesting and fun ESL icebreakers. They’ll help your students get to know each other and you get to know them.

Why Use Icebreakers?

I find that using some icebreakers at the beginning of the course sets it up for success for the following weeks and months. Sounds great, right? It is. A class or two of icebreakers can certainly make a big difference in terms of the atmosphere for the rest of them.

If you need some ideas, then you’ll want to check out this book on Amazon: 39 ESL Icebreakers. There are dozens of activities and games to choose from.

Available in a Variety of Formats

The book is available in both print and digital formats. Keep a copy on the bookshelf in your office as a handy reference tool. Or, the digital version on your phone or tablet for lesson planning at your favourite coffee shop. It really is that easy.

Detailed, Step-by-Step Instructions

Each activity starts off with a brief overview so that you can see, at a quick glance whether or not it’ll work for you. Then, you’ll find detailed, step-by-step instructions for how to prep for the activity and then what to actually do with your students. Finally, don’t forget to read the teaching tips that will help you avoid some of the most common mistakes for each specific activity.

Get the Book Today

Sounds like some ESL awesome? Is it exactly what you need for your upcoming classes? Learn more about 39 ESL Icebreakers for Teenagers and adults on Amazon:

—>39 ESL Icebreakers for Teenagers and Adults<—

game-to-remember-names

Learning names game

Need More Names Games for Kids or Adults?

Are you looking for some more ice breaker name games that you can use with your students? Besides this one we’ve just talked about, there are a myriad or others to choose from. Here are just a few of our favourites:

Find Someone Who Bingo Icebreaker Name Game

Making Name Tags

First Day Activities

More Ideas

If you’re looking for some general icebreaker activities that you can use on the first day of class, then here are just a few of our favourites:

Ball Toss ESL Icebreaker

Toilet Paper Ice Breaking Game for Kids

Puzzle Finder Activity for Teens or Adults

Group Therapy Ice Breaker Activity for Adults

Have your Say about this What’s your Name Game

What’s your favourite way to help your students remember each other’s names? Do you have a favourite ice breaker name game? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

Also be sure to give this article a share on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. It’ll help other teachers, like yourself find this useful resource.

icebreaker-name-game

Ice Breaker Speaking Activity Name Games for ESL classes.

About Jackie

Jackie Bolen has been teaching English for more than 15 years to students in South Korea and Canada. She's taught all ages, levels and kinds of TEFL classes. She holds an MA degree, along with the Celta and Delta English teaching certifications.

Jackie is the author of more than 60 books for English teachers and English learners, including 101 ESL Activities for Teenagers and Adults and 1001 English Expressions and Phrases. She loves to share her ESL games, activities, teaching tips, and more with other teachers throughout the world.

You can find her on social media at:
YouTube
Facebook
TikTok
Pinterest
Instagram

« ESL Speaking Rubric | ESL Speaking Assessments and Tests
The Expert Speaking Activity: Try out this fun ESL Activity Today! »

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. What does this mean? I recommend products (only ones that I like) and if you purchase a product through that link, I earn some money.

39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities: For English Teachers of Teenagers and Adults Who Want...
39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities: For English Teachers of Teenagers and Adults Who Want...
Check Price on Amazon
101 Activities and Resources for Teaching English Online: Practical Ideas, Games, Activities & Tips...
101 Activities and Resources for Teaching English Online: Practical Ideas, Games, Activities & Tips...
Check Price on Amazon
101 ESL Activities: Games, Activities, Practical ideas, & Teaching Tips For English Teachers of...
101 ESL Activities: Games, Activities, Practical ideas, & Teaching Tips For English Teachers of...
Check Price on Amazon

Search ESL Speaking

81 Ways to Make your ESL Speaking Class Awesome | Teaching ESL

ESL Family Games, Activities, Worksheets and Lesson Plans

Functional English Games, Activities, Worksheets & Other Resources

Months of the Year: ESL Activities, Games, Worksheets & Lesson Plans

ESL Sports Games, Activities, Worksheets & Lesson Plans

Online TEFL Courses

Get Certified Entirely Online

67 ESL Conversation Topics with Questions, Vocabulary, Writing Prompts & More: For English Teachers...
67 ESL Conversation Topics with Questions, Vocabulary, Writing Prompts & More: For English Teachers...
Check Price on Amazon
Scatter Sheets for Intermediate-Advanced Students to Improve Fluency: ESL Speaking & Vocabulary...
Scatter Sheets for Intermediate-Advanced Students to Improve Fluency: ESL Speaking & Vocabulary...
Check Price on Amazon
1001 English Expressions and Phrases: Common Sentences and Dialogues Used by Native English Speakers...
1001 English Expressions and Phrases: Common Sentences and Dialogues Used by Native English Speakers...
Check Price on Amazon
39 ESL Warm-Ups: For English Teachers of Kids (7+) Who Want to Get their TEFL Classes Started Off...
39 ESL Warm-Ups: For English Teachers of Kids (7+) Who Want to Get their TEFL Classes Started Off...
Check Price on Amazon
Jackie Bolen

Disclosure Statement

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

  • Adult Activities
  • Kid Activities
  • Textbooks
  • Teacher Resources
  • Learn English

Our Top-Seller

39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities: For Teenagers and Adults (Teaching ESL Conversation and...
39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities: For Teenagers and Adults (Teaching ESL Conversation and...
Check Price on Amazon

Search

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

More ESL Activities

ielts speaking tips

IELTS Speaking Tips: How to Improve your IELTS Speaking Score

teaching-english-malta

Teaching English in Malta – A Growing Industry

esl-thanksgiving-activities-games

ESL Thanksgiving Activities, Games, Lesson Plans & Worksheets

esl-money-activities

ESL Money and Banking Activities, Games, Worksheets & Lesson Plans

About, Contact, Privacy Policy

Jackie Bolen has been talking ESL speaking since 2014 and the goal is to bring you the best recommendations for English conversation games, activities, lesson plans and more. It’s your go-to source for everything TEFL!

About and Contact for ESL Speaking.

Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Email: [email protected]

Facebook

Pinterest

TikTok

YouTube

LinkedIn

Address: 2436 Kelly Ave, Port Coquitlam, Canada

Copyright © 2022 Jackie Bolen + ESL Speaking. All Rights Reserved.