GAMES

PASSWORD
Password Game for Kids | How to Play Password in the Classroom

How can I make my English classes for kids more fun? That’s a good question!
Keep on reading to find out how you can create some excitement in your classes
today with this game of password. Find out all the details you need to know
about how to play password in the classroom.

It can sometimes be challenging to come up with fun, interesting ESL speaking

games and activities for lower-level students. Password is one of my go-to
activities for this group and it works particularly well with children or teenagers.
I’ve also used this with beginner adults with good results.

It’s an excellent way to review English vocabulary. Remember, we can do A LOT

to help our students remember new words by reviewing them in class
periodically. Password is an excellent way to do this. You can take advantage of
an English information gap of sorts.

Password can also be used as a short warm-up game to review material from
the previous class, or a quick filler at the end of class. Read on to find out all
the details you need to know about this password game for kids, including how
to play password in the classroom.

Password Game: Introduction

Materials Required: List of vocabulary words, whiteboard

Level: Beginner to intermediate

Time: 5-10 minutes

Ages: 7-adult

The game of password is a speaking activity that helps students review

vocabulary and practice an important skill: describing something they don’t
know the word for. It’s the perfect way to help keep some old words fresh in
your students’ minds.

A simple example. Maybe you’re teaching vocabulary for the weather. The
secret word is “snow.” Students can use other words they know like, “cold,
white, not rain, ice rain, winter” in order to describe it. That’s a lot of vocabulary
covered right there!

For more ideas related to this, please check out: ESL Weather Activities.

A good time to use this activity is at the end of a unit, or before a midterm or
final exam. Create the game based on the topics that you’ve covered with your
students. You could also consider using this activity for holiday-themed lessons.
CHARADES
ESL Charades is a fun, interactive game that’s ideal for helping to develop
language learners’ speaking and vocabulary skills. Students can review and
practice words sets that they’re learning in class, or general English vocabulary
words. Students act out phrases or words and their teammates have to guess
what is it.

Charades ESL Game: An Introduction

Skills: Speaking

Time: 20-30 minutes

Level: Beginner to Advanced

Materials Required: White board

Age: Kids, teens or adults

You can use this charades ESL speaking game to review whatever vocabulary
you’re studying. For example, verbs work especially well. Write out some
phrases or words that can be easily acted out on small pieces of paper and put
them in an envelope. It’s a nice way to review the present continuous tense as
well.

Fun + Review Together!

It’s an excellent way to review vocabulary and help students learn the English
language while having fun at the same time! My favourite kind of activities are
those that are fun and that get my students learning English without even
realizing it. It’s certainly better than just powering through a textbook, right?

How Does it Work?

Divide the class up into two teams. The first team sends one person, the captain
up to the front and they have to act out and describe in English as many things
as they can in two minutes. Alternatively, you can have each team member
rotate through the captain role during a single 3-4 minute round.

The first person describes the first word and after their team guesses it, they go
to the back of the line and the next person is up. Then the next team goes. You
can do as many rounds as you want with different captains.

To add even more fun, if there is a team that is behind by a lot you can have a
double and then a triple bonus round to give them some hope that they can
catch up and maybe even win.

If you have a big class, you can reverse this game for some more action for the
audience. Instead of the audience guessing the word or phrase, the captain can.
The audience has to act it out.
Also, consider the size of your classroom. The students from each team should
be able to see the person acting it out. You can have students move their chairs
closer to the front of the classroom if necessary.

If your recent classes have been filled with learning new vocabulary, considering
using Charades as a fun review game for the classrom. It’s the perfect way to
add some fun and variety into your ESL classes, both for children as well as
adults. You may know it as the game where you act out words, but the official
name for it is charades!

You probably already know charades from playing it with your friends or family
members, right? With a little adaptation, it’s easy to use with your students as
well. Keep on reading for more details about how to use Charades in your
English classroom.

How to Play the Charades ESL Game

Prepare some words or phrases beforehand, based on whatever you’re studying.

Divide the class into two and each team can choose their first captain.

Team A sends their captain to the front who randomly chooses a paper and then
must describe and act it out to their team who can guess what it is.

When the team guesses correctly, the captain takes another word and the game
continues. Alternatively, you can have the students rotate the captain’s role
amongst themselves during the course of a single round. In this case, make the
round a bit longer—maybe four minutes instead of two.

Each round is 2-4 minutes and each team tries to get as many words as
possible.

The next team goes, using different words.

You can play as many rounds as you wish, but make sure you have different
captains for each one so everyone gets a chance to describe the words.

I usually bring in a small prize for the winning team. For example, some treat
size chocolate bars. Or, I sometimes have a prize bag filled with things like
erasers, pencils, and other common school supplies for the kids to pick from.
Find Someone Who BINGO
Skills: Speaking/listening/writing

Time: 15-30 minutes

Level: Beginner to Advanced

Materials Required: Blank Bingo card, grids or blank paper (optional PowerPoint
or white board and marker). You can easily print out free cards from online.

Age: 10-Adults

People Bingo is a fun people Bingo game for ESL students that makes a great
ice breaker to help students get to know one another or to practice asking and
answering questions about likes/dislikes, future activities, school subjects,
holidays hobbies, etc.

If I have my own classroom, I keep a stack of blank grids handy but if I’m
moving from class to class, I tend to have students use their notebooks.

To save time, I prepare a PowerPoint with possible words and items to complete
the Bingo grid, such as a list of hobbies, jobs, places, etc.—whatever topics you
want to include. It’s a great way to save some time in the class as opposed to
writing things on the board on the fly.

Some Examples of Topic Ideas for this Find Someone Who Activity

If using this as an icebreaker to help your students get to know each other, list
hobbies, musical instruments, schools subjects and popular films or games so
students may learn that one student plays the cello and another likes to study
science.

If we are practicing future plans, this list might includes jobs, places, types of
housing, etc. and students will then practice saying things like, “I want to be a
doctor,” or, “I want to live in an apartment.”

Where Can I Find Get to Know You Bingo Cards?

If you don’t want to put the time in to make your own questions, search on
Google for “Get to Know you Bingo Questions.” You’ll find lots of ideas, along
with ready-made cards that you can just download, print and use.

Just be aware that many of these Bingo Cards are not really for English
learners, so have a careful look at the level of English and think about whether
or not it’ll work for your students.

Thank you random people on the Internet for sharing your resources! It’s a
great way to save a ton of time.
Students Circulate for Getting to Know You Bingo Game, Instead of Having a
Bingo Caller

Rather than have a Bingo caller, students must circulate around the class and
ask each other questions to mark out items on their grid. For example, if the
topic is jobs, they could ask, “What do you want to be?” I have them write the
other student’s name in the grid, rather than simply cross it out. So, if a student
says, “Doctor,” they will write that student’s name in that block.

Before you begin this people Bingo game that’s ideal for an ice breaker, give
them a target of one line, etc. to get Bingo. Obviously, if you want the activity
to only take a few minutes, go for one line. However, if you want to extend it a
little bit, then require two lines, blackout, etc.

Get to Know You Bingo Cards

Rather than make a PowerPoint, you could simply write the items on the board.
If you want to give student more autonomy, give them a topic and have them
brainstorm. You should have more items than will fit on the grid, but you can
use 3X3 or 4X4 grids if you want to make the activity go more quickly.

I encourage students to move around by only allowing each name to be used

once per board in a large class. If the class is quite small, two to three times on
a 5×5 grid may be necessary. The goal is to have students practicing the target
language, rather than standing with one person and saying, “Do you like
apples? Oranges? Bananas? Pears? Melons? Bingo!”

A sign of a great ESL activity is a class full of students who are happily
participating and speaking English. This game is one of the best, according to
those criteria.

How to Play Find Someone Who Bingo:

1. Optional: prepare Bingo grid cards and a PowerPoint with questions before
class. Otherwise, have students use notebook paper. Tell them what size grid to
draw: 3×3, 4×4, or 5×5.

2. Have students fill in their bingo card with items from the PPT or white board,
or create their own, according to a given topic, such as hobbies or likes/dislikes.

3. Have students mingle and ask questions to match students to their bingo
card spaces. For example student A asks, “Do you like apples?” If student B
answers, “Yes, I do,” student A writes their name in the “apples” box and moves
to the next student.

4. The first student to get a Bingo by finding different students to complete their
grid is the WINNER.