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Games used in teaching young learners

Age 7-10 (beginners):

ABC

Aim: to teach and practise the alphabet and revise basic words

First practice the alphabet with your students (using blackboard, paper copies or/and a song). Then take a ball and throw it to one student saying a word beginning with A. The person must catch the ball, say a word beginning with the letter B and then throw it to another person. The third student says a word beginning with the letter C and so on. Play the game fast!

Activities

Aim: to teach and practise Present Continuous Tense and basic words connected with movement

One student simply acts out some activity (e.g. swimming) and the other students guess what that student is doing. The student who guesses correctly acts out another activity. With older students you may introduce some more complex expressions like: Are you swimming? Are you running? What is missing? Aim: to revise vocabulary Take a number of pictures. Show them to students and then ask students to close their eyes or turn back. Take one picture and ask students: ‘What’s missing?’ The one that knows the answer hides another picture. 

Whispering Game

Aim: to revise vocabulary and practise pronunciation

Divide your class into two teams and line up the players. The teacher whispers a word (or sentence) to the first person in both groups. Next each player whispers the word to the next player in his group successively until the last player gets the message. The team which is able to repeat the word first and correctly receives a point. Then the second student of each line becomes the first.

Hangman

Aim: to revise vocabulary, especially spelling

Think of some word. On the blackboard, draw spaces for the number of letters in the word. Students, one by one, guess the letters. If a letter in the word is guessed correctly, the teacher writes it into the correct space. If a letter is guessed which is not in the word, the teacher draws part of the man being hanged. If the man is hanged before the class is able to find out the word, the students fail. Next put one of the students in your place and let him choose the word. In small groups each student may go to the blackboard. In bigger groups you may draw the next person (e.g. put students’ names in a sack).

Musical Chairs

Aim: to practise vocabulary

Put in a circle as many chairs as there are children in the class. On each chair put a flashcard with a different picture. Play the music and tell children to walk from chair to chair. When the music stops, have each child stop and face the chair they are in front of. Each child has a turn to say what is on the flashcard and then we play again.

Two lines

Aim: to practise vocabulary

Students are standing in two lines (two teams). When you show a flashcard, first two students in each group shout the word. The first student to correctly name it is the winner and gets the point for the team. Two students then go to the back of their lines and T repeats the process with the next two students. If both students say the name of the card together they continue their turn until one of them is a winner.

Age 5-6 (beginners)

Picture game

Aim: to revise vocabulary and numbers 1 to 6

Put some flashcards with words you practiced during earlier lessons in six piles with the numbers 1–6 beside each. Children one by one throw a dice and pick up one card from the pile with the same number as appeared on the dice. Child who is able to name a picture keeps the card. You may allow students to keep those cards till the end of the lesson.

Colours

Aim: to learn and practice colours

Children listen to music and walk/dance in the classroom. When the music stops the teacher shouts one colour, e.g. ‘black’. Children have to find and touch a black object.

Blind man

Aim: to revise vocabulary

Blindfold one child and let other children put on the table a number of objects. The child takes one object and guesses its name. If the answer is correct, another child takes the turn.

I spy

Aim: to revise vocabulary

Choose one student to be the spy. The spy selects and object which he or she then whispers to the teacher and then announces to the class, "I spy with my little eye something [color]." Students then take turns guessing what the object (i.e. "Is it a table?"). The person that guesses correctly becomes the next spy.