Teacher's Notes:

Т - teacher

S- student; SS - students

1) Who am I? What am I?

T sticks a Post-It with the name of any famous person or any object on the back of the SS. Ss can't see what object they have. But their partners can see what\who they are. They should ask their partners general questions ("Am I a,....?", "Do I....?" ); Ss can answer only 'Yes\No + short answers". The first pair to guess the objects\famous people wins.

2) Cowboy duel (to revise vocabulary; questions etc)

A good game to practice vocabulary\ structures for questions.

Ss in pairs come to the board (look at the picture of the cowboys on  the slide). SS listen to the definition read out by the Teacher (or maybe their group-mates) and should guess the word. The first student to name the word "kills" his opponent. The 'killed cowboys' takes his seat and another student takes his\her place. The game continues. If a student guesses 4 words in a row faster than his\her opponents - he\she gets a Sheriff star.

Example: T: A teacher at university is called a ...

                 S1: A tutor!

                T: Correct! Well done! (to S2) Take your sit, please the next volunteer!

To involve other students - you can ask them to prepare their definitions of the vocab you had at a previous lesson.

What is more, you can use this game to practice question structures. In this case T doesn't read out definitions, but says an answer to a question and SS have to guess the question.

Example: T: "His name is Thomas"

               S: "What's his name?"

              T: "She has got a big family"

               S: "Has she got a big family?"

3) Grammar Battleships

                                                        1. Draw in 2 of each boat in your ocean.

                                                                   (6 ships total)

                                                         2. Attack enemy ships by calling a square                                                              square.

                                                           ( Did you play soccer yesterday? )

                                                        3. Sink all the enemy ships to win.

Bombs Away (Grammar Battleships) is a two player game that can be used to practice sentence formation or yes/no question and answer. This is not an original idea nor is it new to the ESL community, but it is laid out well and can be downloaded and adapted to whatever grammar you'd like to practice (as simple as letters and numbers or dates, or as complicated as perfect tenses.)  This activity should get every student talking all at the same time (either asking or answering in the target language.)

The Instructions:

1. Students plot 2 of each boat (six boats total) in their ocean (elongate ovals) up and down or side to side.  They can't place them diagonal or crossing each other.

2. In turns students use the coordinates (across, up and down) to make either a sentence or a question.  For example :

Sentence: Ken plays soccer.

Question: Does Ken play soccer?

3. Their partner will track the coordinates in their ocean (Ken and play) and check if there is a boat in that square or not.  If there is a boat, the students answer yes or hit.  If there is no boat, the students answers no or miss.

Sentence: Hit./Miss.

Question: Yes, he does./No, he doesnt.

Both students then place a hit or miss mark in the appropriate square.

4. Students continue play until they sink all of their opponent's ships or until time runs out (in which case you can count number of hits to decide the winner - if it's a tie, go to sudden death.)

4) Funny Stories (compare it with the russian game: чепуха )

Ss write stories together: word by word, fold their answer and pass it on to their partner on the left.

A good game for kids.

Instruction:

1)  Write a word - any noun;

2) write any adjective;

3) write any activity in Present Cont.

4) Write another word - any noun

5) write any adjective;

6) write a place (where?)

In the end, students get a list with words:

Example: a knight, boring, is dancing, a dog, happy, a cafe . Students should make a story using all the words (a 1-2-sentence story).   "A boring knight is dancing with a happy dog in a cafe". Students can add any prepositions or any appropriate linking words. In the end, SS vote for the funniest story.

5) Pictionary        

Pictionary is a similar and just as entertaining game to play for vocabulary review. The rules are similar to those of charades except that instead of acting out the word, the clue giver is permitted only to draw on the white board in front of the class. He cannot use any symbols, numbers or letters in his drawing. Again, give each person two minutes to try to get his team to guess the word. If he is unsuccessful, give the other team a chance to guess. Score the game the same way that you would score charades and announce the winning team at the end of the game.

6) 20 questions

T thinks about one object which is either in the classroom or somehow connected to the topic of the lesson. SS have to guess this object: they can ask T any only general questions. T can only asnwer Yes\No\ Maybe.

-Example: Is it big? - Yes, it is. Is it small - No, it isn't. Is it in this room? - Yes, it it is. Can you write with it? - No, I can't.

7) tick-tack-boom