Make the most words

Write a topical vocabulary item on the board. In twos or threes students make as many new
words from it as they can. Use longish seed words such as, apologise,
dictionary or september. Score teams a point per word and award a bonus point for the
longest.
Make the longest words
Write a topical target word vertically down the board, for example, WINTER. In twos or
threes students attempt to come up with the longest word that begins with each letter. Give
teams a point per word and a bonus point for the longest.

Waterfall
Industrious
Nausea
Terrified
Empty
Retailer
What does your name mean?
Using a dictionary, google or any other resource, students find and write down an
appropriate adjective that begins with each letter of their first name. For example:

Flirtatious, Relaxed, Extrovert, Desirable

Mixed up sentence
Write a sentence on the board but mix up the word order, then challenge students to
reconstruct the original sentence. For example:

morning hadnt eaten wish that dner kebab I at this 5am

Mixed up sentence (anagram variation)
Write a sentence on the board but this time scramble the letters of each word. For example:

hwy ddint I dusty draher ta vieyunrsit?

What do you know about bananas?
Set a 5 minute time limit and in groups have students think up and write down as many
facts as they can about bananas (or cats, Belgium, David Beckham, etc.). One point should
be given for each true sentence.

How many sounds can you hear?

Students sit in silence for two minutes and write down every sound that they hear. Let them
compare their lists with their neighbours before seeing who has the longest list?

A to Z race
Give students a theme, for example, jobs, things you take on holiday, food. Write the letters
A to Z on the board. Students write an appropriate word beginning with each letter.
See longer post here.
Things to do with a potato
(one of many brilliantly simple ideas from this great book) Produce a potato (if thats not
possible, introduce the concept of a potato). Ask students to come up with a list of as many
unconventional uses for it as they can. For example: paperweight, weapon, pen holder,
smartphone dock. The longest list wins the potato.
Odd one out
Give the students a couple of examples to guess, then get students to come up with their
own ideas. Some examples: (there can be more than one correct answer)

apple, peach, banana, tomato a banana doesnt have seeds

strawberry, branch, bowling ball, boat, iceberg bowling balls dont float
window, river, envelope, client, oregano client doesnt begin and end with the same letter
comb, champagne, knife, plum the word plum doesnt contain any silent letters
Name ten
Have students think of 10 items that fit a certain criteria. For example:

Jobs where you have to wear a uniform

English football clubs
Sports that are played with a ball
Foods that contain egg
Animals that lay eggs
 Three letter parts of the body eye, arm, leg, hip, ear, toe jaw, rib, lip, gum
Two truths and a lie
An ESL classroom staple. Write or dictate three sentences about yourself. Two statements
should be true and one false, for example:

I used to be an air steward

I can ride a unicycle
My favourite food is sushi
Now invite students to discuss in pairs which statement they think is the lie. Ask each pair
which statement they think is untrue and have them explain why. Reveal your answer, and
ask students to come up with 3 sentences about themselves. I find students need quite a lot
of time (at least five minutes) to come up with three ideas. If some students are still short of
a sentence or two, start the game anyway, and they can finish their statements during play.
Check students statements and then have them take it in turn to read them out to the class.
In each case, the other students have to guess which is the untrue statement.

For a longer more involved version of this game see the lying game.
Mastermind (AKA Bulls & Cows, Jotto)
Based on the code-breaking board game where players have to deduce the order of 4
coloured pegs which the other player had hidden behind a plastic guard. Its slightly
complicated to grasp but fun when you get the hang of it.

Think of a four letter word and write XXXX on the board, each X represents one of the
letters of your word.
Invite the first student to guess what the word is.

Start a new line underneath your original XXXX. If the first letter in the students word is the
same as the first letter in your word put a in the first position. If the first letter is not the
same as the first letter in your word but is contained somewhere in your word put a half
tick /. If the first letter of the students word is not contained anywhere your word put an X.
In the following example, the teacher chooses the word FIRE.
XXXX
XXXX COAT
X/XX BEST
XX HIKE
/X RIDE
FIRE
A word of warning. Stick to 4 or 5 letter words. Its much more difficult to guess longer words
and it can also be tricky trying to mark each guess.

When students are familiar with the game you can get them to come and put their own
words on the board.

Im going on a picnic and Im taking a

This is a guess the rule type game. Think of a rule which governs which items can be taken
on a picnic, for example, it must be six letters long, or it must start with a vowel. In this
example the rule is that the word must be an uncountable noun.

Teacher: Im going on a picnic and Im taking milk.

Student A: Im going on a picnic and Im taking eggs.
Teacher: No, you cant take eggs.
Student B: Can I take orange juice?
Teacher: Yes, you can take orange juice.
Etc.
Continue until students guess the rule. If theyre not making any progress, continue to add
further items you would take e.g. love, information, air (the choices dont have to make
sense within the picnic scenario). Invite the students alone or in pairs to come up with their
own rules and let them run the game
No-prep warmers part 2
More no preparation warm up activities to keep your students occupied while you do some last
minute photocopying, grab a much needed coffee, etc. (Formore stimulating warm up ideas we
recommend the book 700 Classroom Activities)

Word Association
Sometimes the simplest ideas turn out to be surprisingly effective and word games dont get any
simpler than word association. Give an initial word, for example, banana and each student takes it in
turns to say a word which they associate with the previous word. If the connection isnt obvious,
challenge the student to justify their choice.
banana monkey zoo tourists hotel bible

Three things in common

This is a great icebreaker, but you can also use it as a lead-in to a theme or to test your students
knowledge of a grammar point. Simply ask students to work in pairs and find three things that they
have in common and then report back to the class. You can narrow the topic down to areas like: three
things we both did at the weekend, three foods we both like, three things we both dont like about
this city,three things neither of us have done yet but would like to, etc.

Just a Minute Tic Tac Toe

Based on the BBC Radio show. Draw a Tic Tac Toe grid on the board and in each space write a topic
that you think some of your students might be interested in or have some knowledge of. Play the
game with two teams, to claim their X or O, a team member must attempt to talk about the topic in
the chosen square for 45 to 60 seconds (depending on their level) without pausing or repetition.

One-upmanship
I discovered this great activity at BusinessEnglishResources.com. Start off by explaining the concept
of one-upmanship, that some people always like to appear to be more interesting or superior to others
in their company. Tell the students a relatively mundane story about something that happened
recently and invite a student to tell a similar story but to top it in some way. Each student in turn tries
to top the previous students tale. For example:
You: Yesterday I overslept and was five minutes late to class.
Student: Thats nothing, I overslept and was an hour late.
Student B: An hour! I once overslept a whole day!
.If the students are sufficiently advanced you could have them watch/read through Monty
Pythons Four Yorkshiremen sketch which is a very funny illustration of the concept.

Spontaneous Scatter Sheet

Scatter Sheets are a great way to review vocabulary, introduce a theme and get students talking. As
a warmer, have students brainstorm words connected to a theme, for example, the seaside, London,
marketing, etc. Write these words on the board randomly, not in straight lines or columns
but higgledy-piggledy and at jaunty-angles. When you have around 20 words on the board, go round
the room asking each student in turn to describe one of the words, when its been successfully
guessed, circle it and move on to the next student. Encourage students to let the describer produce at
least two sentences before shouting out the answer.

Spin the marker

Sometimes students just want a chance to talk and express themselves in an unstructured way and its
a good idea to encourage this. Spin the marker pen and whoever it points to can dictate the
conversation, ask questions, suggest the topic, etc. Spin the marker again when you feel the
conversation has run its course. I find this activity works best when students are sitting in a small
circle not too far apart.

Fortunately / Unfortunately
English learners often have trouble remembering and correctly pronouncing these two useful words.
One way to practice it is to start a story and have learners alternately advancing the story using these
adverbs.

For example:

Teacher: Yesterday my car was stolen.

Student A: Fortunately, it was insured.

Student B: Unfortunately, the insurance company went bankrupt.
 Student C: Fortunately, my grandfather said he would buy me a new car.
Student D: Unfortunately, hes lost his mind and doesnt have any money.
Etc.

Organise yourselves!
Have students arrange themselves in order according to a given criteria. For example by age,
alphabetical order of first name or surname, number of shoes owned, etc.

Letter string dictation

This is a great way to lead in to the topic that you want to cover in the class and also serves as a good
way to review the alphabet. Think of a couple of questions for students to discuss in pairs or groups.
Write the questions down and then dictate them as a long string of letters. For example,

whatdidyoudoattheweekend?
whatkindofbooksdoyouliketoread?
whichhistoricalfiguredoyoumostadmire?
After dictating the letter strings, students should attempt to form the questions and then discuss and
report back to class.

Aims

To get students thinking.

To allow for practice of question forms and a wide range of vocabulary.
This activity does not have to be linked with any others.
Procedure

Explain that you are going to read out something strange and the students have to work out what has
happened.
The students can ask questions about the situation and you can only respond with a yes/no/maybe.
Read out one of the descriptions below and make sure that the students have understood.
The first student to guess what has happened is the winner.
You can allow students to work in pairs or threes or teams to discuss the situation and help each other.

Situations

1. A man is lying dead in a snowy field. There are no footprints to or from his body. The man has a pack on his
back. How did he die?
A: He jumped out of a airplane with a parachute on his back that failed to open.
2. When Harry comes home he finds Sarah is dead, lying in a pool of water and Tom is sitting quietly on the
armchair. There is some broken glass on the floor. Tom wont be charged with murder. Why not?
A: Sarah is a fish and Tom is a cat. Sarah was swimming in her bowl. Tom started playing with it and
knocked it over.
3. A man walks into a bar and asks the barman for a glass of water. The barman pulls out a gun and points it at
the man. The man says 'Thank you' and walks out.
A: The man had hiccups. The barman recognized this from his speech and drew the gun in order to
give him a shock. It worked and cured the hiccups - so the man no longer needed the water.

4. Five pieces of coal, a carrot and a scarf are lying on the grass. Nobody put them on the grass but there is a
perfectly logical reason why they should be there. What is it?
A: They were used by children who made a snowman. The snow has now melted.
5. A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same year. But they were not
twins. How could this be so?
A: They were two of a set of triplets (or quadruplets etc.)

6. One day a man received a parcel in the post. Carefully packed inside was a human arm. He examined it,
repacked it and then sent it on to another man. The second man also carefully examined the arm before taking
it to the woods and burying it. Why did they do this?
A: The three men had been stranded on a desert island. Desperate for food, they had agreed to
amputate their left arms in order to eat them. They swore an oath that each would have his left arm cut
off. One of them was a doctor and he cut the arms off his two companions. They were then rescued.
But his oath was still binding so he later had to have his arm amputated and sent to his colleagues.
7. A man rode into town on Friday. He stayed for three nights and then left on Friday. How come?
A: The man's horse was called Friday.