English Communication Games

One Lie and Two Truths

This game is a classic in the ESL classroom. It is extremely suitable for the first day of class as an icebreaker and as an introductory activity for students. Start by asking students if anyone can explain what the difference is between a truth and a lie. Then tell students that you are going to tell them three things about yourself. Two of the things that you say will be absolutely true and one of them will be a lie. Students have to guess which one is a lie. For example, you could say, 'I have a cat, I'm married and I'm half French.' Students have to guess which is the lie based only on hunches and intuition. When all the students in the class have guessed, tell them which thing was the lie. All the people who guessed correctly get a point. Then put students into pairs and have them repeat the game with each other.

Taboo

Taboo is a game created by Hasbro, a company based in the United States which makes toys and games for kids. It's particularly suitable for ESL students because it forces them to use new vocabulary words and words that they don't use as often. To play Taboo, each player gets a card that has a word at the top which they want the members of their team to guess. The player has to describe the word without using a designated list of five commonly related words. For example, if the top word is 'beach', the player cannot use words such as 'ocean', 'sand', 'suntan lotion', 'sunglasses', or 'sunburn'. Instead the player could say, 'It is a place in the sun where people go to relax.'

The Fluency Game

The Fluency Game is a game that is suitable for intermediate to advanced students. Explain to students that the focus of the game is speaking without hesitating or worrying about making a mistake. Before the game begins, demonstrate what you want students to do. Write a word on the board such as, 'car', 'bread' or 'cat'. Then using a timer, talk about things related to that word for one minute without stopping. Explain to students that what you say does not have to be interesting, it just has to relate directly to the word on the board. Give each student a different word. If students can speak without stopping for one minute, they get a prize.