4 Games for EFL Students

4 Games for EFL Students

Teaching English for EFL students sometimes is very hard, but it is a challenge for teachers including me as an English teacher of EFL students in Indonesia. English is not used as a means of communication in everyday life, so it is needed high motivation to make students speaking or writing in English, at least in the classroom. English teachers in Indonesia always discuss how and what the best way/technique of teaching can help students gaining a better result. One of the ways is creating a nice or interesting classroom atmosphere by giving them many games in learning English for ice breaker. Here, I would like to share my own experiences about games in teaching English that might be used or applied to the students of EFL. I don’t know if there is someone did these before outside there, I just want to share what I have done with my students in the classroom.

1.    Words on someone’s back

In this game students will practice spelling of words. If we have large class we can divide students in group of five or six. Each group stands or sits in line and all of them face to the front (behind someone’s back). Teacher will give a word to the players on the back part of line, and the back player must write the word letter by letter on the back of his/her friend in front of him using a blunt tool or finger, so it is go on, until the front player can guess what the word written on his back. Group who can firstly guess the word will get one point and group with the most point is the winner.

2.    Grab it fast!

This game can be played in a small class instead of large class. We need a set of large flashcards in this game and need to decide a topic that want to be learnt. You can choose food and drink, animals, things in the house, at school, and so forth. First, teacher shows all the flashcards to the students and they practice the vocabularies. After that, the teacher arranges all the flashcard facing up on the floor. Then, students sit around the flashcards. Teacher tells that she will call out a word of the flashcard and students must grab fast the card corresponded. Student who can firstly grab the card will take the card and student with the most card will be the winner.

3.    Flip-Flap Card

Like the previous game, we also need a set of flashcards of certain topic that would like to be discussed. But the flashcards have to types, they are picture card and word card. If we have small class, students play this game individually. Teacher will arrange the two types of flashcards on the table randomly. Students with his partner or individually must flip and flap the card to find the match of picture and word cards. Teacher sets two minutes for each group to finish this game. Group with the most card is the winner.

4.    Shopping Picture

‘Shopping Picture’ is similar to shopping game as commonly we do in the classroom. In this game, we need to prepare a lot of picture cards based on the topic and the goal is to revise vocabularies has been learnt before. We can choose more than one topic. Those picture cards are put in a large box or container as a shop. Students are divided into group of four of five. Each group will be given a shopping list about the mixing topic and a basket to put the cards, the list can be food, drink, fruit, and vegetables. Starting from the first player of each group, they will race to the shop/box finding the picture card based on their shopping list. Each player has only 30 seconds to find the card and take turn to another player. Group who can find the most picture cards will be the winner.