Creative TEFL: 20 Easy-to-Play Classroom Games

Explore language games and flash cards to test students in listening or speaking, reward teams as they participate, and confirm understanding before starting the game.

Dash and say relay has teams pass a hand-held object along a row to uncover flashcards, coral draw, touch the circle, and shout the answer.

Demonstrate the flash card draw game before playing, with back-to-back turns, turning around to identify a partner's card, awarding points for correctness, and using coral draw to involve the class.

Play flash card snap to boost quick thinking and vocabulary recall as students sit in a half moon, answer cards fast, and race to move behind chairs for points.

Set up a circle of flashcards and two students back-to-back in the middle. Turn, shout a card, and the first to touch the flashcard earns a point for their team.

Engage the whole class with hot flash card, where students move among floor cards as you shout names, and the hot card eliminates players until a team earns points.

Play a tic tac toe style game on a whiteboard with nine flashcards linked to vocabulary or targeted language; two teams compete to win three in a row.

Demonstrate a six-card roll and say game on whiteboard, assign teams by letters, roll the dice to pick cards, then students stand, name the card, and rotate until all join.

Engage learners with the pass and say game using flashcards and a ball to review themes; students pass the ball, stop to answer rapid questions, boosting quick thinking for assessments.

Explore scoring systems that boost learning by adding extra points after listening or speaking games, rewarding individuals and teams and allowing creative adaptations to fit your classroom needs.

Explore how to teach fairness and achievement in competitive classroom games with two teams of students, rewarding the first to listen or speak with proximity to the whiteboard.

Resolve ties in listening or speaking games with simple fair methods, such as time limits, rock paper scissors, coin flips, concealed objects, or quick number guessing.

Use a ball as a versatile toy for kicking, throwing, rolling, and passing in classroom games. If a ball isn’t available, substitute with a beanbag, sock, bottle, or stuffed toy.

Turn a ten-pin bowling activity into a classroom math game using plastic animals. Students throw to hit items with scores, then add or subtract to total points.

The ball in the basket game uses floor markers to award points as players throw from distances. Older students can boost points by actions like closing eyes or turning around.

Discover how portable plastic hula hoops, popular and detachable, can add a traditional boost to your day.

Set up a simple TEFL classroom game using one hula hoop, mark distances for points, and practice throwing to land a ball inside the hoop while calculating speed.

Students throw a ball to land in overlapping hoop areas to earn points; four hoops lie on the floor, a whiteboard replica marks the zones and numbers vary by age.

Engage your class with hoop rollerball, a color-segmented hoop and small ball game. Students roll the ball inside the hoop to earn points for their team.

Students play a center hoop and corner hoops game, throwing soft balls or rolled socks from any corner into the center hoop. Use soft equipment to prevent injuries.

Use a beanbag tossed into a hoop to build gross motor skills, teach students to estimate weight and speed, and replay points when the bag touches the hoop.

Use a sticky ball as a versatile classroom tool to engage students, especially with a whiteboard, and substitute with a softball to mark or erase lines on the board.

Learners play the sticky ball target by drawing a whiteboard target with numbered rings, scoring the bull's eye as five or ten and using a minus-one slice for listening rounds.

Divide a whiteboard into two large faces representing teams and have students throw sticky balls to erase facial parts, determining the winner by the most remaining parts.

TEFL classroom games engage students as teams draw large colored faces on a whiteboard, throw a ball at them, react to ouch and blood effects, and tally scores to win.

Lead a two-team classroom game, sticky bees and the hive, blending listening and speaking activities as players hit blue or red bees, trigger queen color changes, and tally five-point rewards.

Lead learners through a listening game with a circle, four surrounding spaces for animals, a smiling baby, animal scores, ball throws, and changes to the baby's expression when hit.

Select two successful dice games to feature and use a large die so everyone can see the number rolled. Learn how to make a large die using online instructions.

Engage students with The Great Race, a snakes-and-ladders–style classroom game for TEFL that uses tokens, dice, and a numbered track to practice listening and speaking in teams.

Practice the target language with roll-a-goal, where learners say the language aloud and roll dice or use a sticky ball to score against a goalie drawn on a six-square whiteboard.

Discover two classroom games you can play with a beanbag. Adapt them to objects like plastic fruit or a whiteboard marker, using a beanbag for the activity.

Play bowls with beanbags, aiming to place the object closest to the small white ball. Demonstrate the setup with two throw spots, then award the winner to the nearest beanbag.

Engage students in a dynamic TEFL relay where pairs answer questions, place beanbags behind their necks, run to the back crouched, touch a wall, and return to sit first.

Explore a few easy-to-use classroom games as fillers when students struggle to concentrate, to break the learning rhythm during or at the end of class.

Monkey sit down is an active TEFL warm-up where students stand, choose a word when monkey is called, and sit out when their word is called.

Lead an energetic rhythm-based classroom game where students imitate a wide pose, perform playful gestures and sing cues like 'see you in the rain,' ending with high energy for tomorrow.

Engage learners with a circle game that reinforces days of the week and other sequences by calling out each day, tapping to signal, and awarding points for participation.

Explore over 20 classroom games and activities, and reinvent familiar games with your own spin and everyday objects. Enjoy lifelong access to the course and continue growing your games career.