Hey there. And welcome to another episode of the equipping eel
Podcast. We have been in the middle of a vocabulary series. And I
cannot wait to dive into today's topic because this is something
that I absolutely love, and I think is one of those must do. Ways
to develop fun and engagement and vocabulary development with your
ells. And that is through Games. Games really are one of the most
powerful ways for our students to learn new vocabulary easily and
in a fun way. They're also a big win for you because many times
once you get these game set up, you can reuse them throughout the
year or when you have that extra five minutes, you can throw them
in or on a Friday when everyone's just going a little bit crazy,
pull out the games. So I really want to encourage you. I'm going
to be sharing 25 different. Games that you can use. I try to put
them into categories, so it's a little bit easier to hear a game
that will work for you. But I really want you to make space for
games because our students need to see the fun of learning a new
language. And that happens so easily and naturally with games.
Students talk and they ask questions. And they get excited. All
through a simple game. So if you're not currently, if you're
feeling the pressure of testing and getting them to speed and all
these different things that Administration puts on us. I really
want you to just take a breath and see how you can incorporate
games more frequently into your lessons into your classroom so
that your students can increase their engagement and increase
their excitement for language learning. Now, before we jump in, I
want to share why games really have so many different benefits for
your El students. The first reason is because it boosts your kids
ability to concentrate and focus on learning. This is just such a
natural thing that happens when they're playing these different
games. And it's something that is a win all around for our
students if they're boosting their ability to concentrate. Another
thing is it helps cultivate problem solving skills. So as kids
learn to approach problems logically and come up with solutions to
help them win a game. Let's say or work in a team or whatever it
is. This can help them to really focus. And not even realize that
they're working in problem solving skills, but they're doing it
naturally because they're having fun in this game. It also
increases vocabulary and memory, which is the reason why I wanted
to highlight this episode and share different games with you.
Because we want to find natural ways for our students to practice
the vocabulary that they've been learning and to apply it. And
then the memory piece is also super crucial, even more so, I think
for our students today. To do activities that specifically work on
increasing memory skills with our students. Depending on the game,
it can also improve selling and reading skills. And playing games
just makes kids happy. That's reason enough, right? It's just.
Perfect. Opportunity for them to socialize talk with peers to get
excited about the topics that they're doing, to speak without even
realizing because they're so excited about the game. So. Let's
talk about let's dive into the games. We have 25 to cover. But it
will be good. I hope that you get some that you can take away
with. So I'm randomize these in different categories. The first
category. Are great games that you can use with newcomers and some
of these. I know that you're familiar with, but I wanted to put
them on the list because sometimes it's just a good reminder. So
the first one is bingo. This is kind of the basic place to start
when you're working with newcomers is bingo. And there's a few
different ways, though you can differentiate this one. You could
just have a blank bingo chart and have students make their own
bin. Bingo boards. This is a great way to have students take on
some of that responsibility. You could have picture words on there
and you say the word and they define it, or you could do the
opposite. Maybe you have the word on their board and you show the
picture and they have to find the word. So the thing that I want
you to think about with these aims are how can you maybe
differentiate them depending on the group you're working with,
because then you're able to reuse them with multiple. Groups and
multiple language levels. That's where the beauty comes in of
having these things set up and ready to go. So bingo is one of
those things that you can approach it in a few different ways.
Where depending on the group that you're working with, you might
choose a different style of bingo over another one. But I think
one of the easiest things is to just have bi. Bingo blank bingo
boards ready in your classroom. You could even laminate them if
you want. And then whatever vocabulary you are working on, you can
give the students the opportunity to make their own bingo board.
And then 20 minutes playing bingo on a Friday, working on
vocabulary. That's a great use of time. Number two Word Searches
Word Searches again, are classic, but they're also really helpful.
Now some tips with this word searches can be really overwhelming
for students, especially students that are learning English for
the first time. So be very mindful of how many words. Are in the
Word Search. What does the font look like? How many letters are in
the Word searches? All those things can be very overwhelming for
that students. You want them to find success. Maybe your word
search has pictures, and they have to go and look for the word in
a word search. You can differentiate it in different ways so that
you're kind of expanding what they're knowing and seeing. If they
see a picture and then find the word and spell it correctly. And
then they write the word underneath the picture. There's a variety
of ways you can do it. That's just one option of how you can make.
It differentiated for those newcomers. The next game is Headbands.
Headbands is a great. Fun game that you could make yourself. You
don't have to go buy it if you don't want to. But essentially what
you do is the students will put a picture on their head. And if
you buy the headbands game, it comes with a headband that you can
put on. And they stick the picture inside. But you could also
create your own way to do it. They could just tape it on or put a
post to it, whatever it looks like for you in your classroom. But
they'll have a vocabulary picture on their forehead and the other.
Students are trying to get that person to guess what that word is
on their forehead. So it's a super fun way. To have them. Use.
Speaking skills. Work on describing work on coming up with
different ways. To get that student to guess that word in their
head. And you could make this just new words that they're
learning. So maybe if you have newcomers, you're going to just
work on vocabulary that they've been working on. So maybe it's
desk or pencil or teacher. And if you have older students, or if
you have students who are at different language levels, then maybe
it's more content. Book how they've been. Working on or some tier
two words that they've been working on. So this is a really
interactive and silly way to work on headbands. Now you can always
go and find the game itself and she has a lot of random words so
that might be fun to play as well and just have in your classroom.
Now I always recommend I do talk about games a lot and I always
recommend to go. Check out. Your local resale Shops before you go
and purchase new versions of these. I have found. Some incredible
gains at the local goodwill for 299 or less. So start there
because they have a ton of games available at different resale
shops. Hopefully they're sent by you and you can go see which kind
of games you can find. All right, number four is a game pop. Now
we have a version of this and I'm actually going to give you a few
of the sets for free because I want you to get set up with some
really fun games so you can see how quickly your students will
engage and respond to this style. Top is a really fun game because
what you do is you put. A bunch of words. Or they could do
vocabulary words. Or if they're working on letters, whatever it is
you put them all into a bag or some sort of container that they
can't see now mixed in with those is a card or a few cards that
will say Pop. And what happens is the students will just sit
around and they'll. Pull out one card at a time and they'll say
the card. Or maybe they have to use the word in a sentence. Maybe.
They have to sound out the word, or maybe they come up with a
synonym for it. There's so many different ways you could use one
game and really hit on different targets of what the students are
working with. So the key passing around, they say the word that
they pull out or they use it in a sentence. But if they get the
word pop, they put all their cards back. So adding in that one
little. Piece of suspense if they're going to get the pop card.
Adds in so much excitement, I have played this game with
kindergartners to fifth graders, and they all get so excited to
think that they might be the ones getting caught and to play
against their friends, or if the teacher plays, they love when the
teacher gets popped. So this is a super engaging way that you
could cover so many different vocabulary. Words or grammar skills
or just you name it, put it on cards, put it in a container and
then add in some words, pop and you are set and ready to go with
whatever skills that you are working on. Like I said, we are going
to be sharing. We'll put a link in the show notes. Of a sample
pack that you can use with your students so you can see how
quickly and fun this is to throw in when you have an extra five to
ten minutes. All right, let's move on. The number five game for
newcomers is pictionary. And pictionary is a super fun way. You
could give the students whiteboards. You could have them work in
small groups. You could do this as a class. But essentially,
they're going to see a word. They have to draw it and their
student, the peers, have to guess what that word is. This is a
great one for newcomers because they are able to draw, they don't
have to do a lot of talking with it. And so it's a fun way that
they can work on vocabulary and use their skills at the same time.
Number six is memory. Memory is I was such a fanatic for Memory,
and I really love that game. But I do think memory is an awesome
game to play because. There are so many different ways that you
can change up the game depending on skill and. Just focusing and
remembering is such a skill that we all need in the days we're
living in. So memory is one you could do picture to picture,
they're finding the words you could do picture to word. You could
do word to a sentence, and the sentence has the word removed. So
they flip one out and they flip two parts over. They're trying to
find the word that fits in with that sentence. There's a variety
of different ways that you could really take it and go deeper on
memories, depending on the work that the group that you're working
with. So don't underestimate how powerful. Memory is and again,
once you get that set up, you're now going to have that set
available and ready. So those Friday afternoons, get those games
out. Let them play. If you've already taught them to the students
how to play them, it's going to be quick for them to get into it,
to get it set up and to start playing. These are not wasted
opportunities. These are really practical. And purposeful
activities that you are doing with your students, where they're
going to have high engagement and they're going to be really
working on skills that are so needed for language development.
Number seven is domino's. Now this is something that will take a
little bit of prep work. But essentially what you would do is you
would create domino's. And maybe. On the top. Is let's say if you
want to create dominoes for homophones, on the top is one picture.
On the bottom is another picture. And then on a different domino
would be the homophone that matches that first one. Okay, let's
see the domino will say, Start underneath that first domino that
says Start. So there's two parts to each domino. The second part
of the domino, let's say would have. A picture of the. Sea, and
then on another domino would be, if we're talking about
homophones, then. It would be maybe a picture of an eye. So C and
C they would match up those dominoes so they would find the
partner, and then they would make a long train of the domino. So
then they find the next homophone and match it up. We have a set
of this insider newcomers unit. So if you are somebody that has a
newcomers unit, you can find. That in Unit Six, I believe. I can
look back to that to see if that's correct. But essentially,
you're just going to create dominoes that they are going to find
the pairs and put them in order.
Number eight and last for our newcomers, is the game, the classic
game, tic tac Toe. And I wanted to bring this one up because
TikTok is a great game that you could play in the moment without a
lot of prep. But there's also a lot of ways that you can go deeper
in this game or just add in variety. If you're purposeful in your
planning so tictactoe you could do. You have pictures on a
tictactoe board. They're going to play in partners. One maybe says
the name of the picture. So pencil they put their X or their O on
it. The other student says, backpack. Or their o on that they're
trying to get three in a row. That's one way to play it. You could
also play where they have to pick up a card. And it has a
sentence. And that sentence has the vocabulary word removed. So it
might say. I use a blank to write. And they would have to look at
the board find. The space on the board that has a pencil. And
that's where they would then cover up the pencil with their X or
their O. So again, I wanted to give you ideas of how you can
change up some of these classic games and really. Cater to the
students that you're working with and the skills and the needs
that they have. So always be thinking, how can I go one step
deeper with this? How can we take. This for example, Pop, you're
going to see if you download our free sample. Many times the games
are just you pick a word, you read it if you get poppy skin back.
But what if we take it? That next step. And that's what we've done
now when the game is done so you can make it. When a student gets
five, that person wins. Now what we've done is you have a game
board in front of you and you're going to sort your words. So
maybe it's uppercase, lowercase letters, maybe it's down verbs and
adjectives. The students are going to sort their words that they
picked up. And now they're going to use two or three of those
words to write a sentence. So do you see how you can take one very
simple game. Like pop and you can extend it just a little bit and
then maybe extend it just a little bit more. And you're really
pulling in some key language development skills. But it's through
a game. So you're going to get good output. All right. If you're
confused about what I'm talking about, it's kind of hard to
explain it. You can go and check out the freebie and see our pop
games and how we step this up. All right, let's move on to. Great
Games for intermediate.
All right. One of my most beloved games is apples. Apples. I loved
playing it growing up. My students always love playing it. And
this is a fantastic game for your intermediate students because
they're going to begin to expand on those really awesome
adjectives that they use the game. And then they can really kind
of work on explaining. Why they choose this word for that
adjective. So it's a fun way to really encourage conversations
with the students and explanation skills and agreeing or
disagreeing. And it's all done through a card game. Now apples to
apples also has. And this is something I found at goodwill. They
have a version called apples, apples Big Picture. And this has
been awesome to play because there's no reading involved. Besides
the adjective that's pulsed. Now I was told that that is out of or
out of I don't think they make it anymore. And people were finding
it on Amazon for like $50. So don't spend 50. Dollars on it, but
if you find it at your goodwill, be on the lookout for apples to
apples pictures, either one for intermediaries. They should be
able to read a lot of the words you might want to go through, and
either maybe do the Junior version or. Kind of look through at
some of the words that you're going to be using because I know in
the adult version. There are a variety of movies or movie stars,
or just topics that maybe are not Super. Appropriate for your
students, so you will want to go through and pull out the cards
that work best, or you can make your own version of apples to
apples as well. Another great game for intermediate is Guests
intent. And you can find this one on Amazon. And this is where you
have a topic and usually you categorize them. So they have one
that's like for countries, for animals, for sports, whatever it
is. And you're going to have that in your mind. And they're going
to ask you questions to try to. Get. What you have on your card.
And so again, these are fantastic ways that you could bring this
with you while you're waiting. For a teacher to come and get their
students, or while you're walking down the hall, you could just
come up with this on your own. You didn't mean to go buy the game,
but you could say, okay, guess my word intent. And as you begin to
develop these types of activities in your classroom. Your students
question skills are going to increase. They're going to understand
the concept of the game. They're going to understand what
questions to start with, how to narrow it down. There's a lot
that's happening in their brains when they're working on games
like this. So something like guests like Guest and Ten is a great
activity to do that's based on the vocabulary you've been working
on or just based on a category that you've been going deeper in
and then pass it on to your students. Have another student have
the one that they think of a word and the students are going to
ask them. So it's a good way to pass it on and have your other
students involved. In that.
All right, the next game. And this is one of my childhood
favorites. Was categories. So categories is where your students
will have a list. Of. Places or food or drinks or sports. A whole
list of these eight things and a paper to write things down and
you will roll the dice and see what letter comes up. This is a
fantastic way for students to work on pulling out vocabulary and
seeing how they can think about a topic and see if they can come
up with a word that begins with that letter. So let's say you
rolled the letter S and you give your students three minutes to
write down the words they can come up with for each of those
categories. And then you share. It out. So again categories is not
something you have to go purchase. You can create. Your own
version of it easily and it's a really good check in. For just
challenging your students. To think about categories, to think
about the words they know to think about beginning sounds. All of
that is easily done when. You're doing this type of game. And like
I said, it doesn't have to be something that you have to purchase
the game. You can just say, all right, we're going to place
categories. Get out your notebook. And the letter is T. And here
are your topics.
Another great game for Intermediate is Guess who. And guess who's
a great game, because then you can even make your own version.
Where you have the students in your classroom. That's who the
guess who is. But I love this game. With intermediate students
because they really have to work on looking at detail, describing,
asking questions, analyzing, putting their people down. That it
didn't work with. I've also seen guests wear at some goodwills,
and that is awesome, because that's something that they're looking
at places in the house. And so they're working on. Locations,
prepositions all those types of things. So both of those are
really fantastic games to use with your dll students. Guess who
and guess where.
All right. And one last game for our intermediate ells is called.
Alert lurt is an excellent game to build vocabulary. It's a brain
boosting game that really helps develop auditory comprehension,
word recall, and vocabulary. So what happens is someone will read
a definition. Or a clue, and then the first person who can blurt
out. What they're talking about gets to move ahead on the game
board. So for an example, one of the cards that was read might be
what word means a partially dried grape. So the first person to
shout out raisin, they get to move forward. So it's a really fun
way to kind of flip it and challenge your students on listening.
And understanding, and then recalling the word that fits with that
definition. That one is called blurt.
All right, let's move on. We're halfway done, and we're going to
keep going. Let's move into great games for advanced ells. The
first one is taboo, and this was a game we always played growing
up with my family. And this is a super fun one. It gave us a lot
of laughs because taboo is something where you're trying to get
your peers. To guess a word that's on the card. But it also comes
with I think, five words that you cannot use to get them to guess
that word. So let's say that the word is. Tree. Well, I can't say
things like. Plant or Christmas, or it gives you five common words
that you would use to associate with that. So you really have to
think about other ways to get the students to guess this word. And
you have to be careful that. You don't use one of those words on
the card, otherwise you get beeped out. So it's a really fun game
that causes a lot of laugh with your students. Another game is
catchphrase and catchphrase is again one of those games you can
just tab in your classroom, pull it out when you have an extra few
minutes. And what you do is you pass around the catchphrase little
disc thing. And the person who has it in front of them reads the
word and then tries to get everybody else to guess it. When it's
guessed, they pass it to the next person and keeps going around in
the circle until time runs out. So it's one of those just super
fast moving games gets people thinking, talking all without really
feeling that pressure of talking in front of peers. Or anything
like that. So it's just a really fun way that you can spend an
extra five or ten minutes when you have the time doing something
that's really purposeful and intentional.
Another great game for. Advanced ells is called Tribod, and this
one I do see a lot at Goodwill. Maybe people don't like this game,
but it is a really awesome challenging game for our students. So
Tribon, what it is. Is they are trying to find. What these three
things have in common. So each card has three things and they are
going to try to guess or they're going to try to think about it
and figure out. What it has in common. And so this one's really
awesome, because. There's a lot of deep thinking that has to
happen to fear out the connections of. These three words that are
given. And this might be one that you want to work in groups and
let them work together and really kind of discuss and go back and
forth. So then you're adding in that conversation piece when you
play this game. The next game is. Upwards, upwards, is life
scrubble. But you lay your words down and then you can add letters
on top of it. So let's say I have the word.
Let's say somebody puts the word B down, B E now, if it's my turn,
I can put an S on top of that word, and it makes it. C. So that's
the way this is a really cool game over scrabble to me for ells
because it's really playing around with words and they're working
on spelling skills. So that to me is a win, very easy to do. It
takes a little bit longer to get set up and get going. But again,
one of those classroom games that you will love having. And then
the last one for Dance dlls is banana grams banan. Banana scrabble
tile game. And the beauty of this one is it's fast moving, so it's
really just helping kids to get out of their head. Start putting
words on the table. Start playing around with letters and see what
they can come up with. So again, this one, I would say, is
probably better for advanced ells because they are going to be
doing spelling, putting letters together, which can get a little
overwhelming, sometimes. For our lower language learners, but
higher intermediate and advanced blouse would really love that
game. All right. We are almost done. I hope that you have heard of
some new games that you can try and some old ones that you want to
bring back. I want to finish up with some great games that you can
go through or that you can teach and use without doing any prep.
So the first one is 20 questions. It's kind of like guess and ten
but 20 questions. So when you're working on. A topic or a new
vocabulary award. Give them opportunities. Have that word in your
head. Have them guess, see if they can get it in 20 questions. The
next one is categories. You threw out a category. Let your
students tell you what words fit in that category. This is a great
one for lower language learners because it's really just helping
them to make. Those connections in their brain really see what
words they know. As simple as animals. Okay, let's go around the
circle and keep saying animals until we run out, until we forget
or till we repeat one. It also helps the students to have to
listen to their peers so that they don't repeat one. Charades is
an awesome game where they could take vocabulary words that
they're working on, act them out and have their PE. Peers guess
team vocabulary races. So maybe you have them working. In. Lines.
And they have to run to the board. And they have to write you read
a definition. And they have to write that word on the board as
best they can. Another really fun game that I came across is
called Switching Places. And so this one is where you have two
definitions of the vocabulary words that you are working on. And
you stand in a circle. Each student has one definition. And what
you're going to do is the person in the middle of the circle is
going to yell out the word. Whoever has the definition of that
word is going to switch places. With the other person who has that
definition, the word. But the person who's in the middle of the
circle is also going to try to get into one of those spots. So
then whoever is left out, they will be the next person in the
middle of the circle. I love this one because it gets students up
and moving, but they have to really know their definition. They
have to know the word that that definition stands for and. They
have to listen. Another quick game is more of a strategy, but
inside outside circle, where the students write a word, a
definition on a card. They then stand across from each other.
Share the word and definition and switch up. You could do a
variety of different games like this, where they write their own
vocabulary definition, picture. They walk around, they find
something who has to say more than them or someone who has a
different word. They switch and they keep going. Things like that.
Anything where they're up and moving is really helpful for
vocabulary development and for them to remember the words. And
then our last game. And this again is one you can do without any
prep is vocabulary Role Award. So maybe. They have a list of
vocabulary words that they're working on. And you have number
123456. And next, each number you're going to write synonym.
Antonym. Use the word in a sentence. Define the word. Draw a
picture of the word. Choose any. There's six things they could do.
They would roll the dice and then whatever number they come up
with, that's what they would do with that word. So if they have a
vocabulary word that they're working on. And they roll use it in a
sentence. They would write it in a sentence. So it's helping them
to think about the word in a different way, apply it, but not have
to do a very rote. Here's your word definition picture for all
eight of these words, it's really kind of engaging because there's
a dice involved and there's risk of what they're going to get each
time. So that's a really fun way to increase engagement when
you're working on new vocabulary. I really hope you can see how
with intentional planning of vocabulary, you can provide many
opportunities throughout the day to increase vocabulary
development and how it can be really fun if you are looking for
tech that supports vocabulary, I'm. Going to link one of my
previous episodes in the show notes so that you can listen to that
where I go a little bit more in depth on specifically vocabulary
development and technology. Also, come and join me for the next
two weeks. I'm going to be having some guest episodes that you
will not want to miss that are still based on VOC. Vocabulary but
are really going to be super insightful, especially if you are
teaching upper elementary students and want to get into context
clues and just better vocabulary teaching in general. Now, like I
said, as a big thank you for being a listener to the Cooking Meal
Podcast. I'm going to share with you a few sets of our pop games,
so go check those in the show notes, download them and get those
set up because I promise you your students are going to love it.
If your students do love it, I would absolutely love to see that.
Will you take a picture. Of your students playing the game don't
have to put their faces in it just them playing the game and tag
us on equipping ells on Instagram. We would absolutely love to see
your students in action and see how they are enjoying some
vocabulary games right in your classroom. Thanks for all you do.
To equip your English language learners I will see you at the same
time same place next week.
