Some of the most effective language activities do not require an app, a screen or an elaborate set of materials.
A familiar game can create exactly what EAL learners need: a reason to listen carefully, repeat useful language, respond to classmates and communicate for a real purpose.
Traditional classroom and playground games can therefore be much more than a reward at the end of a lesson. With a few small changes, they can become purposeful opportunities to practise vocabulary, grammar, listening and speaking.
The important question is not simply:
“Is this game fun?”
It is:
“What English will my students need in order to play it?”
Here are seven low-preparation games that can be adapted for different ages and levels of English.
1. Simon Says: Listening and Action Verbs
Simon Says is particularly useful with beginning EAL learners because students can demonstrate understanding through movement before they are expected to produce much language themselves.
Choose vocabulary connected to your current topic.
For body parts:
Touch your nose.
Touch your shoulders.
Close your eyes.
For classroom language:
Open your book.
Pick up your pencil.
Stand next to the door.
For action verbs:
Jump.
Turn around.
Clap your hands.
Walk slowly.
At first, the teacher can give all the instructions.
Later, let students become Simon.
That small change turns a listening activity into a speaking activity because learners now have to produce the instructions themselves.
Make it more challenging
More proficient learners can use longer commands:
Simon says touch your head and then sit down.
Simon says walk to the window before you clap three times.
Students are now practising sequencing and more complex listening comprehension while still playing a familiar game.
2. I Spy: Vocabulary and Describing
I Spy requires almost no preparation and works particularly well for reviewing familiar vocabulary.
Begin with:
I spy with my little eye something blue.
Students look around the classroom and guess:
Is it the pencil case?
Is it the chair?
For beginners, simplify the language:
I see something red.
Students can point or name the object.
Once learners are comfortable, encourage them to provide additional clues:
It is small.
It is made of paper.
We use it for writing.
Now the activity practises more than vocabulary. Students are using adjectives, categories, functions and question forms.
Useful language support
Put these phrases on the board:
Is it a…?
Is it…?
Can we use it for…?
Is it bigger than…?
Does it have…?
This allows developing EAL learners to ask more meaningful questions without having to create every structure independently.
3. Charades: From Vocabulary to Complete Sentences
Charades is an easy way to review verbs and actions.
Write familiar actions on cards:
swim
sleep
cook
dance
read
ride a bicycle
One student chooses a card and acts it out without speaking.
Instead of accepting a one-word answer such as:
Swimming!
ask students to respond with a complete sentence:
You are swimming.
or:
She is swimming.
This creates a natural opportunity to practise the present continuous.
You can adapt the same game to different language targets.
Jobs
Students act out:
teacher
doctor
chef
firefighter
Classmates ask:
Are you a doctor?
Feelings
Students act:
excited
angry
tired
worried
Classmates say:
You look worried.
Past tense
A student acts several actions in sequence.
The class later reports:
First, he opened the door. Then he sat down. Finally, he went to sleep.
One simple game can therefore be adapted as students’ English develops.
4. Memory Matching: Vocabulary With a Language Rule
A traditional memory game can easily become an English-learning activity.
Create pairs of cards such as:
picture ↔ word
word ↔ definition
verb ↔ past-tense form
adjective ↔ opposite
question ↔ answer
Students place the cards face down and take turns turning over two.
But add one important rule:
Students have to say what they turn over.
For example:
I have a tiger and a lion. They don’t match.
Or:
I have “go” and “went”. They match.
This prevents the activity from becoming a silent matching exercise.
For beginning learners, provide a speaking frame:
I have ___ and ___.
They match.
They don’t match.
The game itself creates repetition, but the language rule turns that repetition into speaking practice.
5. Hot Potato: Quick Vocabulary Retrieval
Students sit or stand in a circle and pass an object while music plays.
When the music stops, the student holding the object responds to a prompt.
The simplest version is vocabulary practice.
Teacher:
Name an animal.
Student:
Elephant.
But the game can gradually become more demanding.
Beginner
Name a food.
Name something blue.
Developing
Make a sentence with “because.”
Describe an animal using two adjectives.
More confident
Tell us something you did yesterday.
Give one advantage of living in a city.
The key is to keep the language challenge appropriate.
A student should feel a little pressure to respond—but not so much pressure that the activity becomes frightening.
For learners who need more processing time, allow them to ask:
Can you repeat the question?
or:
Can I have a clue?
Those phrases are useful English too.
6. Hopscotch: Move and Speak
If you have space, a simple hopscotch-style activity can combine movement with language practice.
Instead of numbers, place vocabulary cards, pictures or question cards in the squares.
A student lands on:
dog
and has to say:
A dog is an animal.
Another lands on:
yesterday
and says:
Yesterday I played football.
You could also use categories:
Food
Animals
School
Feelings
When students land on a category, they have to give an example.
For older or more proficient learners, use speaking prompts:
Something I am good at…
Something I would like to learn…
A place I would like to visit…
Something that makes a good friend…
Movement can make repeated oral practice feel very different from answering the same questions while sitting at a desk.
7. Guess Who or Twenty Questions: Asking Better Questions
Guessing games are excellent for developing questions because students need information to win.
Choose a person, animal, classroom object or vocabulary item.
Students have to discover it by asking questions.
For beginners:
Is it an animal?
Is it big?
Is it brown?
Can it fly?
More confident learners can ask:
Does it live in the ocean?
Is it something we normally find at school?
Would you use it indoors or outdoors?
Before starting, display useful question structures.
This is important for EAL learners because otherwise a confident student may dominate while others know what they want to ask but do not have the English structure available.
You can also make the game cooperative.
Instead of competing individually, the whole class has ten questions to discover the answer.
Now students have to discuss which questions will provide the most useful information.
Give Students the Language They Need to Play
One of the easiest mistakes to make with games is teaching the vocabulary of the lesson but forgetting the language students need for the game itself.
Students may also need phrases such as:
It’s your turn.
My turn.
Can you repeat that?
I don’t understand.
Can you give me a clue?
I agree.
I don’t think that’s correct.
Try again.
Good job!
Display a few of these phrases before the game begins.
For younger learners, add simple icons or gestures.
These expressions are valuable because students can use them again and again across different activities. Gradually, classroom management language becomes another source of authentic English practice.
Don’t Let the Fastest Student Do All the Talking
Games can sometimes favour confident speakers.
One student knows every answer, shouts first and receives most of the speaking practice.
That is not particularly useful for the rest of the class.
Try changing the rules.
Instead of:
The first student to answer gets the point
use:
Everyone thinks → partners discuss → one student answers.
Or require each team member to answer once before anybody gets a second turn.
You can also assign roles:
speaker
reader
scorekeeper
language helper
and rotate them.
The goal is not to discover who already knows the most English.
The goal is to increase the amount of meaningful English every learner uses.
Use Games From Your Students’ Cultures
Traditional games can also provide an interesting opportunity to learn about the children in the classroom.
Ask students or families:
What games do children play where you come from?
Students might bring in the name of a playground game, card game, clapping game or family game.
The class can explore:
What are the rules?
How many people play?
What equipment do you need?
Is there a similar game here?
What words or expressions do players use?
A student can first explain a game with pictures, demonstrations and support rather than having to give a long verbal explanation.
The class can then try an adapted version.
This allows students to contribute knowledge they already have instead of always encountering classroom activities chosen by the teacher.
It can also lead naturally to comparison:
In this game, you have to…
Both games use…
The difference is…
In my country…
Traditional games then become both a language activity and a way of sharing classroom cultures.
Competition Is Optional
Games do not always need winners and losers.
Competition can motivate some learners, but cooperative versions often provide just as much language practice.
Instead of asking:
Which team can get the most points?
try:
Can the whole class collect 20 correct sentences?
Or:
Can your group complete all five language challenges?
Or:
Can we beat our class score from last week?
This changes the emphasis from defeating classmates to completing a shared challenge.
Both competitive and cooperative games can have a place in the classroom. The important thing is choosing the format that suits your students and the learning objective.
Finish With a Short Reflection
The game does not have to end when someone wins.
Spend two minutes afterwards returning attention to the English that students used.
Ask:
Which new word did you use?
Which sentence was difficult?
What did you have to say many times?
Which expression will you remember?
You could create a small Language We Used Today area on the board and collect useful phrases.
This helps students recognise that they were not simply playing.
They were practising English.
Start With the Language Goal
Before choosing a game, begin with the learning objective.
If students need to practise:
commands → Simon Says
describing vocabulary → I Spy
present continuous → Charades
word relationships → Memory
quick vocabulary retrieval → Hot Potato
speaking prompts → Hopscotch
question formation → Guess Who
This keeps games connected to learning instead of treating them as something separate from the lesson.
A useful planning question is:
What will my students say, hear, read or understand more effectively because they played this game?
If you have a clear answer, the game has a purpose.
Final Thoughts
Traditional games do not need sophisticated technology or hours of preparation.
What makes them valuable in the EAL classroom is the interaction they create.
Students listen because they need to understand the rules.
They speak because another player needs information.
They repeat language because the game naturally requires it.
They make mistakes, try again and hear classmates using the same vocabulary and structures.
With clear language goals and appropriate scaffolding, familiar games can become practical tools for developing vocabulary, listening, speaking and confidence.
And sometimes the simplest activity—a ball, a few cards, a picture or a guessing game—is enough to get an entire class using English.
Source inspiration: John Paul Obillos Dela Rosa, “How to Bring Traditional Games to World Language Classes,” Edutopia. The activities and EAL scaffolding in this Love4English article have been developed specifically for English-language learners and include ideas for incorporating games from students’ own cultural backgrounds.