There’s no doubt that speaking English is one of the most highly sought after skills in global business, let alone how useful it is for travel and meeting new people.
But if you’re an EFL/ESL teacher, you’ve likely run into students who really struggle with confidence. They have great fundamentals, but speaking eludes them.
You’re not alone. Students of all ages, but adults especially, can be very resistant to taking risks and looking foolish. But as their teacher, it’s your job to improve their confidence and allow them to apply English in its spoken form.
One way of doing that is through games. This article is a list of 9 fantastic games that offer different ways of encouraging speaking. Some are competitive while others are collaborative. All of them involve relatively extended stretches of speech without piling pressure on the student.
Another way of improving spoken English is through great conversation classes. To learn my way of getting the best out of lessons where dialogue is the main focus, read my article 7 Steps for Incredible Private EFL/ESL Conversation Classes.
I’ve tried to include games which you can play at all levels of English. Many of them work with beginners, intermediates and advanced learners, but others are better with lower ability students and others with high-level classes. Throughout, I’ll indicate what level is best for each game.
With all the games, you should be patient and supportive. Students often retreat into their shells if they feel inadequate, so be gentle with corrections, and let them gradually push out of their comfort zone.
Okay, so introduction over, let’s get to the list!
- Say and Draw
- Most Likely
- Memory Chain
- Spyfall
- Who Am I? (or What Am I?)
- Alibi
- Go Fish
- Psychiatrist
- Role plays
The 9 games in this list just scratch the surface of amazing games out there. If you’re looking for more EFL/ESL games, you can get my free ebook with 20 games by signing up to the Enchanted ESL Newsletter.
Not only do you get the free games, but you get exclusive access to a whole load of other resources, role-play scenarios and lesson plans in a monthly email, all for free.
1. Say and Draw
This is one of my favourite games of all time. It’s so simple, yet can be used again and again, each time offering something different. It allows each student to practice extended speaking without pressure.
Estimated time: 2 minutes per turn (try to let all students have a turn)
Energy level: 1/5
Materials: Writing materials
Suitable for: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced learners
How to play
Everyone gets ready to draw. Choose one student to tell everyone what they should draw. Give them 1 minute (you can extended this if you want).
At the end of the time, have a look at everyone’s pictures. Did they draw the right thing?
Advanced version: Give the speaker an image. They have to communicate what’s in the image without the drawers seeing it. At the end, compare the drawings with the real picture.
Silly version: To add some extra spice, have the drawers shut their eyes. The results are hilarious.
The first time you play, you should be the speaker, to model what kind of things to say and give them an idea of pace. For example:
First of all, draw a beach with the sea next to it. PAUSE. In the middle of the beach, there’s a palm tree with three coconuts. PAUSE. Under the palm tree, draw three baby turtles and their mum. PAUSE. It’s sunny, with two small clouds in the sky.
If you have a small group (4 or less) who are calm and respectful, allow listeners to ask questions (how big, where in the picture). If the class is bigger, or students are noisy, getting bombarded by lots of questions is very stressful for the speaker.
TIPS:
- Don’t treat this like an art competition. There are no points for drawing well, instead students should focus on listening to their classmate speaking.
- The time limit is there to speed the speaker up. If they’re really slow and struggling with confidence, give them a bit more time.
- Let students be creative. They can have students draw whatever they like (as long as it’s clean and respectful!)
- Consider extending the time limit to five minutes and playing some relaxing music. That means the speaker has more time to practice, and they don’t feel rushed.
Say and Draw is a great example of a game you can play with just pen and paper. For more games like that, head to my list: 9 Superb EFL/ESL Games & Activities Using Just Pen & Paper.
2. Most Likely
Most Likely is a fun game that helps students express reasons why they think something.
Estimated time: 10-30 minutes
Energy level: 3/5
Materials: Writing materials
Suitable for: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced learners
How to play
The game is played in several rounds, depending on how much time you have. Every round begins with a question that goes: “Who is most likely to…”
For example, “Who is most likely to become a famous singer?“
All students secretly write who they think is most likely out of all the people in the class. Then they show their answers and you calculate who got the most votes (there are no prizes for getting the most).
Students should explain why they chose who they did, giving explanations suitable for their level of English.
The game is best with smaller groups who already have an element of trust between them. If they don’t know each other well, it’s going to be difficult for them to answer questions, so if it’s a group of strangers, perhaps this is best avoided.
TIPS:
- Provide the first few questions, but later have intermediate/advanced students come up with their own.
- Avoid questions which might cause conflict or hurt feelings.
- This isn’t a competition – there are no points for getting the most votes, or anything like that. It’s only a bit of fun.
3. Memory Chain
Memory Chain isn’t designed specifically for speaking practice. But, it gets beginner and less confident students saying longer and longer sentences, building their confidence.
Estimated time: 10-15 minutes
Energy level: 3/5
Materials: None
Suitable for: Beginner and Intermediate learners
How to play
Get everyone sitting so there’s a clear turn order (either a line or a circle).
Start the chain with a sentence like, “I went to the mall, and I bought ________”. Then say something you bought there (it’s imaginary, so it can be anything) for example, “a pair of shoes”.
The next person in order repeats the sentence you said and adds an extra item. For example, “I went to the mall, and I bought a pair of shoes and a book about music.”
Continue along the line (or around the circle) with each student adding one more item, until it’s such a long chain that you can’t remember it anymore, or you run out of time.
Although the base game isn’t for advanced students, you can adapt it to challenge them. Instead of saying individual items, they can add adjectives, and even move the story on. For example, “I went to the mall, and I bought a pair of brown leather shoes, a sparkly handbag, then I took the bus to the city centre.”
This is a collaborative game. If you treat it like a competition, it’ll be stressful. Instead, have students help each other using gestures to remind them of what the next item is (pointing to their feet for shoes, miming reading a book, etc.). Students love making the chain longer and longer together.
TIPS
- You can focus on certain vocab, or a familiar topic by changing the starter sentence.
- Get students to show off their vocabulary. Ban easy words, and praise students who say things that are more advanced, or even add adjectives.
One of the great things about Memory Chains is that you can play the game without any preparation. For more no-prep EFL/ESL games, check out my list: 9 EFL/ESL Games With No Materials or Preparation Needed.
4. Spyfall
Spyfall is a board game you can pick up for a reasonable price, and has become a hit in several of my private classes. It involves asking and answering questions, all the while trying to figure out who the spy is.
Group size is important for this game. You need a minimum of four (that can include you, the teacher) and a maximum of eight. If you have a larger class, you can divide them into groups, playing separate games in parallel.
Estimated time: 10 minutes per round
Energy level: 3/5
Materials: Spyfall board game
Suitable for: Intermediate and Advanced learners
I could write out all the instructions here, but I think it’s easier to give you a video (plus you can read the rules when you get the game).
The rules aren’t super complicated, but they’ll take a round or two to get used to.
TIPS:
- With less confident students (and when you first start playing the game), ignore the specific roles on each card. Instead let students be “themselves” in that place.
- Avoid questions about what things are in the picture. They should ask general questions about that place, like “how often do people normally go here” instead of “how many people are here right now?”
5. Who Am I? (or What Am I?)
A classroom favourite, Who Am I? (or What Am I?) gets students constructing questions and improving their speaking skills.
Estimated time: 5 minutes per round
Energy level: 2/5
Materials: None
Suitable for: Beginner and Intermediate learners
How to play
Pick a category of vocab, like famous people, animals, characters in movies, etc.
Choose one student and show them a name/word in the category. For example, Cristiano Ronaldo.
The rest of the class ask yes/no questions to figure out who they are, until someone makes a correct guess – they then take the place of the first student, with a new name/word.
To encourage everyone to speak, have students take turns asking questions, rather than choosing from those with their hands up.
TIPS:
- You can play this game with very low-level students. If you do, put some example questions on the board to help them out.
- Some students (especially young kids) tend to make guesses too quickly, instead of finding out information. Enforce the rule that making a wrong guess means you can’t ask any more questions/make any more guesses that round.
6. Alibi
An EFL/ESL classic. If you haven’t heard of this game before, then you’re missing out. It’s a fantastic game for longer sessions with intermediate and advanced students, making sure they speak a lot.
Estimated time: 30-40 minutes
Energy level: 2/5
Materials: Paper and pen
Suitable for: Intermediate and Advanced learners
For this game, you’ll need at least 6 players. As a teacher, you can be a player yourself. If you have a bigger group (more than 10), consider playing two games at once.
It also helps to have two separate rooms, to help avoid cheating, but it’s not necessary.
How to play
Part 1
Two players are criminals. They did a crime and are to be questioned about it (let your students invent the crime – robbery in Bangkok or carjacking in Mexico City… it doesn’t really matter).
The criminals leave the room. Give them 10 minutes to devise a false alibi for what they did on the day of the crime. It must include 3 places they visited, and they must have been together the whole time.
It’s important they think about details, as they’ll get found out if their stories are inconsistent.
Meanwhile, divide the remaining students into two teams of detectives. During the ten minutes while the criminals are outside, they should come up with questions to ask the criminals. They only know that the criminals visited three different places, and were together the whole time.
Part 2
One criminal goes to get questioned by one team of detectives, while the other goes to the second detective team. If you have two rooms, separate the detective teams (and criminals), so they can’t cheat by communicating with each other.
The detectives have 5 minutes to ask questions they prepared (and any others they invent in the moment). They should take notes.
Important rule: “I don’t know” or phrases to that effect are not allowed. Criminals must respond with concrete information, and do so without time-wasting.
When the five minutes are over, criminals switch to the other detective team for interrogation. Detectives should ask questions in order to find inconsistencies between the two alibis.
Resolution
Detectives look at their notes. If they identify 3 differences between the alibis, they can put both the criminals in prison (detectives win). If there aren’t 3 significant differences, there isn’t enough proof to lock them up – the criminals win!
WARNING: Students will want to play this game again and again, with the role of criminal being most desirable. You may have to schedule several sessions to give everyone a chance.
TIPS:
- Change the number of inconsistencies required to make it easier or harder for criminals. Up the requirement to 4 or 5 if the criminals always get caught, or cut it to 2 if detectives often struggle.
- Don’t be lenient with timings. Criminals will always want more than ten minutes, but it’s unfair to give them more.
- Make sure criminals don’t talk to each other during the interrogation phase, as this would be cheating. If you only have one room, organise it so criminals can’t see or talk to each other.
7. Go Fish
A classic card game for all ages, Go Fish is limited in the variety of language used, but it’s a good way to get less confident students speaking. It’s great for a bit of fun at the end of a lesson.
Estimated time: 15 minutes
Energy level: 2/5
Materials: Deck of standard playing cards
Suitable for: Beginner and Intermediate learners
You need group sizes of about 3 to 8, but you can split up larger groups and have multiple games (requiring multiple decks).
Like with Spyfall, a video is probably the best way to explain the rules, so here you go:
Asking questions in English is often problematic, as you have to change the position of the auxiliary verb and subject in the sentence. Using Go Fish, you can help students get it right and grow in confidence.
TIPS
Teach students different ways of asking questions
- Do you have any sixes?
- Have you got any nines?
- Can you give me any aces?
- Please, hand me all your queens.
Also, think about different ways you can say yes/no.
- Of course
- Here you go
- Absolutely
- I’m afraid I don’t have any
- Nope, not this time
- Sorry, I can’t do that.
It’s amazing how much amazing teaching you can do in EFL/ESL with a simple deck of playing cards. For more ideas, check out my list: 9 Fun EFL/ESL Games & Ideas With Standard Playing Cards.
8. Psychiatrist
Psychiatrist is an adaptable and fun game that has students developing their speaking no matter what their level of English is.
Estimated time: 5-10 minutes per round
Energy level: 3/5
Materials: None
Suitable for: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced learners
How to play
Pick a student to be the psychiatrist (choose 2 or 3 for a big class). Ask them to leave the room for a moment.
The remaining students are patients with some sort of “condition”. Everyone has the same condition, and you should all agree on it (at first, tell students what the condition is until they get the idea of the game)
For instance, the condition is everyone thinks they’re a pirate.
When you’ve decided, invite the psychiatrist back into the room. They now ask questions to the patients who respond according to their condition (talking about pirate things). It’s important not to make it too obvious, or the game will be over very quickly.
Once the psychiatrist has asked some questions (to all or most of the patients), they can guess what the condition is. Alternatively, they can continue asking questions to get more info.
If they guess right, congratulate them and choose another student to be the psychiatrist.
TIPS:
- With beginner students, choose simple conditions. Kids enjoy acting out their conditions, but make sure it’s not too obvious.
- After a few rounds, let students come up with ideas for conditions. Make sure they’re appropriate and not too specific (a bad idea would be “we are afraid of spiders” because it’s very unlikely the psychiatrist will ask about that).
9. Role plays
While not technically games, role plays are wonderful ways of boosting confidence in speaking English. I absolutely love them.
I’ve had students go from near silent to chatting freely with role plays. What’s more, they’re infinitely flexible to cover students’ interests, adjust to their ability, and can last just a few minutes, or up to an hour.
For those who aren’t familiar with role plays in EFL/ESL, they’re the improvised enactment of a given imaginary scenario. They’re unscripted, and don’t have a specific end goal.
For example, the students are at the beach, buying an ice cream, when suddenly a dolphin washes up on shore. What do they do? Through conversation and a little bit of acting, they can go through the process of buying the ice creams, then figure out how to solve the dolphin problem.
To take things to the next level, you can add dice rolls to determine if your students’ attempted actions work or not. Maybe they try to pick up the dolphin, but they roll a “1” and they can’t do it, instead, injuring their arm!
At this point, you’ve got a basic tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG). That’s the next level of role playing, and I’ve had immense success with these, both for learning new English and really getting shy students to express themselves.
For my money, role plays are the best EFL/ESL activity for improving speaking skills. Learn more by reading my articles: Why All EFL/ESL Teachers Should Use Role Play Activities, Teaching EFL/ESL to Teenagers & Adults With Role Play, and How to Teach Children EFL/ESL With Role Play.
Modify, adapt, adjust
The games on this list can be used in many different ways. As a teacher, you’re in the privileged position of knowing your students better than almost anyone else, and you know what’s best for them. So feel free to change these games and tailor them to make a better experience for your students.
And while you’re playing, keep in mind why you’re doing it. To help students get more confident speaking. If they’re not progressing in the right direction, consider adjusting the game on the fly, or ending it early to focus on something else.
And ultimately, be patient with your students. Overcoming mental barriers, fear, and embarrassment takes time and lots of gentle encouragement. Games are just one way of helping them on that wonderful journey.
Beyond these 9 games, I have a whole load of brilliant EFL/ESL games. You can get my free ebook with 20 games by simply signing up to the Enchanted ESL Newsletter, from which you’ll also get monthly emails with loads more games, role-play scenarios and lesson plans, all for free!
If you’re looking for more games and activities, check out my other lists:
9 EFL/ESL Speaking Games & Activities Perfect for Beginners
9 EFL/ESL Games & Activities for Intermediate Learners
9 EFL/ESL Games and Activities for Advanced Learners
9 High Energy EFL/ESL Games for Boosting Vocabulary
9 Engaging Homework Ideas for EFL/ESL: No worksheets!
9 Exciting EFL/ESL Activities for Writing & Spelling
9 Fun EFL/ESL Games & Ideas With Standard Playing Cards
9 EFL/ESL Games With No Materials or Preparation Needed
9 EFL/ESL 5 Minute Games Every Teacher Needs to Know
9 Superb EFL/ESL Games & Activities Using Just Pen & Paper
9 Classy EFL/ESL Games & Activities for Adults (+ tips)
9 Confidence-Boosting EFL/ESL Speaking Games for All Levels
9 Exciting Flashcard Games for EFL/ESL Classes
