English Teachers Resources

English Classroom Games by Grade

Games chosen for what each grade is actually learning, not a list that could belong to any class. Every one works with no equipment and forty-five pupils.

Classroom games
By grade
No equipment
Large classes
Free

Why these are arranged by grade

Most collections of classroom games are arranged by skill or by level, which leaves the teacher to work out whether a game fits the class in front of them. That is the hardest part, and it is the part usually left out.

These are arranged by grade instead, and each game is tied to language that grade is genuinely working on - so a Grade 7 game practises the past simple because Grade 7 is learning the past simple, and a Grade 10 game practises the kind of writing the Ordinary Level paper will ask for.

Choose a grade

Grade 1

Listening, repeating and doing - colours, numbers, animals, classroom things, and following an instruction in English.

Grade 2

Short sentences instead of single words - plurals, this and that, family, the body, and simple questions.

Grade 3

Can and can't, where things are, days and weather, likes and dislikes, and the first written sentences.

Grade 4

The past simple, comparing two things, describing a person or a room, and telling somebody what you did.

Grade 5

Reading closely, putting sentences in order, giving reasons, and writing three or four connected sentences.

Grade 6

Introductions, the present simple and continuous, asking questions, and describing what is in front of you.

Grade 7

Telling what happened - the past simple and continuous, adverbs, giving instructions, and talking about the future.

Grade 8

The present perfect, reporting what somebody said, superlatives, and writing a short notice or message.

Grade 9

Conditionals, the passive, and the difference between formal and friendly English.

Grade 10

The writing formats the O/L paper asks for - notices, letters, dialogues, forms - done fast and to a word limit.

Grade 11

The O/L paper itself - each section done against a clock, marked against the criteria, and repaired.

The four things that decide whether a game teaches anything

A game that goes well is not the same as a game that taught something. These four decide which you get, and none of them is about the game itself.

Every pupil must produce language, not watch somebody produce it. A quiz where one pupil answers and forty-four listen is a quiz with an audience. Teams that all write, all say the sentence, or all stand up are the difference.
The rule must force the target language out. If a pupil can win by pointing or by saying one word, they will. The language you want has to be the only way to score.
Stop it early. A game stopped while the class still wants it can be used again next week. A game played until it dies cannot be used again at all.
Decide about mistakes before you start. Correct everything and the game stops being a game; correct nothing and it stops being a lesson. Most teachers note two or three errors and deal with them at the end, on the board, with no names.

Running a game in a class of forty-five

The commonest reason a teacher gives up on games is not the game. It is the four minutes of noise getting into teams and the four minutes getting back out, in a period of forty.

Use the rows you already have. Teams by row need no movement at all, and a class of forty-five is usually five or six teams without a single chair being shifted.
One sheet per row, passed along. It stops the confident pupil writing everything, and it needs no group work training.
Give the instructions before the teams, never after. Once a class is in teams it cannot hear you.
Have a stopping signal the class already knows and practise it once when nothing is at stake. A hand up, a clap pattern, anything - but the same one every time.
Write the score where everybody can see it. Half the discipline problems in a class game are disputes about the score.