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Grade 6 English Classroom Games

Eight games for a Grade 6 class, each tied to what this grade is actually learning: introductions, the present simple and continuous, asking questions, and describing what is in front of you.

  • Grade 6
  • Classroom games
  • No equipment
  • Large classes
  • Free

What a Grade 6 class needs from a game

Grade 6 classes arrive from several primary schools at once, and the spread of English in the room on the first day is wider than it will ever be again. A game that only the strongest quarter can play will teach you which quarter that is and nothing else.

So these are chosen for a mixed room. In most of them the rule sets the floor - a pupil with very little English can still take a full turn - and the variation line says how to raise the ceiling for the pupils who are already fluent, in the same game, at the same time.

Eight games, no equipment

None of these needs a photocopier, a projector or a set of cards. Every one says what to do when the class has forty-five pupils in it, because that is the class most teachers reading this have.

1 Introduce your partner

  • Time 8 minutes
  • Learners work Pairs, then the whole class
  • You need None

Language This is..., he lives..., she likes... - third person present simple

  1. Board four questions: What is your name? Where do you live? What do you like? What school were you in?
  2. In pairs, each pupil asks their partner all four and remembers the answers. No writing - it makes them listen.
  3. Then each pupil introduces their partner to the class in three sentences: This is Nirasha. She lives in Weliweriya. She likes netball.
  4. Take as many pairs as the period allows, and finish the rest next lesson rather than rushing them.

Variation Harder: the introducer may not look at their partner while speaking, and the partner may not correct them until the end.

Large class Twelve or fourteen introductions is a full period and that is fine; do a few rows each lesson for a week. The third person -s is the teaching point, and by the fortieth introduction the class hears it correctly.

2 What is happening now

  • Time 6 minutes
  • Learners work Whole class
  • You need None

Language Present continuous: he is writing, they are talking

  1. Do something small and obvious - open a book, look out of the window, write on the board - and ask what am I doing? The class answers in a full sentence.
  2. Then describe what somebody in the room is doing without naming them, and the class guesses who.
  3. Now the reverse: name a pupil, and the class says what that pupil is doing at that moment.
  4. Finish with five seconds of silence and ask what is happening in this room now? - which produces sentences like nobody is talking, and that is a harder sentence than it looks.

Variation Harder: add while - Sunil is writing while Kamala is reading.

Large class Everything is visible from anywhere in the room, so a class of fifty works as well as a class of twenty. Describe pupils from the back rows, who are rarely the subject of anything.

3 The classroom survey

  • Time 9 minutes
  • Learners work Rows
  • You need None

Language Questions in the present simple, and how many

  1. Give each row one question to ask: Do you walk to school? Do you have a brother? Do you like cricket? Do you watch the news?
  2. Each row asks its question of everybody in the row and counts the yes answers. Three minutes.
  3. Each row reports: In our row, seven pupils walk to school and two do not.
  4. Board the totals for the whole class and ask two comparison questions about them.

Variation Harder: each row invents its own question, which must be answerable with yes or no - itself a useful lesson.

Large class Rows do their own counting simultaneously, so the class of forty-five is surveyed in three minutes. Without rows this activity takes a full period and produces less.

4 Spelling relay

  • Time 6 minutes
  • Learners work Rows as teams
  • You need None

Language Spelling aloud, and the alphabet

  1. Call a word the class has learned. The first pupil in each row says the first letter, the second pupil the second letter, and so on along the row.
  2. If a pupil gives a wrong letter, the row starts that word again from the beginning - which makes the whole row listen rather than count ahead to their own turn.
  3. The first row to spell the word correctly to the end scores.
  4. Five or six words, choosing ones the class actually misspells in their books.

Variation Harder: longer words, or the row must say the word at the end before the point counts.

Large class Every pupil in every row speaks in every round, which is forty-five letters said aloud per word. Restarting on an error is the rule that does the teaching, so do not soften it.

5 The timetable gap

  • Time 7 minutes
  • Learners work Pairs
  • You need None

Language School subjects, days and times, and what do you have on...?

  1. Each pupil draws a blank timetable grid for three days and fills in only half the boxes, inventing them freely.
  2. Without showing each other, partners ask and answer to complete a copy of the other's timetable: What do you have on Monday at ten?
  3. When both are done they compare grids and count the mistakes.
  4. The mistakes are almost always mishearings of the time, which is worth two minutes at the end.

Variation Easier: use the class's real timetable and blank out different boxes for each partner.

Large class An information gap is the most reliable way to make forty-five pupils speak at once with a purpose, and it needs nothing but their exercise books.

6 True for me, true for you

  • Time 6 minutes
  • Learners work Whole class, standing and sitting
  • You need None

Language Present simple statements, and so do I / I don't

  1. Say a sentence about yourself: I drink tea in the morning. Pupils for whom it is also true stand and say so do I.
  2. Those for whom it is not stay seated and say I don't.
  3. After five of yours, pupils offer their own sentences. Board the starters they will need.
  4. The best moments are the sentences where almost the whole class stands, or almost nobody does, and it is worth pointing those out.

Variation Harder: negative sentences, which need neither do I - a genuinely difficult form, worth a whole round on its own.

Large class You can read forty-five answers in one glance. Pupils who look around before standing are the ones who have not understood, and that is useful information you cannot get from a worksheet.

7 Find somebody who

  • Time 8 minutes
  • Learners work Rows, without leaving the seat
  • You need None

Language Question forms, and reporting an answer

  1. Board six prompts: has a bicycle, can cook, was born in this town, likes mathematics, has been to Colombo, watches cricket.
  2. Pupils ask the four people nearest them - in front, behind and either side - to find one person for each prompt. Nobody stands up.
  3. The prompt must be turned into a real question: Can you cook?, not can cook?. Say this before starting or it will not happen.
  4. Report back: Dilani can cook. Ravi has a bicycle. Each pupil reports one only, going along the rows.

Variation Harder: a pupil may not use the same person twice, which forces them to ask more people.

Large class The usual version of this game has the class walking around, which costs six minutes and a great deal of noise in a room of forty-five. Asking the four nearest people produces the same language and none of the chaos.

8 The description box

  • Time 7 minutes
  • Learners work Pairs, then the whole class
  • You need None

Language Describing a place: there is, there are, and prepositions

  1. Each pupil writes five sentences describing a place in the school - the canteen, the library, the field - without naming it.
  2. In pairs they read their description and the partner guesses the place.
  3. Take four descriptions for the whole class to guess.
  4. Then improve one together on the board: ask the class which sentence gave it away, and which sentence was useless.

Variation Harder: the description may not contain any noun that is only found in that place, so books is banned for the library.

Large class Everybody writes and everybody guesses in pairs; only four go public. The improvement at the end is the real lesson and it involves the whole class at once.

Questions teachers ask

The class is enormous and I do not know their names yet.

Use the rows as the unit for the first month and do not try to learn forty-five names before you start playing. Several games below have pupils introduce themselves or each other, which is the fastest way to learn the names while teaching something.

A third of my class can barely read English.

Then avoid the games that need reading from the board for the first weeks, and use the oral ones. Every game here says what it needs. A pupil who cannot yet read can still say a sentence, and being able to take a full turn in front of the class is the thing that keeps them coming back to English.

Do these work for the new Grade 6 syllabus?

The language they practise - introductions, the present tenses, questions, describing - is what any Grade 6 English course covers in its first terms, so they fit the scheme rather than depending on it. Check the competency level you are working on and pick the game that produces that language.

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