The dilemma of every teacher of teenage students: how to get them to join in games and speak in English without making them feel embarrassed or shown up in front of the class. Of course, you can always adapt games that you use with elementary age students. I particularly like Cannons, Hearts and Bombs and drawing games like Pictionary. You can make them more appropriate and a bit more challenging for older classes. It’s good though to also have some EFL ESL games and activities for teenagers that are a bit more sophisticated and more suitable for this age group. You don’t need lots of technology or hours of preparation to do this. However, you do need to be organized and have ideas. These are my some of my favorite easy to teach, tried and tested EFL ESL games and activities for teenagers.
Make up the rules / you’re in charge
If you were the President, the Prime Minister, the Queen of the World, the Head Teacher, what would you do? This is a great game to get kids using their imaginations. I’ve found that they have loads of great ideas and get really involved. It’s a really good game to practice modal verbs and you can adapt it to lots of different subjects and vocabulary. Teach the verbs first and then you’re ready to do the activity.
- Put the class in pairs or in small groups
- Give them their role and tell them that they need to create a list of rules or laws for their country, school or whatever situation you choose
- Tell them how much time they have and leave them to discuss together and make their list
- When the time is up, get the class back together and get everyone to present their list of rules
- Debate together with the class whether each rule is realistic or efficient and let everyone have a say and give reasons
- Draw up a definitive list incorporating different ideas from each group/pair
- Ask the class to write up the list of rules and illustrate it
Do a survey
If you are looking for a way to get your class to practice asking and answering questions, a survey is a really practical way of doing this. Again, you can adapt it to any kind of subject or vocabulary that you are studying and it’s a great way to get the kids working independently. You can carry out the survey in your class or even in other school classes, on other teachers or on the general public.
- First of all, the class need to decide what questions they want to ask to gather information. They can do this on their own, in pairs or in small groups
- They then need to write their survey based on these questions. Will it be a multiple choice questionnaire or will there be longer answers? Check their work to make sure everything is clear.
- Now it’s time to do the survey. Who are they going to survey and where? Maybe have a short practice in class first to make sure everyone knows what they are doing.
- Once they have all the responses to their surveys, you can discuss the results together in class and then write them up.
Invent something
Another activity where your class will really need to use their imagination. You can use this activity for practically any subject. If you’re learning about cities, get the students to invent a new method of public transport or an eco-house. If you’re learning about sport, ask them to invent a new form of sports equipment to improve performance. Design a board game, a piece of furniture, a car, clothing, a new meal for the school canteen, anything you want really. In my Dinosaur Comparatives lesson, we made a Dinosaur Top Trumps card game to play together. If you have enough materials and time, you could then make a model in class of your invention.
- Present the project to the class and explain what you want them to invent without giving them too many ideas
- Decide if they will work alone, in pairs or in groups and give them the material they need for their design
- While they are discussing and drawing up their design, go around the class and ask each group about their ideas
- When the time is up, ask each group to present their idea to the class. They need to describe what it is, how it works and how it is made
- If you have time and materials, ask each group to make a model of their idea and try it out.
What comes next? Tell a story
This is a really fun game to play at the beginning of a class as a warmer or if you have some time to fill up at the end. It’s really easy to do and you end up with a funny story that everyone has contributed to. If you are practicing a particular tense or topic, you can make everyone use that when contributing their part. Otherwise, let your imaginations go wild and see what you come up with.
- Introduce your story and explain that you’re going to go around the class and as you get to each student, they have to contribute a sentence.
- Start the story yourself and then move on to the next person.
- When you have gone all around the class, finish the story with a funny or dramatic ending
- You could also do this as a written exercise where everybody has a piece of paper and writes an introductory sentence and then passes it on. If you do it this way, you will end up with lots of different stories which could be fun to illustrate and display in class.
Role Play
I love doing role play exercises with older students. I think it is the best way to get them using real life, practical English that they will find useful in the real world. You can do a role play for so many different subjects: transport, restaurants and hotels, school, jobs, city life. You can see how I have used it in my Dinosaur Food lesson to make a dinosaur restaurant.
- Choose your subject and explain what you want the class to do
- Put them in pairs or small groups and give them time to invent their role play and practice
- Let each group present their role play to the class
- If you want to do a written activity too, let them write up their role play and illustrate it
There are so many different EFL ESL games and activities for teenagers that you can play in class. These are some of my favorites because they are so easy to teach and do but you can probably think of others. Have a look at some of my other teaching ideas too. If you are looking for online games to do in class, have a look at the Games4ESL website where there is a huge choice. To stay up to date with new posts and teaching ideas, you can follow the GoogooEnglish Facebook page. Otherwise, sign up for email updates by filling in the form below.