EFL Vocabulary Games
In the Trinity exams, it’s important that students have a wide range of vocabulary about each of the subject areas. But learning vocabulary can be a chore – students need to meet and use the language on many occasions to acquire it, and this can get boring.
It’s amazing what a few vocabulary games can do to relieve the boredom and the slog of vocabulary learning. Here are ten of our favourites – they can be used as a warmer at the beginning of the class, as an activity to fill a spare few minutes, or you can make them part of your regular classes. Enjoy!
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Vocabulary tennis.
Before beginning the game, think of some categories of vocabulary you want to revise. These shouldn’t be too ‘big’. For example, for GESE 4/ISE Foundation, don’t use the topic ‘Food’, but split this up into smaller topics – ‘cold drinks’, ‘types of meat’, ‘vegetables’, etc.
Split the class into two teams. Say the name of a topic to one team and they name a vocabulary item in that category. Then the other team has to name something. Continue until one team repeats a word, can’t think of something, gets it wrong, or takes too long.
Award points using the tennis system – 15-love, 15-all, etc. You can use one subject area until a team wins a game then move onto another subject area.
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Vocabulary Lists
Put students into small groups. Each group has one piece of paper and a pencil. Name a vocabulary category and students have to write as many words/phrases as they can in that category in one minute. Spelling isn’t important.
When one minute is up, ask one team to read out their list. The other students listen and all teams cross off any words that another team has also got on their list. Then the next team reads out the words on their list that haven’t been crossed out, and so on. After all the teams have been through their lists, points are awarded only for those words that only one team thought of, i.e., the words that are not crossed out. This encourages students to think a little bit outside the box and improves their range of vocabulary.
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Back to the board
Split students into two teams. One student from one team sits with their back to the board. Give students a category and the other team have to write a word or phrase from that category on the board. The playing team have one minute to describe the word or phrase to the student with their back to the board. If they guess correctly within the time, the team gets a point. Swap over.
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Taboo – easy version
In this version of the game ‘Taboo’, give each student about 5 small blank pieces of paper and ask them to write down one word or phrase from a particular category on each. This category can be quite wide – you can use one of the subject areas from the Trinity syllabus. These pieces of paper are all put into a box.
Split the class into two teams. Each team takes it in turns to have one person pull out pieces of paper and try to explain the word for their team to guess without using the word or their first language. After one minute count up the papers they got right and then swap. Keep going until the papers are finished.
This helps students with their paraphrasing skills.
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Taboo – difficult version
Do the same as above, but ask students to write three words below the word that must be guessed that are associated with the word. For example:
HOTEL
Holiday
Room
Sleep
Then, when the students play the game, they can’t say any of the three words below the word either. Someone from the other team should look over the speaker’s shoulder and check they are not using the words.
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Fill the board
Split the class into two or three teams. Split the board into as many sections as there are teams. The teams stand in a line next to the board with one board pen per team. Give a category and the first student from each team writes a word in their part of the board. Then they pass the pen to the next person in their team who writes another word.
At the end of the time limit (2-3 minutes), go through the board and award points. You can give one point for the word and another point if it is spelt correctly. You can also give points for teams who have words that other teams haven’t thought of.
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Test me
This is a non-competitive activity. Students work in pairs with a list of vocabulary. Each student describes one of the words on the list and the other has to say what they are describing. Good revision before a vocabulary test.
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Categories
Put the six conversation subject areas on the board and split students into pairs (five for ISE II). Each pair writes the six categories on a piece of paper. Give students a letter and they have to write a word associated with each subject area beginning with that letter on their paper. When the pair is finished, they raise their hands and you check if they are correct. First team to finish gets 5 points, second team gets 3 and third team gets 1. Repeat with other letters.
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What am I thinking of?
This is a similar game to 20 questions. Give students a category and ask one student to think of something in that category. The other students have to ask yes/no questions to try and find out which word they are thinking of.
- Charades
An oldie but a goodie! Ask students to write down words and phrases related to one of the subject areas on pieces of paper and then students take it in turns to act out the phrase. You can split the class into two teams and award points, or just play for fun.
Have fun playing these vocabulary games! Let us know in the comments what other games you play :)