4 Interesting English Games for the Classroom

Photo Courtesy – Jimmie

The language arts are one of the most significant educational components of a child’s academic career. A solid grounding in the language arts helps build a foundation for good communication skills and encourages lifelong learning. But a lot of kids struggle with the subject and teachers need to find ways to make it fun and interesting. Here are four English games that make the subject easier for struggling students and challenge those who find it interesting.

1. Visualize and Write

This English game encourages kids to script their own life stories.
Suitable for – Ages 8 and above

You will need:

• Paper and pens for everyone

Instructions:

• Ask everyone to close their eyes, take a deep breath and relax.
• Once everyone is quiet and comfortable, ask them to simply listen to your voice and create their own images.
• Say, “Imagine you’re in a room doing something that makes you extremely happy, something that you really love to do. What you’re doing also makes your family, friends and loved ones also very happy. Imagine how thrilled you feel.”
• After a while have them open their eyes and write down in detail the images they visualized.

2. Race Against Time

Elementary students get a chance to build vocabulary and learn how to use the dictionary with this exciting English game.

Suitable for – 2^nd through 5^th grades

You will need:

• One dictionary per student

Instructions:

• Instruct everyone to listen carefully as you give them a difficult word.
• They have two minutes in which to hunt for that word in their dictionaries.
• Eliminate students who failed to find the word within the stipulated time.
• Increase the difficulty level for each round.
• Continue the game until just a few students are left and then have a final standoff for the final four or five contenders.

3. Punctuation Test

This classic English game tests students’ spelling and punctuation skills.

Suitable for - 2^nd through 5^th grades

You will need:

• Whiteboard
• Markers

Instructions:

• Divide the class into 2 teams.
• Ask everyone to listen carefully as you read or say a long sentence aloud.
• Make sure you enunciate each word carefully.
• Invite one student from each team to simultaneously write the sentence (with the appropriate punctuation) on the board.
• The child who first writes it correctly wins a point for his team.
• Have at least 10 rounds if this activity.
• Total the points at the end and award a prize to the team with the most points.

4. Can you Name it?

Test how well students have mastered the parts of speech with this fun English game!

Suitable for – 2^nd through 7^th grades (The difficulty level can be adjusted to suit the grade.)

Instructions:

• Divide the class into two teams.
• Ask everyone to listen carefully as you give them a word or phrase.
• Have them identify the part of speech it belongs to.
• The team that first correctly identifies it, scores a point.

The team with the most points wins.