Place an open book at the front of the room and choose a paragraph from it. Split students into two teams and seat them at the back of the room. Designate a writer for each team. Set a timer for five minutes and have students take turns coming to the front, reading one sentence from the paragraph and verbally relaying it to the writer. The next student cannot come up until the writer has finished with the current sentence. The first team to correctly write down the entire paragraph wins.
Put students into two teams. Call one student from each team to the board and read a grammatically incorrect sentence aloud; for example, "She had went to the store." Students must identify your mistake and write the corrected version on the board. Play 10 rounds.
Give each student a sheet of paper. On the board write, "Who? What? Why? How? When? Where? How often? Which? How many?" You can add other questions depending on the number of students. Tell each student to answer the first question (Who?) with a sentence; for example, "This morning, I saw the man who lives next door." After they write their sentence, tell them to fold the paper over the sentence and pass it to the student behind them. The next student will answer the question "What?" with another sentence, such as "He was holding a large paper bag." Continue until all questions have been answered. You'll end up with funny and nonsensical stories.
Play "Mad Libs" with your students. Create your own Mad Libs sheet. Make it as long as you wish and use a variety of parts of speech depending on your students' level. Put them in pairs and pass out the sheets. Tell students that only one of them should see the sheet; the other should supply the missing words. When everyone is finished, read the stories aloud for laughs and to correct any mistakes.
Put students into groups of three. List 10 level-appropriate categories on the board, such as Jobs, Cars, Food or Clothing. Tell students you will pick a letter and they will have two minutes to think of a word for each category beginning with the letter you have chosen. For example, if you pick 'm,' a possible job is 'manager.' When two minutes is up, award a point for each unique answer. Duplicate answers get no points, so students are encouraged to think beyond the obvious.
Put students into two teams and pass out a copy of the same book to each student (it should have about as many pages as you have students). Tell students they have five minutes to read the book. When they protest, give them a hint: they have teammates. Students should figure out that each team member should read one or two pages and report to the rest of the team. Afterward, collect the books and give students a worksheet with questions about the book.
Get several copies of an English-language newspaper and pass them out among your students. For lower levels, practice pronunciation and build vocabulary by taking turns reading aloud. For higher levels, tell students to choose a story, read it and tell the class about it. Or, give students 10 minutes to read through the newspaper, and then collect them. Have students write as many new words as they can remember, and then discuss the words as a class. You could also create a list of questions about articles in the newspaper and have students work with a partner to find the answers. Don't use yes-or-no questions; the students should have to read and draw conclusions to find the answer.