Using drama to teach ESL can help bring out students' innate creativity and reinforce new vocabulary. Split students into groups and tell them to reenact a scene from a favorite movie. Other groups will try to guess the movie.
Or, give teams of students a scenario, such as standing in line at a movie, and tell them to work out a script and events. Don't give them any further guidance. You could also use improv. Briefly explain the concept of improv to your students and give them a list of vocabulary words that you want them to use in their act. Tell them to take one minute, in groups, to decide on a scenario, roles and a brief script. The results can often be entertaining, but are almost always effective in making vocabulary "stick."
Split students into teams and put them in the back of the room. Choose one student on each team to write. Place a written paragraph on a sheet of paper at the front of the room. Team members take turns coming to the paper and memorizing one sentence, then repeating it to the writer. The first team to finish wins.
You could also use illustrations to compete. Write a list of five words on 10 or 15 slips of paper. All the words should be different. Put students in teams and call one student from each team to the blackboard. Give each a slip of paper. They must illustrate the words on the paper so that their team members guess them. The first team to guess all five words correctly wins.
If you insist that your students speak only English, puzzles can be extremely effective for teaching ESL. Use logic puzzles to get them thinking and speaking in English; for example, give them a picture of a street with five different houses and names and 10 clues, such as "Mrs. Jones likes to drink tea" and "Dr. Smith lives next door to the accountant." They must figure out who lives where on the street.
Or, write down a well-known fable or short story and cut the sentences into strips. Mix them up and give them to the students to put in order. After they complete the puzzle successfully, ask your students to explain their logic in choosing the story's arrangement.
Write down a list of 25 to 30 vocabulary words, split students into teams and distribute magazines and newspapers to each team. Have teams cut out a picture that illustrates each vocabulary word. When everyone is finished, tell students to explain why they chose each picture.
You could also use timed activities to get students thinking fast. Send one student out of the classroom and choose another to be the scorekeeper. With your students, choose a category, such as jobs or food, and then call the student back in. Tell her she has 20 or 30 seconds to name as many things in the selected category as she can. Choose a different category for each student. Tally the votes after every student has had a turn and award candy to the top three. You can also do this activity with two teams; just designate two scorekeepers.