This game will help students form complete sentences and apply different grammatical structures. It can also encourage vocabulary use and creativity. The idea of this game is to collaborate and create an original story.
The first student writes the first sentence of the story, and each student after must write one sentence to contribute to the story. Once every student has added one sentence to the story, the teacher can read the story aloud for all the students to hear. To encourage the use of vocabulary words, the teacher can give each student a vocabulary word at the beginning of the game that they must use in their sentence.
Play Bingo to help students memorize vocabulary words and definitions. Make up a set of bingo cards, with a five-by-five grid of words. The object of the game is to get five spaces in a row. Provide the students with counting beans or some sort of object to mark the words with.
Read definitions, one at a time. When a definition is read, the students will try to find the matching word and mark the word with a counter. The first student to reach five words in a row shouts, "Bingo!" For preparation, it may be easier to use laminated cards and dry erase markers, so that the cards may be re-used.
Playing Pictionary is another way to remember vocabulary words. In order to play, the group should be divided into two teams. Members on each team work together to come up with words for the other team to guess, and they write each word or phrase on a slip of paper. In a classroom setting, the teacher can create the entries beforehand using the students' vocabulary list.
The first team picks one team member to be the artist. The artist draws a word, and when she is ready, the teacher starts the timer (30 seconds or another appropriate time). The artist, without any verbal hints or hand motions, must draw clues to get the rest of his team to guess the correct word. For teachers of English as a second language, divide the words into categories before starting. For example, the students can pick words that describe animals or sports.