[Mr. E English]

Hi Mesmark,

Just one game from here on out you ask! Well for me that would have to be '20 questions'.

Of course, there's nothing new or difficult about '20 questions' - it's a real old ESL classic, but I love it because it's so easily adapted to any target language, it provides great speaking practice, set up is so straightforward and it can be used in any variety of classroom interaction - pairs / small groups / whole class.

So, the basic idea - student A thinks of a word. Student B questions student A using closed questions only. Student A can only answer 'yes' or 'no'. There is a limit of just 20 questions and when these are used up the students must guess the original word - or they can guess before using all the 20 questions if they think they know it.

For example -

Let's say you've been teaching nouns of basic household objects - chair, vase, lamp, television etc. Student A chooses one of these (and keeps it a secret of course). Student B questions -

"Is it electrical?" - No
"Is it found in the living room?" - Yes
"Is it made of wood?" - No
"is it soft?" - Yes
"Do people sit on it?" - Yes
"Is it a sofa?" - Yes

Or you've been teaching verbs for hobbies and leisure activities - swim, play golf, watch TV, go shopping -

"Do you do this inside?" - No
"Do you do this alone?" - No
"Do you use any special equipment to do this?" - Yes
"Do you need a ball to do this?" - Yes
"Is it soccer?" - No
"Is it tennis?" - Yes

This can also be adapted to practice grammatical tenses as well as vocabulary, for example the Past Simple -

"Did you do this inside?" - No
"Did you do this alone?" - No
"Did you use any special equipment to do this?" - Yes
"Did you need a ball to do this?" - Yes
"Was it soccer?" - No
"Was it tennis?" - Yes


Anyway, just one game but highly adaptable!