[mesmark]

Do you play any board games in your classes? If so, which ones do you find the most effective?

[biskitchan]

I've had a lot of success using ESL games in the classroom. Many of them I've made myself, and while I'll try to post some of my favorites online in the future, here's some commercial board games that I recommend:

I've had success using the 'Game of Life' with intermediate and high school students. It's a classic (not specifically designed for the classroom). Sometimes I teach it to top off a module on life values: do you live to work or work to live etc and topics/grammar relating to that.

Scratch My Back card game is also a really interesting and fun to play ESL game for intermediate and advanced students. It takes a little while to learn (from a teaching perspective), but the language is really practical and natural and it's the one game that my students seem keen to play again and again.

Go fish: A very simple yet effective card game for low beginners and children. There's not a lot of grammar involved besides 'do you have a _______', but that in itself is a useful grammar building block that many beginners confuse. it's strength is that it only requires a standard deck, and gets students to concentrate in English (especially if you introduce harsh penalties for using other languages). They seem to enjoy it a lot as well.

Wordup (think trivial pursuit for the classroom) is a good time filler / grammar brush up for beginners through to high intermediates.

Scrabble: for advanced students. I don't really use this in class (as it's too time consuming and questionable whether students get value for their time and money) but i sometimes set it for homework (online), or have it set up in my waiting room for students to play before class.

[bread_baker]

I have made some of my own board games, too. I think it's really important to design a game so that it is different every time it is played. That is a challenge. But I don't want students to play a game one time, and then not be interested in playing it again.
For Intermediate and Advanced adult ESL students, I have had good luck with board games that use speaking prompts. When a person lands on a space, he/she talks at length about the topic of the prompt.