educators and learners share in a Partner's Conference game session

Using games with your learners allows you to bring fun and enjoyment to your classroom while pursuing serious educational goals. Here are some suggestions and guidelines for using games with your adult learners.

Keeping educational goals clear:

Make sure that your learners are aware of the educational goals of the game.  Tell them very specifically what English or math skill is being practiced. Since for many adult learners, studying is supposed to be a serious endeavor, this will help them feel more comfortable about engaging in what they might otherwise see as frivolity. 

Choosing a game:

First think about what types of games you can use with your learners.

• Bingo (alphabet, money, sight words, pictures)
• Match up and memory games
• Board games (shopping, survival signs, citizenship)
• Picture and realia games
• Pantomime
• Relay races

Choose games that teach every day vocabulary or imitate real life activities as closely as possible to make it more relevant to your learners language goals. Some of these games can be bought from local stores that provide supplies for educators and some can be easily put together with paper and pencil, or classroom or household items.  

Integrating games into your curriculum:

After you've chosen your game, decide how you will give your ESL learners simple, concise directions by modeling the game or with a minimum amount of words. Map out how much class time you'll need to explain the game and play it.  Determine whether you want to use this game as a warm up at the beginning of a lesson or as follow up practice.

Most games are effective for practicing vocabulary or information that has been learned in class but requires repetition for long term retention. Games can be used to drill information immediately after it is learned, or they can be used to recall vocabulary or skills learned several lessons back or they can be used in the last five minutes of every class to give ongoing repetition for specific language skills.

To attend an MLC in-service on how to use games check the in-service calendar for upcoming trainings. For a list of games and publishers click here. For a lesson plan on using the farmer's market produce set for a relay game click here.