Best Games for Practicing English Vocabulary Words
Are you looking for classroom games for practicing English vocabulary words? Well, I’m sharing my top favorite games I’ve used to teach English vocabulary to primary school students.
I taught English in Spain as an auxiliar de conversación. In this role, I assisted main classroom teachers during academic and extracurricular subjects taught in the English language at a bilingual primary school.
When beginning a new chapter or topic, I found it to be necessary to first start by introducing new English vocabulary to my students. Next, I needed my students to practice speaking, hearing, spelling, and otherwise recognizing those English vocabulary words so that they could follow along during the lesson.
To practice English vocabulary words with my students, I used lots of games to keep them engaged and to get them excited about using English in class.
Classroom games make English language learning—and learning in general—more interactive. As a result, games can be great ways to practice new vocabulary words as a class.
Especially for young English language learners like the first, second, and third grade primary school students I worked with, games are helpful for practicing English vocab words. Games keep lessons fun and engaging, and students must be engaged to improve their understandings of the lesson at hand.
Below, I share what I think are the best games for practicing English vocabulary words in primary school classrooms.
Categories
Though this game might be a bit difficult with first and second graders, I’ve found it to be a super engaging activity to teach English to third graders. Here’s how you play.
How to Play:
Divide students into teams of four to six people.
Give students a category (i.e. fruits, chores, etc.), and start a timer.
Before the timer ends, each team must write down as many English words as they can think of that belong in that category.
When the timer ends, make each group read aloud the words they came up with. Give them one point for each English word/phrase that correctly fits in that category.
Repeat steps 1-4 with different categories.
To get all students to participate, a different team member must be the one to write down the words each round. That way, all students will get a chance to practice spelling and writing words in English. Also, a different team member must read the words aloud each round. This will allow all students to get a chance to speak English during the game.
Teaching English Vocabulary:
Categories can be played with a wide variety of topics to practice and reinforce English vocabulary. That’s what’s so great about this game for teaching English vocabulary words: you can use it for pretty much any subject.
Since this is a team-based game, students will have to speak aloud the English vocabulary words that they want to write down for each category. And each round, a different member of the team will get practice writing a few vocabulary words in English.
Hangman
Hangman is a very simple game, and it’s a great way to work on spelling and vocabulary review. Since it is so easy, it’s especially helpful for ESL students who are working on learning the alphabet. But since you can use any word, phrase, or sentence, the game can be made more complex, too.
Hangman is such a common game, I won’t bore you by describing how to play here. But below, you’ll see my ideas for using the game to practice English vocabulary words.
Teaching English Vocabulary:
Hangman is probably the classroom game that I’ve found is most easily adaptable for any subject. You can use any English vocabulary word—or even a phrase or sentence—as the answer. So, you can apply this game to any topic.
Since Hangman involves spelling, all of the students in the class will have to think about how to spell the word they’re trying to guess in English. So naturally, this game is excellent for practicing English spelling.
If you’re working with slightly older students, you can even select someone from the class to lead the game (one at a time, of course). Just make sure you tell them that they must choose an English vocabulary word from class.
Wordwall Quiz Games
If you’ve got a way to project a computer screen for the class to view, you can use Wordwall quizzes and other games to practice English vocabulary words with your class. Wordwall is a website that allows teachers to create and share online teaching and learning activities, such as games and quizzes.
You can create up to five of your own Wordwall resources with the free account. But you can also take advantage of any of the public educational resources created by other teachers.
Teaching English Vocabulary:
To begin using Wordwall for practicing English vocabulary, first search the site for the topic you’re teaching your students. Then, you can peruse the resources created by other teachers on the topic. You can use one of these with your class, or you can get some inspiration and create your own! You can also make a copy of an already existing public Wordwall resource and edit it on your page.
If you don’t find what you’re looking for in the list of resources already created by other teachers, you can create your own game to practice English vocab. For practicing English vocabulary, I recommend using one of the following Wordwall activities: quiz, random wheel, match up, and group sort. If those don’t suit your fancy, there are plenty of other styles of Wordwall resources to choose from.
Picture Games
Some of my favorite ways to get students to practice speaking or writing English vocabulary words is by displaying pictures on the board and telling them to guess (by raising their hands and speaking or by writing down) which word the picture refers to.
Teaching English Vocabulary:
I create picture games by adding photos I find online to a Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. Depending on the students’ level and how much we’ve already practiced these English vocabulary words in class, I may or may not have some multiple choice options written on the slides next to the photos.
Here’s an example. My third graders were learning about animal classification, and I wanted them to practice the following vocabulary words: mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, and fish. So, I displayed slides with photos of different animals, and written on each slide was the following question, “Is it a mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, or fish?” The students had to raise their hands and respond in a complete sentence (i.e. “It is a mammal.”).
Picture games can be played with pretty much any subject. If there’s a visual representation of the English vocabulary words, you can use this game to practice them!
I hope you and your students find these games to be fun, engaging, and helpful for practicing English vocabulary words in class!
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