Best Physical Education Games for Teaching English
Physical education games can be a great way to teach English using interactive activities. PE games can help reinforce English vocabulary words while getting your students moving—which can be especially helpful with young, elementary school English language learners.
As an auxiliar de conversación, I taught English through physical education class to first, second, and third grade primary school students in Spain. Since I taught at a bilingual school, I taught English directly through core classes rather than through separate language classes.
To integrate the English language into PE classes, I simply used English when I spoke to the students. For instance, I led the students through warm-up exercises and stretching using English. This was a great way to get the students to hear and practice English vocabulary for body parts. I used English, accompanied by lots of miming movements, to explain the rules to physical education games.
I also intentionally searched for and created PE games that incorporated English words to give the students opportunities to hear and speak English. In this post, I share my favorite physical education games for teaching English to primary school students. If you’re working with older students, you still might find some of these games useful, too.
Here are my best PE games for teaching English as a second language (ESL).
6. Simon Says
I’m kicking off this list of my top six PE games for teaching English with a classic: Simon Says. It’s such a classic, my students in Spain already knew it, as Simón dice.
You likely already know how to play Simon Says, but in case you don’t, here are the instructions.
How to Play:
The students stand in a line.
The teacher gives the students a movement-based instruction, either after they say “Simon says” or not.
If the instruction comes directly after “Simon says,” the students must follow the instruction. But if the teacher does not say “Simon says” before the instruction, the students must NOT follow the instruction. The students who get this wrong are eliminated. (I also play a version where the students who yell or make a lot of noise are eliminated, too. This helps keep the noise level down so I don’t have to yell.)
Continue until there is one student (or two or three students, depending on your energy level) left. That student wins!
Ideas for Teaching English:
This game is great for practicing a variety of English phrases, movements, and body parts. Here are a few of the instructions I give my students to practice English vocabulary:
Move/lift your [insert body part].
Jump [insert number] times.
Turn around.
Sit down.
Stand up.
Clap your hands [insert number] times.
5. Sharks and Minnows
Sharks and Minnows might not be the physical education game with the most English vocabulary, but it’s a great way to get students excited about speaking a few words aloud in English. Here are the rules.
How to Play:
Assign two to four students to be the sharks. The rest will be minnows.
The minnows stand on one side of the field/room, and the sharks stand in the center.
The sharks say, “Minnows, minnows, come to my sea.”
The minnows run across the field/room and try to get to the other side without being tagged by the sharks. The sharks try to tag the minnows.
If a shark tags a minnow, the minnow becomes seaweed. As seaweed, the student must stand with their feet in one place, but they can use their arms to tag other minnows. If a seaweed tags a minnow, the minnow becomes another seaweed. (I love this version of sharks and minnows because all students get to stay involved until the end of the game.)
After how ever much time or how every many rounds the teacher wants, the game can end. At that point, the sharks win if there are more seaweed than minnows, and the minnows win if there are more minnows than seaweed.
Ideas for Teaching English:
Sharks and Minnows doesn’t include a lot of English vocabulary, but it does require a few students to speak out loud in English, when they say, “Minnows, minnows, come to my sea.” So Sharks and Minnows is still a fun way to get students excited about using their English.
Of course, you can incorporate more English by explaining the rules in English, and by teaching the students a few key vocabulary words (i.e. sharks, minnows, seaweed, sea) in English.
4. Groups
Groups is an excellent PE game for practicing English numbers. If your students are already quite familiar with the numbers in English, this game might be a tad easy for them, but it’s still a lot of fun!
How to Play:
The teacher tells the students to walk around the field/room.
The teacher says a number. Students must get themselves into groups with that number of people. For example, if the teacher says “four,” students must get into groups of four. The students who don’t have groups, as well as the groups with the incorrect number of people, are eliminated.
If the teacher says “one,” the students must clap their hands above their heads. The last one to clap their hands is eliminated.
Play until there are two students left. Then say “one” and make it a race to see who can clap their hands first. If they clap at the same time (which they probably will), call it a tie and name both of these students winners.
Ideas for Teaching English:
This game is best for getting students to practice numbers in English. To add more English language vocabulary, you can tell the students to move around in a variety of ways (i.e. take big steps, jump, crawl, etc.) instead of just simply walking.
3. Touch that Color
With Touch that Color, you can get your students to practice the colors in English. This game is probably best for younger students who have more recently learned the colors in English.
How to Play:
The teacher says the name of a color in English (i.e. purple, red, blue, etc.).
The students must find an object of that color and touch it.
That’s it! It’s a pretty simple and easy physical education game. To make it more complex, you can eliminate the last student to touch an object of that color.
Ideas for Teaching English:
As I mentioned, this game is likely best for younger primary school students who are still practicing the words for colors in English. That said, you can make the game a little more challenging by using more obscure colors, such as grey, silver, and gold. Of course, to use more obscure colors, you’ll need to make sure that there is an object of that color in the area.
2. Connect
This is a physical education game I created that incorporates some ideas from other games I played growing up. Here’s how to play.
How to Play:
Students get into pairs. (If there’s a group of three, that’s okay, too.)
The teacher instructs the students to move around the field/room in a certain way (i.e. walk around on tip toes, jump on one leg, walk very slowly, etc.). The students must walk far away from their partners.
The teacher says a part of the body (i.e. elbow, knee, fingers, etc.), and the students have to find their partners and connect those body parts. For instance, if the teacher says “elbow,” each pair must touch elbows. The last pair to do so is eliminated.
Continue this way until there are two pairs left. With the last two pairs, the teacher splits these students into the four corners of the field/room. When the students are ready, the teacher says a part of the body, and the students must run to connect body parts. The first pair to do so correctly wins!
Ideas for Teaching English:
Using this PE game to teach English is pretty straightforward. By varying the body parts you call out, the students can practice recalling a wide range of English body parts vocabulary. Also, they can practice movement-related words through the instructions you give them for ways to walk around.
1. Fruits and Vegetables
Here’s another PE game I created to get students to practice English vocabulary words for fruits and vegetables. You can actually use this game with other categories of words, too, but I’ll explain that later. For now, here are the rules using fruits and vegetables.
How to Play:
Split the students into two teams. The students on one team are “fruits,” and the students on the other team are “vegetables.”
Put the teams in lines about two meters apart in the middle of the field/room. (The fruits should be in one line, and the vegetables should be in the other line.)
The teacher says the name of a fruit or vegetable.
If the teacher says a fruit, the fruits run forward try to tag the vegetables, and the vegetables turn around and try to get to the back of the field/room before being tagged by a fruit. (If the teacher says a vegetable, it’s vise versa—the vegetables chase the fruits, and the fruits run away.)
If students are tagged, they join the team that tagged them. For example, if a vegetable is tagged by a fruit, the vegetable becomes a fruit for the next round.
Play until you want to end the game. At that point, count the number of students on each team. The team with the most players wins.
Ideas for Teaching English:
Depending on your students age and knowledge of English fruits and vegetables, you can adjust the complexity of this game by using different numbers of fruits and vegetables. With the first graders, I actually just said “fruits” and “vegetables” rather than saying specific names of fruits and vegetables. With the second graders, I explained beforehand that I would say one of four words: apple, orange, carrot, or broccoli. With the third graders, I added additional fruits and vegetables. If you’re working with older students, you can add even more fruits and vegetables.
To use this game to practice other English vocabulary words, you can choose any two categories to use as team names. As long as you can think of two categories, you could play this game with a wide variety of English words. This makes this game easily adaptable for many ages.
