Teaching English online can be more challenging than in-person classes, as it is easy for young students to get distracted. By including lots of online games within your classes, it keeps the students engaged and interested in the lesson material. There are lots of games available online to aid children’s learning and keep lessons fun and interactive. You can also use online games along with the traditional in-person games too where appropriate.
- Kahoot
With Kahoot, you share the screen with students, and they can play the games using their mobile phones. It’s a great site for group classes as the students will see it as a competition between each other. There is a huge variety of games available, with games for beginners, games tailored around the Cambridge learning programme, themed games like Disney or Star Wars, and games on current affairs for the advanced learners too. It is perfect for all ages and all levels of students. You can even create your own games too if you can’t find a game suitable to your class! Students have a time of 10/20/30 seconds to answer each question and they are all multiple choice, so it’s a great opportunity for students to review their learning of a subject for example, and for you to see what has been understood. It is also a great way to introduce a new topic to students and find out what they already know about a certain topic.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XzfWHdDS9Q
- Baamboozle
The games work where students choose a number on a grid and answer the question by either answering with a complete sentence or choosing the correct option and win points accordingly. With Bamboozle, you can also put your students into teams if you have a big online class and they can work as a team to answer questions. The games can be used to introduce new topics or review current or previous work to check students’ understanding and also works really well as an ice breaker for new students and classes.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pYJ-vr_8mA
- MES Games
This is a great website to use during lessons to review a lesson topic and to break up the class, especially for the younger learners. I have found that my younger students enjoy the animations on this site and different characters in the games! MES Games also offers a great addition to games – online flashcards! This is a great tool to save printing and can really aid your younger and new to English learners with new vocabulary.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtusWbL_N4I
- ESL Games World
Covering a wide range of levels, grammar & tenses, and vocabulary, it also includes lots of listening practice and memory games for different vocabulary topics. An easy-to-use site, you can browse the different games via levels and for the younger learners, games include treasure hunts, online car races, snakes and ladders, and mazes, along with memory games which I have found to be really popular amongst my younger learners. They have a better memory than me sometimes!
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2kxPQzNyPY
- Games to Learn English
Games to Learn English has a huge range of games available to students and teachers from practicing sentence structure, question, and answer games, speaking & listening practice, spelling, and a wide variety of grammar and tenses games too! This site also has games such has hangman, memory games, and lots of games based on different vocabulary topics. There are plenty of instructions for each game and how they all work, and these games again are aimed at younger learners but cover a wide range of levels too. There is a great game called ‘fast English’ and ‘fast phrases’ where students have to select the answer before the time runs out, but the time gets quicker, this could be a great game to use mid-way through the class to break up the lesson.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0HoUDhRpKA