My List of Favorite ESL Improv Games - Little or No Material Needed

ESL IMPROV GAMES

April 30, 2016

Intro: Some of these games are not immediately conducive to language, but you can make them be. They are trust builders, and they can help set a fun mood, help the kids re-energize, or transition into a different activity. They are different than what most teachers are used to doing, and they take little preparation, cost nothing, and rarely require props. They can be played in a contained space, and are not too difficult to keep under control. The games are also perfect for groups of 6-12 kids. They provide an excuse for the kids to SPEAK more, in a fun context, so why not add them to our repertoire? Enjoy!

Marc

K Games

Alien, Tiger, Cow

Place children in a circle, ask them to choose either Alien, Cow or Tiger, then use their fingers to show their choice and at the count of 3, everyone displays their choice at the same time

An alien: hold you index fingers up next to your head, as little antenna’s and say ’Bleeb bleeb’,

A cow: bend forward, hold your right hand on your tummy and go ’Moooo’

A tiger: push your right hand forward, imitating a claw and roar.

You can change the game to include an y farm animal. You can ask the children “What is this animal and what sound does it make?

This is a unity game, try to get the kids on the same page. It’s also an energy release game. Be careful not to let it go out of control. Start slowly, build it up, like anything else you are going to do with kindergarteners.

On your sign, every player decides to become one of the three. The idea is for everyone to become the same, which obviously won’t be the case, the first time. You can try to redo-this until everyone is in sync, or break the game down to features teams of two to try to get two people in sync, just one team at a time until you are done.

Energy 1-10

Game Everyone in a big circle, squatting down. We will count 1 to 10, all together, moving up,

with increasing energy level. 1 is hardly audible, 10 is as loud as possible, everyone standing straight,hands reaching up. Instead of numbers, you can use a word that starts out inaudible

and ends up super loud: “Happy… Happy… HAPPY…. HAPPY!!!!!!” It’s imp ortant to watch

each other, to ensure we’re all at the same energy level. Also make sure thatthe incr ease in energy is nicely gradual.

4-4-8 or 4-4-6

4-4-8 is something I learned in my meditation classes in college (Yeah I had an awesome college.)

It works for people of all ages. For younger kids I would bring it down to 4-4-6 or even 4-4-4 because of their smaller lung capacity. Slowing down your breathing rejuvenates your cells AND causes you to calm down almost in spite of yourself. It makes the children aware of their own body,

their breathing, and the control they have over themselves. After you’ve taught them this

strategy while they are calm, you can try to use it with them when they are not so calm.

Teach the kids: “I will show you something cool, let’s all now INHALE for 4 seconds.

HOLD IT IN for 4 seconds, and release it for (4, 6, 8 seconds) VERY slowly…. (Inhale through your NOSE, can release either through the nose or mouth) Concentrate! Do it well! How does it feel? It’s really amazing right? Try it again (No more than 2 times)

Watch out for the kids who will try to go crazy with it. Tell them it is going to help them, they need to follow you very well.

S 1 or S2 Games

Big Fish, Small Fish

Say Big Fish, and hold both hands in front of you, about 3 inches or 10cm apart. "It" then passes

Say Big Fish, and hold both hands in front of you, about 3 inches or 10cm apart. "It" then passes

Say Small Fish, and hold both hands in front of you, about 15 inches or 50cm apart.

Players that miss (e.g. say Small Fish and keep your hands too close together or say Big Fish and

move hands wide) do a forfeit, or die with a loud noise.

Phone Game

Game A Classic Game. Get everyone in a big circle, or in two separate lines.

Variation 1: Start the circle with a sentence, anything silly like for example: “There is a monkey with a

blue umbrella”. Have the children repeat the sentence from ear to ear until the last person in the circle repeats it out loud. Watch the communication breakdown and teach the kids about the importance of listening and speaking clearly and slowly.

Variation 2: Same procedure, but start the same sentence in each of the two lines, like a race between the

two lines, and listen to the difference as the sentence reaches the end of each line.

Fun experiment!

Free Association Circle

Game Everyone in a circle and we establish a rhythm, by swinging a hand left to right. Once a rhythm

is established, one player starts by tossing a word to his neighbor, who associates on the word and

tosses anotherword to his neighbor on his right.

“Cow, cow, cow, I got a cow”

“Milk, milk, milk, I drink some milk”

“White, white, white, I can see white”

“Snow, snow, snow, I can feel snow”

And so on…

It’s important to stay in the rhythm. Tell the players to just say ’banana’ if they feel they can’t think of word, as long as the rhythms does not get broken.

7up

Choose 2 or 3 students. Place them in front of the class. They will say to the other kids: “Thumb goes

up, we will play some 7up”. Then the other kids close their eyes, lay their head down on their desk, and

lift their thumb up. The “7up” people in front can each choose one person, whose thumb they will touch.

After their thumb has been touched, the kids who are sitting must put their thumbs down. After each

“7up” person has selected one person, they will return to the front and they will say. “7up, Stand up!”

and those who were touched have to stand up and each has to take turn to guess and say: “Tonya, was it you that touched me?” “No! It wasn’t me!” or “Yes, it was me, you found me!” (Insist on them speaking, otherwise the game loses its ESL value) If the “7up people” are not found, they can keep playinguntil they are found. If they are found, the person who discovered them will come and take their place.

4 Corners

The classroom gets organized into corners defined by a landmark or object that is found in that corner. “Poster corner, door corner, teacher corner (we want to develop their vocabulary)” or can also use colors “Blue corner, red corner” and so on.

Students have two or three lives, you choose. One person is chosen to count. While the person counts, students will choose a corner to go to. With their eyes still closed the “counter” will say: “I choose…. Teacher corner!” and everyone who is in that corn er loses a life. Students should not cheat. You can ask: “How many lives do you have left?” “I have one life left”. After they are out of lives, they go sit down. The student remaining standing wins.

Who am I?

Who am I is a very simple game to practice mostly nouns, but can be adjusted for actions (verbs), adjectives, or whatever other piece of grammar you have.

Simply have a student come in front of the board, with his/her back turned to the board so he/she can see you writing “Robot, Africa, Dragon, Frozen, Elsa, Anna” or whatever else you want to write. Other students can also be selected to be the ones to come to write the word on the board.

Make sure the other kids in the class can understand what you wrote but let them know that they cannot speak out or give the answer.

The “blind” student asks choice questions or yes or no questions.

“Is it a proper noun or a common noun?”

“Is it big or small?”

“Is it real or fictional?”

“Did we watch this in a movie the other day?”. Allow 4 or 5 questions. Repeat all the hints to them. Give them a few seconds to make a final guess as to what the object is, if they get it they win a star. Mr. Judge

Mr. Judge is played by a student being blindfolded and asked to sit down. One by one, other students in the classroom will take turns walking slowly towards “Mr. Judge” and they can say various things: -Hello Mr. Judge!

-It’s a good day today!

-How do you do?

-The weather is fine!

-What are you up to?

-Great to see you!

Then, Mr. Judge needs to guess who it was that just spoke that sentence, based on the voice of the person. The challenge comes when the students try to disguise their voices. Then another

student can become “Mr. Judge”.

S3 or Above Games

Alliteration Introduction

Excellent game for players to get to know each other’s names.

Everyone in a circle. A player starts the game by introducing himself by making a gesture,

alliterating to his name, e.g. "I’m Wonderful Wendy" or "I’m Smart Steve". The next player point the first, repeats the previous player’s name, attribute and gesture, and does something similar

And so on. Game ends with the first player having to do each other player’s gesture, repeating their names and attributes.

Becoming

Fun energizer game. Everyone in a circle. We are going to pass a pattern along the circle. Everyone, at their turn does either:

You are a flower. What kind of flower? Blooming or not? In a vase or in a field? What color? Freshly picked or not? A present to a lover or at a funeral?

You are water. Still or not? In a glass? A jar, a puddle, a lake or an ocean? Fresh or dirty?

You are stone, air, sand, fire.

You are blue, red, green. You are a clock. Big Ben or grandfather clock? Working

or not. Is your time right or not? A watch? Who is wearing you? A busy man or a

lazy man? How could you show that?

You are food? What kind of food? Chinese or Western Food? Are you Pizza? Hot or cold? Any ketchup? Where are you? In a restaurant or in a fridge? Eaten or

not? Yummy or yucky?

After a while, players should be able to come up with the side coachings for themselves.

Encourage the players to try out different kind of stuff, see what they come up with. Alphabet Story

Game This is a scene consisting of 26 lines of dialog. The first line starts with a given letter (say ’R’). The reply to that line must start with a ’S’, and so on, until the whole alphabet has been covered.

After ’Z’ comes ’A’.

“A tree is in the forest”

“Birds come flying on the tree”

“Cats are purring underneath”

“Dragons come flying by…”

Players that hesitate, or use the wrong letter ’Die’, and are replaced by another player. Thereplacement needs to take over the character of the player she replaces.

It’s not really an easy game. Don’t take it too seriously. Urge players not to ’stick’ to the game - if you can’t think of a good sentence to advance the story, it’s better to just ’die’ than to screw up the story Coming Home

Ask players to think of someone they know. Then ask them to play how that person

would comehome from work. One student acts as the “Broadcaster” describing what is

happening in front of him. Players need to pay attention

“She is opening the door,

She is taking off her shoes

Oh! She forgot to close the door!”

The students can also describe t he environment: what does that person’s house look like?

Is it neat and tidy or is it a mess?Big house or small apartment?

What does he do? Does the character change clothes or showers or has a beer first?

Does he eat? If so, what? Microwave dinner, carryout, pizza delivery or cornflakes?

What mood is that character

in? How was work today?

You can come up with other situations in which characters enter a location.

Commercial

Ask for a product (existing or non-existing). Then play a commercial for that product.

“This is Energon, Energon is a toothpaste you put on your toothbrush, and it causes you

to fly fly fly! Fly to school every morning! Fly to see your Grandmother in Canada! Energon is a little bit dangerous, so only eat a little bit, or else you will go to the Moon, moon moon! Buy some today!”

Crisis Situation

Game Great exercise for spontaneity. 2 players on stage approach each other with a crisis, and an object unrelated to the crisis. After each has presented his or hers, each solves the other’s crisis with their own object. Replies must be instantaneous and may be ridiculous.

Example: Player A: A monster ate my things and now I only have this toy

Player B: Monsters also ate my things and all I have

left is this stuffed animal

Player A: Here’s my toy; you can sell it and make some

money.

Player B: Thank you!

Who’s that guy?!

Game This is played like a Blind Date show. One player leaves the stage, and the audience provides endowments for the 3 others. Examples might be No. 1 is a monster or a lion, No. 2 is a criminal and No.

3 is not very smart. The player gets to ask a question, and each of the others answers it.

Questions can be: “What is your favorite thing you like to do?”

Answer: “I like to eat people, roar!”

Answer: “I like to take everybody’s money! Give me your money! Now!”

Answer: “Uh…. Ah… what? I don’t understand”

After the question the person who originally left the classroom must guess what kind of people these three people were, based on their answers.

Exaggeration/Intonation Circle

Game All players in a circle, or a long line. One player starts a little spoken word or sentence, with very subdued or neutral emotion.The next player takes it over and makes it bigger. They can change the sentence a little each time. The last player does the whole thing to the extreme. You can use exclamations, interrogations, enumeration, or whatever, in order to teach punctuation, intonation, and expression.

“I am a small cat”

“I am a big cat, meow!”

“I am a very VERY VERY big monster cat and I want to jump on you!!!”

“I am a little cat?”

Make sure the players stick to the original idea, and pay attention to what the person before them did. We should also be able to see what the whole group did.

Gibberish Commands (Little Yellow Men)

Have each play issue a command to her partner, in Gibberish. Players can’t move on until the command is understood and executed. You can set the people around a table and pretend you are having dinner. Simple things will do, like

-Bubleblu (Hello)

-Wassapepa (How are you?)

-Gobugobugobu (I am hungry)

-Gagalaga!Gagalaga! (Would you pass the salt please?)

Students can mime the commands to help, but mostly they should try and make it obvious with their intonation the way the command is issued, and the environment that has been set. Students like minions, and this is just to bring on a general conversation about the idea of language, and how to make yourself understood, even when the actual words cannot be understood.

Master Servant Disaster

Game 2 players, one is the master, the other is the servant. The master will ask the servant for somethingsimple, food, drink or clothes or car. The servant always blocks the question, and explains why this should not be possible. The master always accepts this, and asks for something else (which turns out to be impossible as well).

Every time the servant has to explain why this should not be possible, the situation gets

worse, until the whole thing turns out to be a disaster.

An example:

Perkins, get me a glass of water.

Yes sir. Oh, sir, that won’t be possible sir, we’re out of water.

Well, get me a glas of milk, then.

Yes sir. Ah, sir, um, we’re out of milk too, sir.

Oh? Well get my any kind of beverage, then.

Ah sir, we’re out of anything to drink sir.

Perkins, what is the reason there is nothing to drink?

Well, my grandfather and grandmother and uncle and aunt and cousin and friends

and some monsters came and drank everything in the house.

I see. Well please go buy me some water at the store then.

Yes sir. Ah, sir, there are no more stores in the city

Well, get me some water from the lake nearby then

Ah, yes, sir, uh, sorry sir, there is no more lake

And so on, until it turns out that the staff had a little party, accidentally set the kitchen on

fire, used the water from the pond to fight the fire, and so on. Eventually, the only room

still standing is the master’s study, the rest of the castle has burnt down and all staff are

dead. And all this for a perfectly logical explanation.

The idea is for the servant to connect all elements the master brings up, into one and the

same disaster.

My Fault

Game You need 2 plastic bottles, each with a little bit of water (not too much or they’d be too heavy). Make sure your bottles are sturdy or everyone will get wet.

Exercise Have everyone walk around leisurely, and hand 2 players the bottles. The idea is to make eye contact with someone. As soon as a player has eye contact with a player with a bottle, the bottle isthrown. If at any point the bottle is dropped, both the thrower and the receiver lie down on the floor and shout ’It’s my f ault!’, or “I’m so sorry” or “Please forgive me!” or “I am so clumsy!” as loud as possible. (Teacher determines what students must say before each time)

After that, one of them picks up the bottle and the game continues.

Side coaching: tell the players to take risks, to try and make eye contact with a player at

the other side of the room.

Nuclear Bomb Chicken

You can do this only once with a new group. Tell them they are all chickens in a henhouse, and a bomb is about to drop on the henhouse within 30 seconds, Ask the players to play the chickens as truthfully as possible, then give them the start signal. Any chicken that shows acknowledgement of the incoming bomb, fails the exercise. Chickens have no clue what a bomb is. This is mostly a comprehension game, to see if they can understand your English instructions. Drama wise, the goal of the exercise is to show the difference between the reality of the player and the reality of the character. This can be a Segway into understanding fiction or narrative voice in literature or so on…

Sculptors

Game works best with an even number of players. Split the group in 2. One half forms a circle in the middle of the room, facing outwards. The other half positions themselves, each player in front of one of the players in the middle circle. The middle players are clay, or stone, and the outsiders are sculptors. Let each sculptor do something to his lump of clay, then make the sculptors rotate clockwise. Everyone now stands in front of someone else’s block of stone or lump of clay. Have them work some more on the sculpture and rotate again. Repeat till every player is in front of his original piece of stone again. Then ask the sculptors to introduce their work, and give it a name.

Variations: give each statue or sculpture has a built in voice chip that can utter

exactly one sentence. Let the sculptors switch on the voice chip at the end of their

explanation.

This is an excellent exercise to try with a new group. Players that keep placing the

sculptures in positions that are impossible to maintain or physically painful can easily be

spotted with this exercise.

Other thing to watch for is which players undo the work the previous artists made. The

idea is to build art together, not to destroy previously done work in order to push your

own ideas. Make this clear by asking the sculptors, when they’re in front of their original

work again, to what extent the works still looks anything like what they started with.

Story Spine

This is an idea about the spine of any story. It goes like

Once upon a time ... And every day ... And every day ...And then one day ...And because of that ...

And because of that ... And ever since that day ...

This little structure teaches performers to advance a story by changing things. There are hundreds of v ariations known to this, one of which we’ll present here as well:

The balance: Once upon a time ... and every day ...

The un-balance: But then one day ...

The quest for a resolution: ... and because of that ... and so ... until

finally .... The new balance: ... and ever since that day ....

Her Majesty

I use my T.A to play the Queen, and the Queen is sitting royally at her throne.

Two or three students will stand next to each other, facing the Queen, requesting an

audience with the Queen, wanting to get closer to the Queen.

The Queen will speak:

“Yes, what do you have to offer?”

“My Queen, I want to offer you… (And they guess what they think would make

the best present for the Queen to accept)

… An expensive red German car!”“A handsome boyfriend!” “A box of French

chocolates!” “An iphone 7”!

And the Queen says:

“Yes, I accept, you may walk (one, two, three) steps forward.” Depending on how

good the gift was.

If the gift is rejected, because the Queen is feeling moody, it is not good, or the

student cannot say it well, or quickly enough, the Queen will say:

“I do not accept your offer, goodbye!”

And another student who is playing the Queen’s guard, will pretend to execute the

unlucky subject.

Whoever gets to approach the Queen enough in order to touch her will win.

Conclusion:

I have many more games! However, because I am in a hurry to share, I

will try to keep adding more as time goes by. The purpose of these games is to try to venture a little bit away from the whiteboard as a teaching

tool and try to create a more organic, “community”, “family-like”, living experience.

Hope you can try some of these in your classrooms. Do give me some

feedback as to how it went!