Help me find wicked fun resources to use with my esl students.

June 3, 2007 8:36 AM

Help me find wicked fun resources to use with my esl students. I am making new training material for my school, and I get to have a lot of fun with this project. There are a few things that I am looking for:

1. An online dictionary that gives very simple definitions using very little vocabulary.

2. Books and online resources of conversational questions. I just got Gregory Stock's "The Book of Questions" and I would like more like it. This is very important to me.

3. Ideas for good songs with lyrics.

4. Resource for tv and movie quotes.

5. Webites with funny but easy to understand jokes and riddles.

6. Conversation topics! If anyone has ideas of really cool and interesting conversation topics, please post them here.

7. Games.

8. Fun grammar lessons.

posted by Knigel to education (12 comments total)

What ages are the students?
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:53 AM on June 3, 2007

I think you'd find some pretty good links at my website--> http://www.k12hotlinks.com/

Check out the "LangArts/ESL" category,... or browse through the other ones... I have over 300 K-12 Educational links and should be adding more soon.
posted by jmnugent at 8:56 AM on June 3, 2007

Sorry, my students are 17+
posted by Knigel at 8:59 AM on June 3, 2007

Just off the top of my head:

The first game I would recommend is Apples to Apples. You have a hand of noun cards (eg: Marilyn Monroe, hippo, sofa, Apple Computer, New York City). One player (the judge) turns over an adjective card (eg: inspiring), and everyone picks one noun from their hand that they think best "matches" the adjective and puts it into the center of the table, face down. The judge reads them out and chooses (in her sole discretion) which is the best or funniest match. Optionally, players can kibitz here. The player who submitted the winner gets the adjective card. The object is to get the most adjective cards in the allotted time. On the next turn, the position of "judge" moves to the next player. Unlimited number of players (practically, more than about 10 gets to be a little much), pick how long you want the game to go. Good because it's not serious, everyone gets a turn being the judge and there's no right or wrong way to judge - so, no pressure. You might modify it to give them more noun cards than is usual, so that if they have some they don't know, they'll be able to work around.


The party game Mafia aka Werewolf, might work well for you too.


A couple of strategic games with plenty of interaction among players include:
Settlers of Catan - 3-4 people, usually 90 min to play. A trading and settlement game, collect and trade resources (wood, brick, sheep, wheat etc) to build cities and roads.

Beat the Buzzard which goes under various names in different countries, is a fast, funny auction game. Lots of interaction, lots of "I can't believe you played that card! Arrrgh! Let's play again". 3-5 (6?) players, 10 minutes.


Word games:
Quiddler is cheap and might work well for you. Each player gets a hand of letter cards and has to make words. Each round the hands will contain increasingly many cards, so eventually you'll be making 3 or 4 words at once. It's like gin, you can go "out" once all the cards in your hand are used. Any number of players, play as long as you like.

is the go-to source for info about games. Look at their "geeklists" to see if there are any about which games work well for ESL.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:18 AM on June 3, 2007

Er, f-ed up that link. boardgamegeek.com is the site.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:19 AM on June 3, 2007

There are also party games like "Would you rather?" and "Scruples" which are mainly intended as conversation fodder. They're like the Book of Questions. I bet Funagain carries them, or your friendly local game store does (I have to run now, so no time to look them up and link.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:21 AM on June 3, 2007

For more advanced students, try using clips from This American Life, the radio show or TV show.

The editing on that show and the content lends well to idioms and interesting concepts to get students speaking and listening.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 10:34 AM on June 3, 2007

For interesting ESL-related ideas I like Dave's ESL Cafe ideas cookbook. For a resource that uses easier English and is ESL-student-friendly, try The Simple English Wikipedia.
posted by Paragon at 1:19 PM on June 3, 2007

i once briefly substituted taught an ESL class - one day, i watched the classic "who's on first" by abott and costello. we ended up talking about it for a few days. it is a good play on simple words - and has baseball as an american cultural element. it worked well for me.
posted by Flood at 5:57 PM on June 3, 2007

I taught English for one year and a discussion we used to have was about superstitions. This was always interesting and a lot of fun.
posted by m3thod4 at 11:30 PM on June 4, 2007

I teach English to learners outside English-speaking countries, most of whom are right around the age you describe: high school/university.

Probably one of the best, and cheapest, games ever:

Make a bunch of index cards with random, but understandable, things/concepts/objects on them - "New York," "chili sauce," "opera," "whales," "zero," "Madonna," etc. You can find further lists of nouns in all sorts of places - one of my favorites is Stephen Colbert's "On Notice"/"Dead To Me" list - a recent example included:

# New York Intellectuals
# Men with Beards
# California's 50th District
# Heather Clark
# Bowtie Pasta
# Owls
# CNN en Espanol
# Screw-Cap Wines
# Cast of Friends
# Toronto Raptors

Pass these cards out, one per student.

Students have to argue that the thing on their card is better than the thing on the card of the person they're talking to. Students get hilariously defensive and forget they're speaking English. The game probably is good for ten or fifteen minutes, with everyone milling around and finding new people to talk to.

It's called "Mad Discussions," and it's from this book, which has a bunch of other communication activities that get students speaking, regardless of level.
posted by mdonley at 2:27 AM on June 5, 2007

You may be simply looking for ideas on how to help them learn English. But if you're also looking for ways to teach curriculum content during the rest of your day-- to kids who don't speak English-- I have some ideas.

In my experience, the single best thing you can do to support ESOL learners while they are still learning the English language is to find other non-verbal ways to communicate information in your classroom. Depending on where you live, many arts organizations provide fantastic resources and training in how to use art, dance, theater, music, etc. to teach all different subjects. And I'm not just talking about singing cute little songs about butterflies and the American Revolution. There are very deep, profound ways that kids can learn through movement and the analysis of works of art. Plus, it's very engaging and they are excited to aquire language that helps them say things they care about.

Creating effective ways for them to work in groups is another great way to help kids aquire language from their peers. It's so much more practical than things I've seen-- like sitting an ESOL kid out in the hallway with a gifted kid to run through flashcards. Kids need to use the language in context and group work is a great way to differentiate your teaching. Drama and dance are great for this.

A friend of mine teaches primarily ESOL kids (over 70% of her 4th grade classroom) and has pheonmenal results with her arts-based teaching. She doesn't even have desks in her classroom~ the kids are always moving and working in groups. This year, one kid started reading at 2nd grade level and finished her class reading at a 6th grade level and being recommended for the gifted program. I am definitely a beliver.

Good luck and have fun!
posted by Sabine3283 at 12:32 PM on June 24, 2007