5 MUST-HAVE EDUCATIONAL
TIME-FILLING GAMES
We all face this moment during a class when our students seem to be bored, sleepy, or there’s just too little time left to start any new activity. It is when 5-minute games come in handy. Laughter and fun are excellent tools to develop rapport between students and a teacher. On top of that, competitiveness between classmates improves their focus and makes them work without even being aware of it. However, the activities we choose cannot be random. They should be relevant to our lesson and aim at a specific ability. Although I agree that a time filler is sometimes just an activity that occupies time which would otherwise be wasted, we need to select the ones that help our students hone their skills.
Here you have my TOP 5 picks, which do not need any previous preparation and are excellent time fillers that aim at learning while having fun.
1. KALEIDOS
Kaleidos is a type of board game. It comes with four identical sets of ten illustrations, in A4 format, each depicting a different scene. What’s great about those cards is that they have plenty of objects hidden somewhere in the picture.
Although the cards are great, I prefer to project the illustrations on the screen in the classroom rather than hand out the pictures to students, as there are only four identical ones, which is, obviously, not enough for bigger groups.
Therefore, I recommend writing Kaleidos in Google and finding the images that work for you or scanning the ones you have. Here you have a link to one for adults and one for kids. Moreover, the game is adaptable to all ages and levels.
PROCEDURE:
Put students in pairs or groups of 3.
Set the timer.
Tell students that in 2-minute time they will have to find as many words as possible that start with a specific letter.
Make sure that they understand that the words must refer to nouns in the picture. Abstract nouns or adjectives are not going to be accepted.
Students must work in pairs (groups of three) and find as many words as possible.
They get points only for the words other groups haven’t spotted.
When the time runs out, students say the words. If any other group has the same word, they cross it out.
You repeat the procedure as many times as you want.
The team with the most points win.
It is a superb time-filler that is easy to use. On top of that, it is fantastic for those introverted students, who do not speak much, as they can show off their range of vocabulary.
2. ZOOM IN – ZOOM OUT
It is a simple 1-minute activity which not only can you use to revise the vocabulary but also expand students’ knowledge on many topics from flags and countries to famous people or books.
PROCEDURE:
Find a picture that represents what you want your students to practice.
Zoom the picture in as much as you can.
Share the screen with your students and slowly zoom the photo out.
The first student who knows what the picture depicts gets one point.
You can do it as many times as you want.
It is simple and works perfectly with lower-levels and kids groups. You can also set some rules, such as having only one/two possibilities to answer, giving negative points for wrong responses, etc.
3. GUESS THE SENTENCE
It is one of my favourites to use with higher-level groups. It requires no prep. Moreover, students practice giving definitions and explaining the meaning of the words.
PROCEDURE:
Choose a volunteer and sit them facing their classmates, having the board or the screen behind their back.
Write a sentence on the board or project it on the screen (I usually go for less-known quotes or funny phrases). Make sure that the volunteer cannot see it.
Tell students to explain the sentence word by word to help the one in the "hot seat" guess it.
I insist they say what part of speech each word is and give their definitions.
The game finishes once the chosen student says the entire sentence from his head.
It is simple but makes students realise how essential paraphrasing is. It also gives you some insight into how their brains work.
4. 60 SEC CHALLENGE
It is excellent to use with groups that prepare for official exams, such as First, Advanced, Proficiency or IELTS. It requires no preparation. Additionally, students work on active listening. You need around 10 minutes to make it work.
PROCEDURE:
Put students into groups of 3 or 4.
Write on board different topics, such as food, my neighbourhood, favourite family member, dream job, etc. (I create a Random Wheel Picker, you can find a free version here)
Assign each student in the group a number, so there is a person with the number 1, 2, 3 or 4.
The person with the number 1, for example, starts.
Select the topic (I spin the wheel) and set the timer to 60 seconds.
Students with number 1 must talk for 1 minute on the selected topic.
Once the time is up, other students from the group have to ask a follow-up question.
Move to the students who were assigned number 2.
Since others in the group have to ask personal questions, they try to listen to the speaker instead of thinking about the rest of the topics. It makes students aware of how much they can say in 1-minute time. I also create challenges, such as banning the phrase "I think" or making them use modifiers or intensifiers, etc.
5. THE SILENT DICTATION
It is a combination of dictation and Chinese Whispers game. It is fun and easy to adapt to all levels. All you need is a short sentence written word by word. Students practice spelling and work together to obtain the aim of the game.
PROCEDURE:
Divide your class into 2/3/4 teams, so the number of the players is identical.
Each team chooses a Writer, the person who will write down the sentence.
The teams sit in a line or a row, with their Writers at the end.
The first student in each team approaches the teacher and checks the first word out.
They run to the next person in line and whisper the word to their ear. Then the person whispers it to the next one until it gets to the Writer, who writes it down. Punctuation marks need to be said as well.
The procedure repeats until the entire sentence is on the paper.
Once the Writer has it, they stand up and wait for the other teams to end.
The first team to finish gets 1 point.
If they have written the sentence correctly, they get 10 points.
If the sentence is incorrect, the runner-up team reads their sentence. If it is accurate, they get 5 points.
If none of the teams got it right, give 1 point to each group for every correctly written word.
In short, 5-minute games, fillers, warmers, whatever we call them, are excellent tools when relevant. Using them wisely will motivate students to work harder and help them hone their skills. Teachers should think ahead about what works well within the lesson context and, obviously, know how to engage students, which is much harder to do.
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