Game: Pass the Pens

A great easy game that you can play to help the students practice asking questions and giving answers. It's a great warm up game for any class.

Age: 6+
Class size: 5+
Materials: Two different colored pens (Or two objects that they can pass around) and a CD player





How to play: You can make your students sit in a circle or just at their desks. Explain to the students that they will be passing two pens around the class in opposite directions like this.

For some reason my blue pen had green ink. Perhaps is was mold.

When the CD plays the student must pass the pens, but when the music stops the two students holding the pens must stand up, and the student holding the red pen must ask one English question to the student holding the blue pen.

Repeat passing the pens and making the students ask each other questions for as long as you like. It's also a good idea to play English songs that the students are familiar with to help them remember the words. You can also get some good songs and videos on this website here. http://www.kidsesl.net/search/label/songs

One of the biggest difficulties I've had with this game in the past is students who take forever to think of a question, even if they have been studying English for over a year. To help them out, it may be a good idea to write a list of example questions on the board so that they don't get stuck.

Another problem is student who just use the same easy questions over and over again such as "Do you like...?" So another good idea is to tell the students that they can't ask a question that someone else has already used. This forces the student to think of more and more difficult questions, and it makes the game more challenging as time progresses.


You can also substitute the pens for any objects around the classroom as long as the students understand who asks the questions and who will answer. I made these cute cardboard sushi cards to make it easier for the student to understand who asks the question and who will answer. I even wrote some example questions on the back to help students who aren't very good at asking English questions.

Do you know any other great English learning games? Feel free to post them in the Forum for everyone to read. http://kidsesl.proboards.com/board/11/great-games

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