14 Fun ESL Activities & Games to Teach Kids English
Looking for exciting ways to teach ESL? Our 14 Fun ESL Activities & Games (2025) include movement games, storytelling, vocabulary builders, and more! Boost engagement, enhance learning, and keep students motivated with creative, hands-on activities perfect for any ESL classroom.
As a teacher, you know that keeping kids motivated is simply a must for them to learn and have an actual desire for speaking and communicating in English. It’s not about memorizing a group of words; it’s about developing a willingness to communicate and a positive, hands-on environment for studying. This blog will give you the tools to help your kids develop practical English skills with a smile, laughing, partying, and unlocking their imagination!
- Action Command Game
- Picture This!
- Storytelling Chain
- Mystery Box
- Color and Say
- "What's Missing?" Game
- Role-Play Restaurant
- Adjective Hunt
- Rhyme Time
- Sentence Building Blocks
- "I Spy" with Categories
- Musical Freeze
- Simon Says Emotions
- Listening to Story Time
By employing these techniques, be prepared to see your students' desire for the English language boom to new dimensions and have them become capable little communicators, actively participating and communicating in their new language. As an added bonus, these English learning activities will help you keep your lessons engaging and effective!
ESL Fundamentals for Kids
Before diving headfirst into all of the activity thrills, let’s take a little time to refresh our minds with some important ESL instruction fundamentals for working with little ones. Little kids and adults require different instruction; it’s a matter of developing a participatory, interactive, and, most importantly, joyous environment. Kids thrive in settings where they can move, explore creatively, and move in general. As you introduce new vocabulary, utilize actions, pictures, and real-life examples. That multi-faceted attack will have your students not only understand the words but remember them even better. Don’t dream about beginning with a focus on stiff and clunky grammar structures. Your first and most important objective must be to have them fall in love with the sound of the English language and enjoy communicating. ESL teaching resources are all about making learning fun.
The Role of Fun Activities
Learning a new language can sometimes become a real challenge, especially for little ones at early language development stages. Using exciting and effective activities and games not only brings a lesson to life but also creates positive long-term associations with the language of English and a lasting enjoyment for learning. Personalized ESL activities and games have a magical property of holding kids' attention, keeping them interested, and actively inviting them in to become a part of the lesson. Personalized activities can even work towards overcoming mistakes, a big confidence booster, and participating in them helps kids become much less nervous about trying out new terms and phrases. In addition, these exciting and fun games stimulate memory, making for a more effective and lasting lesson. As long as positive feelings and positive experiences accompany learning, kids remember best, for a strong association with the lesson has been developed. And, group games can even work towards instilling a strong sense of working together and collaboration, an important academic and social skill.
Important Tips for ESL Activities
Now, let’s review a few important tips for effective use in a quick review, and then we can move on to specifics for each activity. Here are the important tips and rules for effective use that can make a big impact in terms of lesson effectiveness. Always keep your directions simple, concise, and easy to follow. Wherever feasible, use actions and pictures to make your students comprehend what you're asking them to do. Smile and bestow your students with loads of praise and encouragement. That will make them learn even more enthusiastically. Vary your activity at times to make your classes new, exciting, and challenging. Modify your activity and games according to your specific students' requirements, capabilities, and language level. And, most importantly, enjoy yourself too! If you enjoy yourself, your students will, too. Now that we have discussed these must-know fundamentals let’s move to the best part: the activity.
14 Fun ESL Activities & Games (2025)
1. Action Command Game
Use actions in communicating simple, routine commands. Say, "Jump," and make your students jump. Add a few actions such as "clap your hands," "spin about," or "touch your nose." These simple but effective activities are great at making them move and become involved. Use simple grammar such as "Jump high" or "Touch your toes" to deepen their grasp of sentence structure. It has the advantage of making kids move, helps them listen, and is an ideal warm-up activity.
2. Picture This!
Show colorful pictures of many items or animals. Have your students say the name of the picture aloud to practice pronunciation, and then try to form short, simple sentences about the picture. For example, "The cat sleeps on the mat," or "The ball is red and spherical. "This exercise is great for vocabulary building, including helping lay a strong basis for constructing sentences.
3. Storytelling Chain
Begin with a simple one-sentence story: "Once upon a time, there was a little dog." Ask your students in turns to add a sentence in an attempt to extend your story. Let your students' imagination and creativity run free, and have them build a one-off and exciting narrative. This helps build creativity, teaches listening, and is useful in creating sentences and narratives.
4. Mystery Box
Put a bag with various ordinary items in it and have your students each stretch in. With rich language and new vocabulary, name and describe the one in their hands in full, and then have your students try and guess its name. It's a lot of fun, is incredibly participative, and teaches your students to use rich language and build confidence.
5. Color and Say
Give your students a picture of a range of simple items and animals to draw in, and then, when completing each one, say its name and color out loud. Printable ESL worksheets like coloring pages can be a wonderful addition to any lesson.It's a brilliant combination of creating and practicing language and speaking, an all-around useful activity.
6. "What's Missing?" Game
Set out a range of ordinary items in a row in full view. Have your students view them, and then cover your eyes with your hands and remove one of them. Have them then, when saying "eyes open," try and say "what's missing" out loud. It is a perfect exercise for developing memory, recalling vocabulary, and for developing listening.
7. Role-Play Restaurant
Set out a mock restaurant in your room. Get students to alternate between acting out diners and waiters. It is a perfect activity for practicing ordering food and drinks, as well as simple phrases. These ESL worksheets for kids can be used before role-playing, to get familiar with new terms. It is perfect for practicing speaking and in real-life use, and it is a most exciting and participative activity for practicing language.
8. Adjective Hunt
Put a variety of ordinary items in your room and have your students search for them, then use a variety of adjectives, such as big, little, red, blue, etc., to name them. It is a perfect activity for developing and describing language and keeping everyone stimulated, interested, and enjoying.
9. Rhyme Time
Say a simple and mundane word, such as "cat." Ask your students to say a word that rhymes, such as "hat" or "bat." It's a useful and simple activity for a little sound-play and working with developing their vocabulary. It helps with phonological awareness and introduces new vocabulary in a meaningful and exciting way, and everyone will have loads of enjoyment.
10. Sentence Building Blocks
Give your students a pile of cards with a range of words, such as a group of nouns, a group of verbs, and a group of adjectives. Challenge them to build a sentence, combining and substituting between options in a pile of cards that they have drawn. English grammar worksheets can help children understand sentence structure. It's an activity that engages them in a hands-on and meaningful way and helps them become aware of sentences and an awareness of simple grammar.
11. "I Spy" with Categories
Have a traditional "I Spy" session, but use categories, such as "I spy a fruit," or "I spy an animal," in place of colors. It's a buzz activity for practicing putting words in categories and developing vocabulary meaningfully and relevantly.
12. Musical Freeze
Put some tunes on. Get your students moving about in a room, and, when the tunes stop, say a word and have them act out a word, such as saying "cat," everyone meows. It's a pleasurable activity for a mix of moving and learning, is perfect for a review of vocabulary, and is a guaranteed winner with students. Fun ESL word activities like these are highly effective for practicing new words you might want to use during the game.
13. Simon Says Emotions
Play "Simon Says" but with a range of feelings, not actions in and of themselves. For example, say, "Simon says smile," or "Simon says frown." It is a perfect activity for emotional awareness and language development and is incredibly exciting and engrossing.
14. Listening to Story Time
Have a quick, short reading session with your class, concerned about correct and proper intonation and pronunciation. After reading, have simple questions about your reading to challenge them and try to understand their listening and comprehension. Reading comprehension worksheets for ESL students can be a good way to gauge progress after a session like this. It is a relaxed activity, perfect for developing listening, and a soft and relaxed activity for winding down at the end of a lesson.
Essential Teaching Tips
When you're teaching ESL to little ones, remember to be kind and motivate your students at every stage. Use real-life items and pictures wherever possible to make them real and meaningful. Keep your directions concise, simple, and straightforward. Rotate your activities regularly in an attempt to make them interested and focused. Reward your students for every success and achievement, no matter how insignificant.
Conclusion
Teaching ESL to early learners is a most rewarding and magical activity. With these energetic, participatory, and incredibly effective techniques, your students will become happy, motivated, and successful in your vibrant, thriving classroom environment. Not only will your students learn English with these games, but they will also enjoy a memorable experience in the bargain. So go for it, try out these techniques, and your students will become confident, capable, and motivated speakers of English!