ESL Jigsaws

Low Beginner Personal Info Game

Posted by Nancy Callan on 17 February 2012 | 1 Comments

Tags: free material, free game, low beginner, ESL, ELL, ENL, EFL, personal information, ESOL

Anyone who teaches very low beginner ESL knows that you spend a lot of time going over basic personal information questions and answers, often trying to come up with yet another new way to approach the same old material. 

A competitive game on an overhead can shake things up and bring some excitement to what amounts to study of the exact same material. Add play money to the game and suddenly, you find students actually paying close attention to the grammar of their sentences, for what may seem like the first time. 

I've attached a very simple game I've used in my classes that you are welcome to download and use in yours. You could easily make it yourself, but maybe you'll come across mine in a moment like the one I had when I decided to make it quickly on my lunch hour when it seemed as if I'd exhausted all other ideas. I would have been happy to have found it ready made on the internet! 

I suggest you copy it onto an overhead and cover the questions with Post It notes. Divide your class into two or three groups. Individuals choose a dollar amount to try for and you remove the post it note. Grammatically correct answers get the play money for the group. If the answer is wrong, another group can try to steal that question. 

Click on this image to view the game large on your computer and/or download it for use in your own class. Enjoy!