Whether you teach online, in person, in a group setting or one-on-one, you probably feel like your class routine needs a bit of a refresh from time to time. I know that I can get into a rut using the same sorts of activities over and over, and I always try to remind myself that if I’m bored, my students probably are too!

I started reading Games for Language Learning (Andrew Wright, David Betteridge, and Michael Buckby) to spark a few new ideas I could use in my online classes. My goal was to find games and activities that could be adapted for my one-on-one online context. 

Although these are all fairly simple, common sense ideas, I think we can often forget about all the different strategies we have at our disposal and revert to the same tired techniques instead of actively seeking out new ones. 

I have adapted these activities to be used in a one-on-one context with an adult English language learner, but with a few adjustments you could easily use them in a group class, either online or in person, and some of them could work well with children as well as adults. 

Here are 5 activities to get you started, with more to come soon! Try out one or two this week and see if they infuse a bit more interaction and fun into your classes!

Things in Common

You and your student ask each other questions to try to discover things you have in common. If you wish, you could set a number (3, for example) of things you will try to find in common.

Variation: A simpler form of this activity is something I often do with my kids at bedtime: “One Question.” You and your student each think of one open-ended question to ask each other. This could be a question about their day (e.g. “What was one thing you enjoyed doing today?”), a question about their childhood (“What is one place you loved to eat when you were a child?”), a question about their future (“What is a job you don’t think you will ever do but would be fun?”) etc.

A Special Object

Give your student a homework assignment to bring a special object to the next class to share about. Be sure to bring your own special object as well. Take turns sharing about your special object and asking each other questions about it.

I often use a variation of this activity with no preparation required: simply ask your student to look around the room and choose one object they would like to show you and then tell me where they got it or who gave it to them, and anything else that makes the object significant to them. It’s amazing how long they will talk about a single object that they care about, and usually there are lots of opportunities for learning new vocabulary along the way!

Proverbs

Give your student a homework assignment to think of a saying or proverb that they heard often when they were growing up (from a parent, grandparent, teacher, etc.). During class, each of you share the saying from your childhood and discuss if there is an equivalent in English and the student’s L1. (e.g. "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, A penny saved is a penny earned")

I love using this activity in my one-on-one classes, either at the end of class if I have a couple extra minutes, or as a warmup activity to get things started on a fun and energetic note. I have expanded it to include sayings and expressions like “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” and “don’t hold your breath” which I collect in a presentation and share with students one at a time.

Note: Chat GPT is a great way to brainstorm some common sayings and proverbs to help jog your memory! Students can also search common sayings in their own country using ChatGPT and share which ones they heard a lot growing up.

Slowly Reveal a Picture

Create a slide presentation using a photo of anything at all. It could be a famous person, landmark, an item, animal, something related to a topic you’ve been learning about in class–use your creativity!

Black out all but a small bit of the photo. Copy the slide, and in this slide, reveal a bit more of the photo. Continue slide by slide, progressively uncovering more and more of the photo until you completely reveal it in the last slide.

With your student, move slide by slide and see what guesses they have of what it might be, and how quickly they are able to guess what it is! 

To maximize language use, ask your student to describe what they can see in each slide: e.g., colors, textures, light, shapes, etc. Encourage them to make guesses even if they aren’t sure. “I think it’s a building/animal/person” etc.

See an example here of a photo progression I created in Canva with the Statue of Liberty. (Unsplash is a great source for free, high-quality stock photos.)

Describe and Identify

Here are three variations of an activity to describe a person, place, or thing. The first one is from the book, the second and third are my own adaptations.

Describe a Person

Share a stock photo of a group of people and ask your student to describe one person in the photo. Encourage students to use “this person” or “they” rather than “he/she” in their descriptions to make it harder for you to guess!

Alternate with your student in the describing and guessing roles until you have described several of the people in the photo.

Here is an example of a photo I used for this activity.

Describe an Object

Ask your student to look around the room where they are and choose an object to describe. It should be something relatively standard and identifiable (pillow, clock, bed, wastebasket, etc.) 

You can go first to demonstrate, using an object that will be fairly easy for your student to guess. 

Challenge your student to describe the object in a way that won’t make it too easy for you to identify!

Describe your View

If your student is in a room with a window, ask them to describe what they see out their window. If any sounds are audible, they can also describe the sounds they hear and what the weather is like today.

Do you already use any of these, or similar activities?

How would you adapt the ones you haven’t tried yet to fit your own teaching context?