Bingo

This is a game where students have different cards that consist of squares.  The teacher has a list of the objects in the squares, and reads it until a student gets a complete line of squares (vertically, horizontally, or diagonally).  The student says "Bingo" and repeats the objects back to ensure that it is correct.  It is good for targeting reading and listening at the same time for the alphabet, numbers, or vocabulary.

Required Materials

1) A list of items to cover

2) Bingo cards (an excellent Excel spreadsheet for generating cards is here).  A picture of cards generated using this spreadsheet for learning Arabic letters and sounds is below.

Instructions

1) Create the bingo cards for your class and distribute them to your class

2) Read the words until someone gets "Bingo"
3) Ask them to read the words back to make sure they really have "Bingo"

Variations

Bingo can be adapted in many different ways to target different language skills.  The most traditional way is to put numbers in each square.  You can also put words, as in the picture above.   Or, you could put pictures in each square, and read off vocabulary words, or you could put words, and display pictures on a screen.  You can also have each student read a word off your list to give them more practice rather than reading them all yourself.  

Word Race

This is a game for learning the alphabet by practicing reading and writing sounds.

Required Materials

A numbered list of words you would like the students to practice

A timer 

Instructions

1) Divide students into groups of 3-4 and put the word list at the front of the room

2) Start a timer for the amount of time you would like to play

3) One student from each group comes to the front and reads the first word on the list

4) This student reports back to their group and pronounces the word until all group members have written it correctly

5) A second student from the group comes to the front to read the second word and dictate it to their group

6) The group that completes the most amount of words in the allotted time wins.  

Human Typewriter

This is a game which helps students solve dictation exercises as a class. It works well in that it gets students moving and relying on each other to complete the task.

Required Materials

1. Cards or pieces of paper with all of the letters of the languages' alphabet or writing system written on them.

Instructions

1. The cards containing the alphabet are distributed among the students. In most classes, some students will have more than one card, though they should be distributed so that no student will be relied upon to much (so that for English, one student might have "X" "Y" and "Z" rather than giving one student "A" "B" and "C").
2. The teacher says a word aloud.
3. The class is required to spell the word by standing up holding the appropriate letter in order. So for English, if the teacher said "cat" the student holding "C" would stand up, then the student holding "A" would stand, followed by the student holding "T." The students should say the name of their letter aloud.
4. You can also have the students say more information about how the word is spelled. So a student could say "capital" for the first letter in an English word, or give the name of the vowel for languages with an abjad like Arabic and Hebrew (e.g. "Jiim wa-fatha")