This is a fun and efficient game for practicing speaking in sentences. This game is also more commonly known as "Rock, Paper, Scissors". I learned it as "Paper, Scissors, Stone!" and I think it sounds better. It's more fluid to say than the other.
To play this ESL game:
- Write + or - 1/+ or - 5/+ or - 10 on the board.
- Divide your students into teams.
- Have two students put together a sentence or Q&A from their book.
- The first one to say it correctly gets to choose a number 1, 5 or 10.
- Paper, Scissors, Stone!
- If they select 5 and win, they get +5. If they select 5 and lose, they get -5.
- Continue
This game is efficient as it takes almost no time to prepare and little time is wasted performing the activity. It's good for practicing repetitive items and perfecting their speech.
For large classes greater than 15 students or so you can divide them into groups with about 5 students in a group or so. In this case the group will become the individual, meaning instead of having one student from each team speaking we will have two groups speaking and competing against one another.
Make sure all the students speak in the group and if not you can give it to the team where everyone speaks. Then just pick a student on the team to pick a number 1, 5, or 10 and continue.