Jeopardy Game for the ESL Classroom

* Level: ESL Middle School, ESL High School, ESL Adults, ESL Intermediate, ESL Advanced

* Time: 25 game questions for a 45 minute lesson.

Welcome to an ESL lesson plan for a fun game that is similar to the TV game show Jeopardy. This complete ESL game lesson plan is a listening and speaking exercise. It will be easy for the teacher and fun for the students. This great ESL game does not require any special materials or handouts

(Yay! No copies!), and it can be played just as well in a large class or a small one. For a large class divide the students into teams, and let them choose their own English team names (students seem to really like this). For a small class students can play as individuals or in pairs. I play this game with my Gongju Boys Middle School and Tancheon Middle School ESL classes in South Korea. My class size is between 25-40 ESL students.

Although here in this Associated Content article I provide a full lesson plan that includes a set of 25 questions for the students, I would also like to provide you with the complete directions so that you can re-create this ESL lesson plan yourself. You can tailor this game to target a review of whatever vocabulary you have been learning in your class.

For example: in-at-on-inside-outside-next to-across from, occupations and shapes. It can be nouns, verbs, or adjectives. For more advanced students, require them to form the correct question as the answer, just like on the TV game show Jeopardy.

* Preparation: Create a list of words: nouns, verbs, adjectives & 3 clues for each. Be sure to print it out J. The most difficult clue should be 1^st. It's good to have varying degrees of difficulty for the answers so students are encouraged but don't get bored.

* Directions:

1) Tell your ESL students they will be playing a game today. This gets them in a good mood and ready for some fun.

2) Divide your ESL students into teams of 1-6 students. Have the teams choose a team leader and a team name that's in English and write it on the board. If students are hemming and hawing over who the team leader should be, a quick round of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" usually does the trick.