How to Organise Language Games That Work for Large Classes

18.12.2025

5 minutes

Activities
Tips & Strategies

Different types of classes require different approaches and activities. The same happens with the number of students. Individual lessons, couples, groups — they all vary in teaching style so much.

Couple and group lessons are made for students to be in this environment, feel and evaluate themselves and other students. They can speak with each other in couples and groups after the teacher assigns this, whereas individual lessons are already dedicated to talking to the full.

So, it is easy peasy to handle an individual lesson as there is one student to pay attention to, and they will speak no matter what. The teacher will provide a speaking lesson, giving leading questions and corrections.

How To Make Groups Speak?

On the one hand, it is incomprehensible. How can the teacher be on time to speak with so many students in the group?

The answer is that the teacher doesn’t need to do it. The main point is to organise their students so that they speak and do activities with each other.

Then, the teacher has time to listen, monitor them, write down some mistakes and key points to focus on, and talk it over after the couple’s discussion.

Why Does It Work?

There are many reasons why. The students specifically choose such a format of lessons because:

More interaction — pair work, group tasks, and discussions make lessons more engaging than only teacher-student dialogue.
Communication practice — learners talk not only with the teacher but also with classmates, which makes the lesson more dynamic and realistic.

And it is the major part of group lessons work, almost 70-80%. What is more, there is an OCD — open class discussion.

Motivation and support – actually, it is not a one-way track. Somebody accepts being in a group as something that creates a sense of community: the students encourage each other, see progress, and don’t feel alone.

On the flip side, some students may consider it a competition where they fight for a better result. Both ways are good until they lead to unhealthy competition, demotivation and an inferiority complex. However, the students’ level must be almost the same, so it should not happen to such an extent.

Learning from others — talking about this benefit, the students can hear different opinions, mistakes, and strategies, which helps them remember better.

They can compare accents, intonation, and evaluate work themselves. Nevertheless, they might be well competent in new spheres of life, as students have various occupations.

More fun — role-plays, debates, teamwork tasks are easier and more fun in groups. Especially when these are corporate groups and everyone knows each other, it feels like meeting up with your friends, just speaking another language. The incredible atmosphere works in the students’ favour.
Confidence-building — speaking in front of peers helps overcome shyness and prepares the students for real-life communication. It is about overcoming stumbling blocks mentally and overcoming the language barrier.

So, the teacher should provide their students with it and meet expectations about the group lessons.

Here Is How To Do It

It is likely to imagine what you can do with at least 5 students. What if there are more? Like 8-10-12 of them. It becomes a little bit more pressing. Here are activities for large classes that definitely work!

1. Broken-down Phone Game

It requires even more than ten students for the teacher to divide into a few groups. Simple rules.

Choose one student for each group that will start. They will have more responsibility. They need to write down a sentence using topical vocabulary. The more vocabulary units, the better.

Then, these students have to whisper it to their partner from the group. They say it once, without repeating. Then, it goes one by one. No repeating, just what they have heard, and…, vocabulary, for sure.

The last student from the group needs to say that sentence aloud, and everyone will hear the outcome. The first student can finally reveal the truth, huh. It will be a lot of fun.

2. Dialogues & Emotions Game

The teacher needs to prepare cards containing diverse emotions and hand them out to the students. They have to make dialogues based on the topic that they have recently learned and add key vocabulary there. Topical words are holy of the holies.

After making dialogues in pairs or groups, students represent them in front of everyone, and others have to guess the emotions.

By the way, they can write down the lesson vocabulary that they have heard.

It is difficult to count all the perks from this game: creativity of making dialogues, learning words by inserting them there, then noticing them in others’ dialogues, mastering articulation, pronunciation and artistry by showing a certain emotion.

3. The Board Game

It can be either online or printed. The teacher can prepare such a card with numbers, each of which should contain one task. These can be:

To fill in the correct form of the verb
To choose a correct word
To answer the question: “Are you into consumerism?”
To say 3 forms of the verb
To enumerate when we use the modal verb “must”
What would you do if your neighbour is playing loud music? Go and ask him politely to turn it down. Use phrases like…
Say three sentences that begin with I wish…

It can vary depending on the level.

Again, the students are divided into couples or groups, and they have game chips and a dice.

The game is over when they reach the finish. But again, it is not about the winner; vice versa, the learning process matters. Anyway, such a small win can boost mood as well.

4. The Memory Game

This game is to check the students’ concentration and memory. The teacher needs to divide them into groups and prepare some pictures. They have to look at it for a minute and then recall everything they have seen.

If it seems easy, the teacher can set one more challenge, like asking for some colours there, emotions or a list of verbs that represent some activities.

Sure, it should be connected to their vocabulary. Extra questions, reasking to make sure or maybe to confuse them a little bit and rack their brains, huh. But it is for their sake.

5. Connect Game

A 7x7 grid will be enough for the beginning. The teacher needs to write 7 vocabulary words at the top of the 7 columns.

The students compete to connect these words to sentences or mini dialogues. Then, have to compare their answers and see who has completed everything.

It will help to recall the words as they will use them in context again, repeat and see their partners’ work.

6. Pros Or Cons Game

This game is perfect for higher levels. The students will be given a topic, and they have to write down all the pros and cons of a certain situation.

For example:

Working from home
Having a part-time job while studying
Being your own boss (running your own business)
Playing video games in your free time
Usage of social media every day

So, the concept is clear. It needs to be identical to their topic so that they can write convincing arguments and vocabulary words.

Then, the teacher assigns everyone into groups where someone will stand for or against it.

The students have to convince their interlocutors. The more arguments, the better.

7. Pictionary

Something mysterious, at first glance. It is “dictionary + picture”. So, it is a so-called dictionary consisting of pictures.

The teacher needs to give students cards with words that they have to show, draw, or do anything else besides saying them out loud.

What cards could these be?

Verbs connected to sport
Adjectives to describe a film
Idioms

The teacher can add a time limit, too. It will make students hurry up a little bit as the stressful situation is created. They can act differently, so it is time to step out of the comfort zone. If the team guesses correctly, they get a point, and the team with the most points wins.

Make sure the players swap around so that everyone gets a turn to draw.

8. Story Telling

The teacher should provide their students with a set of vocabulary that they have learned.

Then, assign them to create a story where each student makes one sentence. One sentence — one word. If the students use more, that’s even better.

It goes one by one until they run out of words. It is hilarious, they have to think together and help each other to empty the list.

9. Story Writing

At first, the teacher assigns the title, and here is where students’ creativity shines.

With a large class, the teacher could divide them into two or three smaller groups. The teacher needs to give each group a piece of paper and a pen and explain that everyone is going to write a part of a story.

But that each time someone writes, they will fold over the top part of the paper, and the next person will only be able to see the last three words that were left below where the paper is folded.

Then, the next student continues on from those three words and then does the same thing: writes another sentence and folds over the paper to leave only the last three words visible… And so on until everyone has had a turn. The last student needs to end the story. Then the story is read out loud – the results can be hilarious!

10. Pass The Word

So, how does it go? The teacher gives the first student a word (e.g. holiday). Each student must quickly add one related word: hotel → suitcase → plane → passport. The words should not repeat.

It is good to set a time here, too. If the students hesitate for a long time or just drag it down, their word passes to somebody else. This game might be really endless.

As it will become much more boring later, the teacher can adjust the rules and make it more difficult.

Students can be restricted to verbs or adjectives only, for example.

What’s more, here is how it can be prolonged. One student says a word, the next one makes a sentence with this word, and then adds their related word. The next student makes a sentence with the previous word, and again gives their. And, here we go again, one by one.

Hence, there are activities for both pair work and open-class discussions. The teacher can find whatever they like due to the level of their student and open them up one by one.

Such games will help to release the tension, feel comfortable about their English among other learners, learn by heart and get a real buzz out of learning.

Remember to encourage your students that these language games are about process, not the point of destination. Teach them not only English, but also to accept this.