Possessive adjectives: games & activities for ESL

Nowadays, more and more teaching materials are presented from various sources. This is a logical response to demanding students’ requests.

Since many people are spoiled for choice these days, teachers must create engaging materials to liven up their lessons and keep learners' attention and interest.

However, despite the abundance of options, these resources can sometimes be overwhelming, especially when teaching lower-level learners. The challenge lies in making lessons fun and engaging without introducing unnecessary complexity.

In this article, we’ve compiled fun and effective games that can help teach possessive adjectives in a way that’s both engaging and educational.

This game is designed to help students practice possessive adjectives like "my," "your," "his," "her," "its," "our," and "their." It focuses on family members, physical appearance, hobbies, and possessions.

For example, they might have fragments like "My sister is..." or "His mother is..." and "tall," "a good cook," etc. The objective is for each group to arrange the sentence fragments into as many meaningful sentences as possible. For instance:

Set a time limit for the game (e.g., 5 minutes), and once time is up, ask the groups to share their sentences. The group with the most correct sentences wins.

This game is a great way for students to practise possessive adjectives while also reinforcing vocabulary related to family, appearances, interests, and possessions.

The "Family Album" game allows students to practice both subject pronouns and possessive adjectives in a fun and engaging way. 

To play, divide students into groups of 3-4. Each group receives a board with a maze, a set of cards with questions and statements, and a counter for each student. 

Students move through the maze by correctly answering questions that require them to use possessive adjectives and subject pronouns. For example:

Students navigate the maze by answering questions related to family and characteristics. The first group to finish the maze correctly wins. 

The game helps students practise their grammar in a more contextualized and competitive environment.

In the "Detectives" game, students practice possessive pronouns such as "mine," "yours," "his," and "hers." 

One student plays the role of a detective, while the others secretly choose an object that belongs to one of the students: a pencil, a book, or a personal item.

The student whose object it is must deny it, saying, "No, it isn’t mine. It’s his/hers," pointing to another student. The detective continues asking until they figure out who owns the object.

This game helps students practise possessive pronouns in a fun and interactive way, encouraging conversation and quick thinking.

You can play this game with different things. For example, it may be the names of celebrities. Ask your students to think about their favourite actor/singer/politician.

Then ask them to write several short sentences about their person, such as: "Her famous role was in the Titanic film. Her hair is blond. She is tall. She is from the USA."

You may ask your learners to imagine that they are a renowned figure and describe themself as this personality. 

For instance, "My famous poem is Contra spem spero. My nationality is Ukrainian. My home city is Zviahel. My mother is Olena Bdzilka. Who am I?" — “Your name is Lesia Ukrainka”. By doing so, students will work on the grammar forms of "my" and "your".

In this game, students are asked to make several simple questions about their favourite food/place/film/book/fruit/drink/sport, and so on. 

Then the learners work in pairs and exercise grammar forms such as "your" and "my" by asking and answering the questions prepared beforehand. 

This activity engages students to talk using the grammar as it's a personally relevant and communicative task, and, what is more, it will work as team building for your group. Just be careful to choose the vocabulary that is familiar to the learners. 

Students may change their partners many times, or they can tell about their previous interlocutor to a new partner and then ask him/her the same questions.

Who remembers these entertaining pictures from our childhood, where we had to find 10/12 differences between similar pictures? I was really into it. 

So, the next task will be suitable for kids/teens and even adults. There are two versions of this activity. 

So a teacher should give two pictures to a pair of learners and ask them to find differences, describe these pictures, and play possessive adjectives games. 

For example: his hair is long/her hair is short, his shorts are red/her shorts are blue. The winner is someone who notices more different features.

For instance, my hoodie is black, your hoodie is white. The winner is also the person who made more comparisons. 

Additionally, if you have plenty of time in your lesson, you can combine these two versions into one game with two stages.

If you have overly active and vigorous students or you "hit the jackpot" and you are working with restless and hyperactive teenagers or kids, this game is for you. 

You put the students in a circle, and one by one, they need to make sentences about people in the circle using possessive adjectives. For example, "his T-shirt is white," "their hair is blond," "her bag is big."

Participants can make statements about everything that crosses their mind. The only rule is to use possessive pronouns correctly and do it as fast as possible. 

My children adore such energetic activities. It raises their competitive spirit, gives them a feeling of victory, and I have a lively speaking activity.

If you teach extremely creative children or you want to have a hilarious lesson with adults, the following activity will be great. A teacher gives a task for students to draw themselves or their group mates. 

Then show these portraits to the class, and others should guess who it is and justify their choice.

Of course, there are some traditional ways to practice this grammar. You can prepare pictures with people and some objects around them, and students describe the objects: "this is her bike," "that is their car," "this is her book."  

It is a good idea to ask learners to bring some family photos or photos with friends, and describe them like "it’s my mother," "it’s her cousin, my aunt." 

Then give a picture to one student and the description to another one. The learners move around and try to find the right picture for their descriptive text.

As a final point, I hope you will find the most suitable possessive adjectives activities for your group of students and make your lessons a bit more amusing and funny, even with boring grammar.

If you want more ideas and support, we offer a lot of courses for teachers to help you make every lesson engaging and effective.