ESL Role Play Games

Where can you find ESL role play games and other activities? You can find them on this page. These games are interactive and help English language learners through speaking, listening and by compelling them to think about various situations.

Two Truths and A Lie

Instructions: Tell the group that each person will introduce him- or herself by stating two truths about their life and one lie. The rest of the participants will guess which statement is the lie. Students will be able to ask the other student one question to help determine which one is a lie.

Example: Hi, I’m Mary. My hair was almost to my waist in high school, I talked to Cher in an airport coffee shop, and I speak four languages.

Now, a student can ask her questions like “what did Cher tell you?”. Try any questions to see if they pause or cannot answer the question for the statement that you think is a lie.

Chain Story

Directions: This is fun story game and it actually can get quite hilarious. Write down new and old vocabulary on the whiteboard. Write down one word per one student. Number the words and give the students a number. Then, starting with word number one and student number one, the first sentence of the story must be made. This sentence must include the word the student is given. Then student number two follows and so on. Remember to correct grammar along the way.

Be sure to create a peculiar mix of words. It will make the students laugh. Here is an example list: “five zombies, fat cat, supermarket, scared boy, red bus, laughing engineer, angry policeman, and quiet tunnel. Using these eight words, the story may turn into a red bus full of zombies stuck in a quiet tunnel while the laughing engineer won’t let them out. Or something that runs along those lines.

Dog, blue, light, dark, face, smoke, time, space, burrito

Home, car, bike, ugly, smart, helpful, small, dog

Walk, taste, rice, green, apartment, left, work, big

One, park, motorcycle, helmet, beautiful, shiny, pink, cat

First, last, middle, elephant, horse, love, yellow, bike

The Deal

Instructions: I will pair up student against student as they try to sell the same type of product, but they will choose their own brand. Based on the brand, each product will have features that are better than the other but it is ultimately up to the salesperson to close the deal. Let’s see who is the best salesperson by being able to persuade the customer to fork over their hard earned money!

Sales Items: car, dog, death star, t-shirt, ashtray, goat, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, a planet, musical group or singer(Beiber excluded), popular sports star, a loaf of bread, sunrise or sunset, trip to a popular vacation destination, a country, company, time, ability/capability, actor or actress, time travel destination

The Defense Rests its Case

Instructions: You are involved in a scandal of some sort such as the BP Oil Spill, BK Horse Meat Fiasco, poisoned food by chef, NSA security, you name it. Students can be the defendant, judge, prosecutor, witness, character witness and other functions.

The Leaders

Instructions: Pick 3 to 4 students who will then select the country that they want to be the leader of. Once they have selected their country they will join each other in a summit of nations where they will discuss important and not so important topics. They will have to work on various resolutions and come to an agreement.

Topics for debate:

1. Removal of all nuclear arms pointed at each other.

Solution: ?

2. Lift any trade embargoes when it comes to sushi, weapons, puppies and kittens.

Solution: weapons for puppies and fish

3. Ban certain actors and actresses from ever being able to act on either tv or in movies.

Solution: Ok-bin Kim, lindsay lohan, leonardo dicaprio

4. Ban certain singers from ever being able to produce another single or album.

Solution: Justin Beiber, lee hyori, john mccain

5. Decide on a standard IQ level that each citizen has to pass before they are allowed to enter the country of the leader.

Crazy Story

Level: Any Level

This is an activity that will make your students speak in class and be creative.

• Ask students to write a word on a piece of paper and tell them not to show anyone. This word should be a verb (or whatever you’d like to review).

• The teacher starts telling a story, then stops and chooses a student.

• That student will continue the story and must use his/her word. This student then chooses the next student to continue the story.

• The last student must end the story.

• After the story is over, the students then try to guess what words each student has written on his/her paper. The student who guesses the most words wins the game.

Other Resources:

Chef Interview
Athlete Interview
Celebrity Interview
Plane Crash Survivors