39 ESL Vocabulary Activities: For Teenagers and Adults - Jackie Bolen, Jennifer Booker Smith 2015

Memory circle game
Games and activities for lower-level students

Skills: Speaking/Listening

Time: 5-10 minutes

Materials: Nothing

This is a game that I often use with smaller classes of less than ten students. To set it up, you need to make a rule about what kind of words or grammar that the students can use. Base it on whatever you are studying that day in class. For example: animals or past tense are good topics. You’ll need to adjust the rules and criteria according to the level and age of your students. You want to make it challenging, but not impossible so that everyone can have a chance to play at least once in a round. I’ll use past tense for my example.

Everyone stands up in a circle and I begin the game by saying, “I ate pizza.” The next student says, “She ate pizza, and I studied English.” The next student says, “She ate pizza, he studied English, and I watched TV.” And so on it goes, around the circle. If someone forgets someone or gets the order incorrect, he/she has to sit down and is out of the game. I usually let it go until there are 2-3 people left and then I give them a prize of some sort and start over with a new set of criteria.

If you have low-level students, a single word works better. For example, they can say “Cat,” “Cat and dog,” or “Cat, dog, and fish.”

Teaching Tips:

You should participate in the game as well to impress students with your memory skills. It's a good way to end the game if it's taking too long—you go and declare the game finished!

Procedure:

1. Assign a topic or grammar point.

2. All the students stand up in a circle.

3. The first student says a word related to the topic.

4. The next student repeats the first word and a new word.

5. The third student repeats the first two words and adds a new one.

6. If a student misses a word, he/she sits down and is out of the game.