Teach ESL to Kids

Games are a staple in any ESL classroom, but did you know that choosing teams can be almost as important as the game you are actually playing?

You want your teams to be an even match. A game where one team is significantly better than the other is not much fun for the losing team.

Having contol over who is on what team is a great way for a teacher to maintain proper control of the classroom. You can split up two kids who are likely to goof off if they are together, ensure that the teams are of even ability, and make sure that your students are learning to work with all other students, not just their friends.

Not sure how to go about choosing teams for your ESL games? Check out the following list.

5 Ways for Choosing Teams

1. Students Decide. If you have a class where the students are all of similar abilities and get along with each other, then you can let them pick their own teams. This is a good method when you want the kids to really feel as though they have control in the classroom.

2. Teacher Decides. When you want to maintain complete control over the teams, then you can decide who is on what team. It seems a bit heavy-handed, but I have never had kids complain about this method.

3. Students play Rock/Paper. Some of my students showed me this way for choosing teams and I think it’s great! It works well when you have students of similar abilities and you want the teams chosen with student-controlled randomness. Students play rock, paper, scissors, but without the scissors so they can only throw rock or paper. They keep doing this until there are an even number of rocks and papers and this is your team.
4. Draw Straws. This is good when you have students of similar ability and want to choose teams with teacher-controlled randomness. Take chopsticks and put different colors of electrical tape around the end. Hold them in your hand so that students cannot see the colors and have each of the students pick a stick. Then they separate into teams based on the color of their stick.
5. Count Off. This method works great when you want to split up two students but want it to seem random. Have the students count off in twos, then ones and twos are your teams. This works because usually the two kids that you want to split up will be sitting next to each other. You’ll split them up, but it will seem as though it was random to the kids.

These are the ways that I have found to be most successful in my classroom. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know.

Love,
Shannon Sensei