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“To learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world.” - Chinese Proverb
Would you like to include more games in your language classes? Like a lot of teachers have realised, fun resources are not only better for the classroom environment, they can teach students more effectively. Whether you’re teaching French, Spanish, or English as a foreign language, any language can be taught more effectively through enjoyable activities. Let’s have a look at the best way to include games in your language lessons.
Games You Can Make Yourself for Language Classes
To include games in your language lessons, you need to follow these three steps:
- Firstly, adapt your lessons to the age and level of the students.
- Give the students clear and concise explanations.
- Don’t interfere too much as the students are playing.
In primary school, you can combine language learning with other activities, especially tasks like cutting, colouring, writing, etc. to develop motor skills at the same time as linguistic skills. 
Memory
As the name suggests, this is a great game for remembering new information. You just need sheets of paper, pens, and some scissors.
- Ask your students to cut an even number of 5x5cm cards.
- On half the cards, write the words to learn in the target language on half of the cards and write their equivalents in English on the other half.
Turn the cards over one by one and if they have a matching pair, they can keep them, if not, turn the cards back over so they can’t see what’s written on them. The winner is the student with the greatest number of pairs. This simple game is a classroom classic!
Connect 4
You can turn the classic game Connect 4 into an activity for students to practise languages. Put students into pairs and ask them to do the following:
- Create a 7x7 table to be used to play Connect 4.
- In each square of the table, write the translation of a word from the vocabulary lists students are trying to learn.
On each turn, students will place a counter as if they were playing Connect 4. However, unlike the physical game of Connect 4, students will have to say the translation in the target language before they can place a counter on a given square. If they’re correct, they can keep their counter there. If they’re wrong, they lose their turn. Continue just like a real game of Connect 4. The first person to have 4 counters in a row wins. This game can be used to work on spelling, pronunciation, and vocabulary and is particularly useful for beginners.
The Toy Box
This is often used in preschool or nursery classes as it allows students to start learning a second language. It can also be used for very young students in their first language. Just take a box and place various objects in it:
- Fruit
- Pens
- Toys
- Tissues
- A teddy bear
- A plastic bottle
- A book
To win, the child has to guess the object through touch alone without looking. This game can help students to identify objects and learn vocabulary in a foreign language or their mother tongue and you can make it so they only win if they can guess. For very young children, you’ll need larger objects that they’ll be very familiar with. Learn about teaching foreign languages with games
Card Games for Language Classes
Affordable, light, and timeless, card games are really useful in language classes. 
Taboo
Here’s a great game for using your language skills and learn new vocabulary. To play this game, you need to write words in the target language on cards and describe the words (without saying them) so that your classmate can guess the word. Players aren’t allowed to use certain synonyms or related words. For example, if the word was animal, they mightn’t be able to say:
- Cat
- Elephant
- Dog
- Mammals
- Shells
The goal is for players to use their language skills to describe the word so clearly that their partner or classmate can easily guess it. Taboo is a multiplayer game that’s regularly amongst the best-selling games in a lot of different countries. Learn about the advantages of studying foreign languages with games
Boardgames to Improve Language Skills
In schools, colleges, and even universities, board games are being used to teach students more about languages. Check out jobs for ex teachers here on Superprof. 
Guess Who?
The goal is simple: guess the mystery person through a process of elimination by asking yes/no questions about their physical traits. This is a great game for learning how to formulate closed questions and since the only text in the game is the names of the characters, it doesn’t matter which version you have. You can easily adapt this to any language, even though the characters’ names won’t match.
Monopoly
Does Monopoly need an introduction? The goal of this popular board game is to make as much money as possible through buying property and is played by friends and families all over the world. It’s great for learning various nouns in any language while also learning some economic vocabulary. Similarly, there are plenty of different versions for different towns, places, and franchises. Choose the version that’s right for what you’re teaching.
Time’s Up!
This memory game can be played with between 4 and 12 players which means most of the class can play in a single game. There are 40 cards including fictional characters and common names and you have to make your partner guess them as quickly as possible. You can use descriptions, mime, and any technique you can think of to make them guess, but for language classes, it’s a good idea to make them use their linguistic skills. There are also several other games that you can play or adapt to language lessons:
- Pictionary
- Scrabble
- Memory
- And many others.
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