Word Practice: ESL Grammar Games
Last update: 3/15/2023
Grammar games can make learning English fun and interesting for ESL students. A variety of games, quizzes, and worksheets are available for students of all ages and skill levels, and these activities can help keep the students' attention and encourage them to want to learn more about spelling and grammar. Scrabble, for example, allows students to use randomly chosen letters to form words in a crossword puzzle-type configuration. Helpful tools like the Scrabble Word Finder can even show them all the possible words they can play, improving both their vocabulary and score.
Flashcards, quizzes, or worksheets using pictures help students who learn better with visual aids. Grammar and word puzzles encourage critical thinking and help students learn about word order, vocabulary, spelling, and proper word usage. Many of these games can be found online. Words With Friends, for example, is a free-to-play mobile game that offers students the chance to improve their vocabulary while connecting with players from all around the world. It can be very frustrating to build words in a foreign language, but students can utilize the Words With Friends Cheat to keep up with their native-speaker competitors. All types of grammar games can help promote memorization and keep students studying their lessons, while still having fun!
Action Verbs Present Tense ESL Interactive Grammar, Vocabulary Game
This online game is great for young or beginner ESL students. Students can use this game-show-themed activity to answer questions about vocabulary according to the pictures provided with each question. It's a useful activity for test or quiz preparation or for vocabulary practice.
Active vs. Passive Voice - WordTips Grammar Blog
This article is a compelling resource explaining the usage of active and passive voice and helpful tips on switching sentences between the two voices.
Transition Words - WordTips Grammar Blog
All that ESL students need to know to start using transition words and level up their English speaking and writing.
A comprehensive guide about the eight parts of speech with a summary table and lots of relevant examples.
The flashcards on this site can help ESL students memorize English vocabulary words: Start with these flashcards about actions, then explore the site to find ones on other topics.
ESL Paraphrase and Summary Exercises
This page from the Purdue University website contains a paraphrase exercise and a summary exercise designed for intermediate-level ESL students. Each exercise contains three questions and an answer sheet. Paraphrasing and summarizing sentences, paragraphs, or passages can help ESL students understand proper word usage, vocabulary, and word placement.
This interactive game is for ESL students of intermediate to advanced skill levels. The game requires students to match the sentences to the tenses they reflect. The tenses involved with this game include present perfect, present simple, present progressive, past simple, and future simple/progressive.
Students can take this interactive quiz to help them study singular, plural, and possessive nouns. The quiz involves fill-in-the-blank questions with multiple-choice answers. When students click on a chosen answer, they can immediately see if they got the answer right or wrong. The quiz is ideal for beginner to intermediate ESL students and is repeatable with different questions each time.
Comparative and Superlative Adjectives Activities
Beginner to intermediate ESL students can benefit from the group activities on this page. Teachers can review the activities and use them for classroom or group tutoring lessons. Each unique exercise addresses the proper use of comparative and superlative adjectives.
Commonly Used Irregular Verbs in English
Students of all skill levels can use the listen and repeat videos on this site to learn about and review the proper usage of irregular verbs.
ESL students who need help learning contractions can use this game to test their skills.
Beginners can complete this quiz to sharpen their relative pronoun skills. Each question displays a complete sentence with a pronoun in red text. The student answers "yes" if the pronoun in the sentence is correctly used and "no" if it is not. Students can check individual answers as they complete each question or check all answers at the bottom of the quiz.
Advanced Quantifiers Error Correction Quiz
Advanced ESL students can use this grammar quiz to learn about or study the use of quantifiers in the English language. Each question contains a sentence that uses a quantifier correctly or incorrectly. The student clicks on a bubble next to "correct" or "wrong" according to how the quantifier is used in the sentence. Students can check their answers at the end of the quiz.
The Falling Clouds verb game helps beginner ESL students learn about proper sentence structure and word usage. This interactive game allows students to put scrambled words in order to create a complete sentence. Each sentence scramble includes a picture describing what happens in the sentence. After the student completes the sentence, a voice reads the words back.
This printable worksheet is geared for beginner to intermediate ESL levels. It consists of a paragraph with all articles removed. The student must insert the articles "a," "and," or "the" where it is appropriate in each sentence.
Beginning Forming Questions: "Who"
Forming questions with the word "who" helps ESL students understand proper sentence structure. This printable worksheet requires the student to form a question by placing scrambled words in proper order. It is great for lesson supplements and studying.
The Henry Ford College Learning Lab website offers a practice worksheet about turning fragments into complete sentences. This exercise is good for beginner or intermediate skill levels. It is also a tool for advanced ESL students to review or practice with. Each sentence on the printable worksheet is missing a verb, clause, or other element that students must enter to form a complete sentence.
Fill in the Blanks
Try out this quiz to test your ability to use articles correctly in English.
Direct and Indirect Speech Lesson
The Cambridge University Press offers a lesson and accompanying activity that teaches intermediate ESL students about direct and indirect speech. Teachers can use this lesson plan and exercise in a classroom setting and allow students to work in groups to complete the activity.
A Short Grammar Lesson About Articles
ESL teachers can use this grammar lesson to teach their students about articles. The lesson helps students review and study beginner or intermediate-level grammar and is perfect for kids or adults learning English. Practice questions and an answer sheet are available at the end of the lesson.
Find a two-page printable worksheet with accompanying answer sheet to help beginner ESL students learn about adverbs. The worksheet includes pictures to help students understand the meaning and use of the adverbs in the sentences.
ESL Activities to Promote Interaction and Communication
ESL teachers can print out a document containing grammar lesson plans here to find activities geared toward group or classroom learning. Group ESL activities can help students develop relationship and communication skills while they improve their grammar skills.
12 Fun Speaking Games for English Learners
The Edutopia website provides a list of group game ideas to help ESL students learn English together. They allow students to interact with each other using their English grammar skills; speaking English is a huge part of learning the language.
ESL teachers with large classes of students can benefit from this activity that allows students to work in pairs and move around the room while they work on their reading and writing skills.
These lessons are a perfect fit for beginner or child ESL students. They include worksheets with pictures to help students learn grammar easily. The exercises are all easily printable.
Adjectives Ending in -ED or -ING Exercise
This worksheet can help ESL students learn about types of adjectives and how to use them in sentences.
Cause and Effect Linking Words Lesson
The University of Victoria website provides a lesson that helps ESL students learn about cause and effect linking words. This lesson is perfect for advanced students and focuses on conjunctions, transitions, and prepositions.
On the Trail Listening Exercise
This listening exercise allows ESL students with an intermediate skill level to listen to English dialogue online while reading the text version of the conversation. After listening and reading the dialogue, students can review vocabulary they heard and read. Afterward, they can take an interactive quiz to test what they learned.
Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary
Merriam-Webster developed this dictionary especially for English learners. ESL students can enter an English word in the search bar to learn how to properly use it in a sentence and confirm the definition of the word.
This quiz geared toward intermediate or advanced ESL students contains 12 questions pertaining to types of sentences. Each question contains a simple, complex, or compound sentence. The student must choose which type each sentence is. They may then check their answers at the bottom of the quiz.
ESL students can use this quiz to learn about the use of parallel verbs. The interactive quiz contains sentences that correctly or incorrectly use parallel verbs, and the student can answer with "correct" or "not correct." The quiz is ideal for beginner to intermediate skill levels.