trivia

Split the people in teams and put the posters with the topics on the wall in front of them. The rules are simple: one team selects the topic and you read a question from that topic. The first team to answer the question gets one pont and can choose the next topic. If one team answers 3 questions in a row they get a bonus point.

Here are questions I made for my group of 13-14 y.o.

Geography

1. What is the biggest country in the world? Russia

2. What is the capital city of Australia? Canberra

3. In which country would you find the Leaning Tower of Pisa?

4. What is the name of the highest mountain on Earth? Everest

5. Helsinki is the capital city of which country? Finland

6. What is the name of the biggest ocean on Earth? Pacific

7. In what country is the Stonehenge?

8. Name the continent where Brasil is situated.

9. In which country do you find pyramids?

10. How many stripes are there on the American flag?

Films

1. What color is the hair of Marge Simpson?

2. Name three skywalkers from starwars.

3. What was the name of a bad guy in last batman movie?

4. Hugh Jackman’s hero in X-men.

5. Neo, Morpheus, Trinity – name the film.

6. Which robot say the phrase “I will be back”?

7. There are more than 20 movies about this secret agent. Name him.

8. What is the name of a donkey from Shrek?

9. What is the name of the planet from Avatar?

10. This director made the movie Indiana Johnes, Schindlers’ list and Jaws.

Sport

1. What sport is played at Wimbledon?

2. What country does the soccer player Wayne Rooney come from? England

3. In which sport was Muhammad Ali the world champion?

4. How many bases are there on a baseball field? 4

5. What sports make up triathlon?

6. How long is the maraphon distance?

7. In a professional game of hockey, how many players are on the field in both teams? 12

8. What sport uses pins?

9. Which sport has two picadors? 

Science

1. What can move faster than the speed of light?

2. Which physicist discovered gravity?

3. What is the size of Pi?

4. What is the name of a person who studies weather?

5. Which part of the body moves blood?  

6. If you do not count Pluto, how many planets are inour solar system? 8

7. Which of these is not part of an atom: Electrons, Neutrons, Rayons, Protons.
8. What is the chemical formula of water?

9. Which of the following creatures is not a bird: Wombat, Dodo, Robin, Emu?

10. What instrument is used to see objects that are too small to see with the naked eye?

Literature

1. What is the name of Sherlock Holmes' friend, who helps him in his work?

2. Who is Moby Dick?

3. Which animal in Alice in Wonderland can disappear?

4. What was the name of the sword, that king Arthur took from the stone?

5. What book has a character named Bilbo Baggins?

6. What is Shakespear’s name?

7. This man took money from the rich and gave to the poor. Who is he?

8. This boy was the friend of Vinnie the pooh. What’s his name?

9. What is the name of the man who got in a ship crash and had to live on an island? 

10. How many books about Harry Potter are there?  7

Different

1. How many years are there in a millennium? 1000

2. Arachnophobia is the fear of what?

3. What is the name of the closest star to Earth? Sun

4. Found in both Irish and Indian flag: what is the most sacred colour of Hinduism? Orange

5. Scarlet – what is the color?

6. What was the reason for the death of Titanic ship?

7. How many cards are there in a standard deck of playing cards?

8. After water, what is themost populardrink in the world?

9. Which superhero uses the alias Clark Kent?

(reversed) who am i?

The teacher thinks of the person and the students have to ask him yes/no questions to find out who he is.

what's in the bag?

The idea: Get students to describe (in English) objects that they can touch but can't see.

Preparation: Several objects - eg stuffed toys, anything! a bag to hide the items in, paper and pens/pencils, imagination!

In the ESL classroom: Choose one student to describe the object. Give all the other students a piece of paper and a pencil (or can be done in teams with two or more students drawing on the white/black board). Explain to the class that (student name) will describe whatever they feel in the bag and the rest of the class must draw it. The student whose drawing best matches the item being described is the winner. If students are having trouble describing, try throwing in a few words like: short, long, tall, fat, thin etc.

what happened?

You start by telling the situation:
"A naked person lies in the middle of the desert holding a broken match in his hand. The person is dead and there are no footprints around him."

The group has to find out what happened to the person by asking you yes/no questions.

The story:
Three men were flying over the desert on a hot air balloon. Suddenly they started to fall down. To make the balloon lighter they have threw away all their stuff and their clothes. But that didn't help. So the men decided to draw matches, the one with the short match would have to jump off the balloon to save others.

You can make up different situations using the same principle. 

taboo

Before class, create several index cards. On each card write one word in a large font with a circle around it, and underneath write 2-4 related words in a smaller font. The goal is for students to get their teammates to guess the circled word. They can say anything they like to try to make them guess, except for the words written on the card.

Here is the example of a game for the topic "films":

Terminator – robot, future, Arnold Schwarzneger, Skynet

Titanic – ship, boat, iceberg, Di Caprio

American pie – comedy, pie, american

Twilight – vampire, warewolf, love, romantic, Pattinson

Iron man – iron, man, costume, Stark

Batman – superhero, costume, bat, black

Spiderman – spider, man, costume, red, blue, heroe

Shreck – big, green, ogre, cartoon

WALL-E – cartoon, robot

Madagaskar – animals, island, cartoon

Forest Gump – Forest Gump, man, Tom Hanks

Rocky – box, Silvester Stalone

Toy Story – toys, story, cartoon

Matrix – robots, Keanu Reeves, future, Morpheus, Trinity

Lord of the rings – hobbit, ring, middle earth, Jackson, Gendalf

Star wars – jedi, any name (!), space, empire

Doctor House – doctor, Hugh Lourie, medicine, hospital

Indiana Jones – archeologist, adventure, Harrison Ford, hat

Lion King – lion, Simba, cartoon, Disney

Slumdog millionaire – India, poor, boy, rich

experts

Select three volunteers and sit them in front of the group. They will be experts. Then the group has to decide the area of their expertiese e.g. food, cinema, sports etc. After that the group starts asking them questions, and the experts have to answer. The trick is, the experts can each say only one word at a time and have to speak in chain and try to make up a meaningful sentence. 

why not?

You ask everyone to think of some thing they want to do today: go to the movies, sleep, eat an ice-cream etc. Then the people must go around the room and tell their plan to everyone, and each person they meet must come up with a reason, why this plan cannot be fulfilled. If you hear the same reason for the second time, the person must think of another one. The reasons should be as funny and creative as possible. And delivered in a polite way. "I'm really sorry, but today you cannot go to sleep. Your bed has been eaten by Godzilla."

human bingo

Divide the paper into nine squares. In each square write a question about the group members:
- who here has a brother?
- who can drive a car?
- who can play a guitar?
- etc.

The people then have to go around interviewing each other and try to fill each square with one name. The one who gets it first is the winner. 

can't stop

This is a variation of a board game of the same name where 2 teams race to reach the top first. I use this game a lot for phonics practice but it can be used for anything. Draw two vertical paths of 8-12 squares each and draw a big circle with a prize at the top. Place a magnet for each team at the bottom of the paths. If team 1 goes first ask 5 students from that team to stand. ask a question and the student who raises his hand may answer. If correct, then his team's magnet goes up one square and he\she sits down leaving 4 students standing. Ask these students: Do you want to stop? If they answer yes then draw a line under their magnet and they can't fall bellow it but their turn is over. If they answer "No" then ask another question but if they get it wrong they fall all the way to the bottom or to the last place they stopped. You must ask "Do you want to stop?" after every correct response. At first teams will try to race to the top without stopping but soon discover its very hard to answer 12 consecutive questions without any mistakes and thus always plunge back to the bottom.