Practicing listening skills is super important for ESL learners. Making these tasks fun is the best way to ensure high levels of engagement from students. Fun games and quick activities are the perfect way to give your students daily practice of this essential skill and ensure they develop their confidence! Here, we have gathered 21 listening games and activities that are super simple to build into your daily classroom and that your students will love!
Listening Games
1. Do What I Said, Not What I Say
This game is a fun warm-up for your next ESL lesson! The teacher calls out instructions and students must follow the previous instruction, instead of the one that has just been called out.
Learn more: YouTube
2. What’s The Password?
This game comes with a free printable board that you can edit for your class. Read a sentence to your students which includes an item from the top row and side column. They must then check the grid to find where the points meet to give them letters from the password.
Learn more: YouTube
3. Listen and Draw
Students will enjoy this fun game that can be played individually or on the class board. Read out a sentence to your students (e.g. the dog is on a car) and have them draw what it describes!
Learn more: YouTube
4. Get Competitive With a Board Race
A board race is a super competitive activity that your students will love. Sort your class into teams, each with a marker for the board. The teacher then calls out a category and students must race each other to fill the slots on the board with correctly spelled words that link to the category.
Learn more: YouTube
5. Change Seats If…
This fun activity is a super way to end the day or as a brain break for your students, whilst still working on their English skills. The teacher will say “change seat if…” and then adds a statement at the end.
Learn more: ESL Kids Games
6. Play The Telephone Game
The telephone game is a circle time classic and is great fun for English learners. Students sit in a circle and the teacher will whisper a phrase to the first student. The students then pass this phrase along the circle and the last student says aloud what they have heard.
Learn more: ESL Active
7. Play 20 Questions
Playing 20 questions is a fun way to get your students talking and practicing their English in a no-pressure situation. A “thinker” thinks of a person, place, or thing and the other students must ask twenty or fewer questions to guess what the thing is.
Learn more: YouTube
8. Fizz Buzz
Fizz Buzz is a fantastic way to combine math with an English listening exercise. Students count up from the number 1 to 100 but must say “fizz” if their number is a multiple of five or “buzz” if it is a multiple of 7.
Learn more: Dr. Mike’s Math Games For Kids
9. Play a Game of Bingo
A fun game of bingo can easily engage your students in a fun revision session! Each student gets a bingo board and can cross off pictures as the teacher calls out specific weather types.
Learn more: Gift of Curiosity
10. Get Familiar With Homophones By Playing a Game
Homophones are particularly tricky for English learners. For this fun game, students listen to the teacher call out words, then once a homophone is called they must race to be the first to write the different spellings of the words down.
Learn more: Teaching English
11. Do a Blindfold Obstacle Course
Set up an obstacle course for your class and let your students guide each other through it using only verbal directions!
Learn more: All ESL
12. Dress Up Relay Race
For this game, teachers call out an item of clothing that the students should grab from the box. Students must then put the clothing on before running back to their team for the next person to go.
Learn more: Healthy Kids
13. Play ‘Cross the River
Select one student to be the “catcher” and all other students line up at one side of the playing zone. The “catcher” calls out something that means students are free to cross the river without being caught (e.g. if you have a red jacket). All other students must then try to make it across without getting caught.
Learn more: YouTube
14. Have Fun Answering Some Beach Ball Questions
Write some simple questions on a beach ball that will encourage your students to use their target vocabulary. The student who catches the ball must ask the question to other participants in the class.
Learn more: Super Teacher Worksheets
Listening Activity Ideas
15. Try This Online English Listening Test
Give your students the opportunity to complete a listening activity with an online test. This activity has a pre-recorded audio text on which students will then answer multiple-choice questions before completing a dictation task.
Learn more: Excellent ESL 4 U
16. Start The Day With a Listening Mat
Listening mats are a fun activity to practice listening skills. You will call out the instructions at the bottom of the page for how to color or add to the picture. Check how well your students have listened by comparing pictures at the end of the task!
Learn more: Casual Teaching
17. Listen and Number Body Parts
Practice numbers and body parts with this simple activity. Students can practice their English listening skills as they listen for the body part’s name as well as the corresponding number for them to label it with.
Learn more: Gru Languages
18. Listen and Do
Your English learners must listen closely during this activity to fill in their grid as per the instructions that the teacher will read aloud. This activity gives students the opportunity to practice different types of vocabulary including shapes, colors, animals, food and drink, and items of clothing.
Learn more: Twinkl
19. Listen and Draw a Monster
Ask your students to get into pairs before giving them each a blank sheet of paper and the printable sheet of monsters. Each pair of students will then take turns listening to their fellow students describe the monster they need to draw.
Learn more: Teachers Pay Teachers
20. Do Some Daily Listening Practice
You can easily incorporate English listening skills into your daily classroom routine with this amazing activity. Students can scan the QR code with a device to listen to the text before answering the True or False questions.
Learn more: Sea of Knowledge
21. Test Your Students’ Comprehension With Boom Cards
These Boom cards are a perfect resource to either print or use digitally. Read the short stories out to your students before having them answer the multiple-choice questions to demonstrate their understanding.
Learn more: Teachers Pay Teachers
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