Learn English » Vocabulary Worksheet-2 for Beginner Level Learners

Games for recalling and reviewing vocabulary

Games are wonderful ways of reinforcing vocabulary. Below, two games are described, which help students to recall the words they have learnt in the class.

1. Fruit basket

This game is most fun and educational with a large group of minimum 8 students. You need chairs for all the players (except one) and enough space to arrange all the chairs in a circular shape.

The teacher asks each student to choose one of the fruits that has just been shown to them in the class. If a student chooses apple, he is labelled as ‘apple’. Instruct the players to remember their chosen fruit. Any number of players can choose one particular fruit. However, each fruit that the students have learnt about in the class has to be chosen by at least two players.

All the players sit in their chairs, except the one who does not have a chair, whom we can call X. The game starts when X calls out the name of a fruit, like ‘grapes’. Immediately, all the players who have been assigned the name ‘grapes’ will jump up and move around, trying to find a new seat. X has to make use of this time to find a chair for himself. In the end, a player (hopefully not X) will be left standing, without a seat. It is that player’s turn now, to call out another fruit, and thus the game continues.

The player in the middle, without a seat, can also call out ‘fruit basket’ instead of individual fruits. Then, all the players jump up and try to find another seat.

The teacher can set a rule that each player has to jump up and move to a seat that is at least three seats away from him/her. This is to avoid players just moving to adjacent seats.

Variations

This game can be played with not just fruits, but names of vegetables, flowers, countries etc.

2. Test your memory

This game can be played with students who have learnt to identify different fruits/vegetables/ other articles and write their names.

The teacher places as many fruits or any other category of objects on her table. If it is a review of vocabulary concerning fruit names, he/she places different fruits such as apples, oranges, grapes, strawberries, avocado, dragon fruit, jackfruit, star fruit, mangoes, pine apple and so on. Students are allowed to look at the fruit collection on the table for one minute. After one minute, the teacher covers the fruits with a cloth.

Now, students are asked to write down the names of the fruits they saw on the table. Whoever can remember all or the most, and can write down their names correctly, will be the winner.

This game is fun only if there is enough challenge. This means that there should be a wide variety of fruits on the table, and also that students should already have learnt the names of all those fruits.

Variations

This memory game can be played with vegetables, stationary, or any other objects, the names of which students have learnt in the class already.