Drinking games are designed to be easy enough for even your most inebriated friend to play. So when you change the game for your ESL class, it should be simple enough for even the weakest of students to enjoy. That’s why these games are among my favorites to play over and over again. Many of them need little to no prep time and are great ways to pass some extra time you have in class.
Royal Orders
If you read a lot of manga you may see a scene where characters play this game – that’s where I learned about it. I’m not sure what it’s actually called, so my students and I call it Royal Orders.
In manga, the characters play using chopsticks with numbers written on them. In my classroom, I have used popsicle sticks, strips of paper, and straws. It doesn’t matter what you use, what matters is that you have an equal amount to how many students are in your class.
All the pieces must be numbered except one which has a little crown drawn on it. Mix them up and then everyone playing must take one object and look at their number without showing the others. The person with the crown is the king/queen/royal that gives the orders. They will say a dare such as “Number 3 must dance!” or “Numbers 1 and 4 must sing Happy Birthday!”. The players with the numbers called out must do as the royal orders. If they refuse the dare, they must answer an ESL question. After that is done, everything is gathered and mixed up again for another round.
This is a great game for practicing “must” and “have to”, and my students really love giving each other silly orders. Having said that, be aware of the class you are playing this with. You should be clear that the orders cannot be anything too dangerous, mean, or inappropriate. It helps to have examples of good dares on the board as well as bad dares on the board.
I also recommend playing the game with them. They will get a kick out of accidentally ordering you to do something simple. As long as you don’t mind making a fool of yourself, enjoy!
“Beer” Pong
For this game you will need a lot of cups and a ball that is small enough to fit in the cups. The original game pits two teams against each other. They take turns attempting to throw the ball into one of the other team’s cups. If they succeed, the other team must drink from the cup. Once all the cups on one side are empty the game ends. The team with cups still filled is the winner.
If you want to stay true to this kind of gameplay simply replace “drinking” with “answering a question” and/or “reciting something in English”. Then play as normal.
You can also have them line up and individually answer questions before being allowed to throw. Write a number on each cup and tell them that’s how many points they get for making it in. The person with the most points wins. This version is great if you have a very small class.
If you have a big class you can set up several beer pong games. Prepare slips of paper with ESL questions and place them in all the cups. You are then free to roam around the classroom to monitor the games.
Thumper
This game is great because it doesn’t require anything other than you and your students. Sit everyone in a circle. Each player is assigned a vocabulary word and must come up with a quick motion to go with it. For example if you are using animal vocabulary, the student assigned “rabbit” may throw a peace sign up. Once everyone has their words and signs, they start thumping their hands on their desks. Choose one student to go first. That student must thump twice then make their sign followed by two more thumps and another student’s sign. The student whose sign they did must than do the same thing. So it will look a lot like this:
Everyone (sort of in sync): *thumping*
Student 1: *thump* *thump* Rabbit! *throws peace sign* *thump* *thump* Bird! *flaps hands*
Student 2: *thump* *thump* Bird! *flaps hands* *thump* *thump* Kangaroo! *raises fists*
Student 3: *thump* *thump* Kangaroo! *raises fists* *thump* *thump* Bird! *flaps hands*
It goes on and on until one student messes up by missing their cue to go or by mixing up another player’s signs and word. That student is out and the remaining students start a new round. This continues until two students are left. Those two students win points. If you don’t have enough time to play this way you can simply have the losing student answer an ESL question as a sort of punishment for losing.
I like to control the tempo by thumping with the students. If the class is struggling I will go slower and if I want to challenge them I will speed it up.
If you are having a hard time understanding how to play you can watch my explanation on Tiktok here: