King’s Cup As An ESL Review Game

If you’ve ever played the drinking game, Kings (aka King’s cup) then this one will be an easy game to learn.  For those of you who don’t know this drinking game the rules are as follows:

Everyone is in a circle with a drink in their hand. A deck of playing cards lies in the center with an empty cup.  The players take turns drawing a random card.  Each card has its own rule and all players must follow or they will have to drink. 

Basic Rules:

A – Waterfall: everyone drinks and cannot stop until the person on their left stops.

2- the person who picks this card drinks

3- the person who picks this card tells someone else to drink

4- everyone touches the floor, last one to do so drinks

5- all men must drink

6- all women must drink

7- everyone raises their hand, last one to do so drinks

8- the person who picks this card assigns someone else to drink everytime they do

9- a quick rhyming game is played in a circle, the loser drinks

10- a quick category game is played in a circle, the loser drinks

J- whoever draws this card can make a new rule. Ex: “everyone must speak in an accent”

Q- a questions game is played, the loser drinks

K- whoever draws this card puts some of their drink in the center cup.  The fourth person to draw this card must also pour some of their drink in before drinking the whole cup.  

There are many other variations to this game, but you can look those up online.  I’m here to tell you about the ESL version.

ESL King’s Cup Rules/Variations:

The big difference between the two versions is that there is no drinking (duh). ESL questions are asked every time someone loses.  Instead of an empty cup in the center, there is a cup filled with questions.  

Another big difference is that when we play this game, it’s for points.  My kids are very eager to earn as many points as they can during the week.  So my rule for the King card is that the person who draws it automatically gets 10 points.  For all those mini-games, such as rhyming, the loser has to answer a question while all the others receive points. 

All of the cards’ rules can change from class to class.  And while you can play the game completely following all the rules from the drinking game above, here are some other card rules that your students might love:

• Noses: Everyone must touch their nose, the last one to do so has to answer a question
• Stand up, spin around, sit down: everyone does those movements as fast as they can
• Minus points: the poor soul that draws this assigned card loses a predetermined amount of points
• Minus dice: the person who picks the card loses one dice rolls worth of points
• Add dice: instead of losing points the player adds points according to the dice
• Memory: whoever picks the assigned card says a noun from a given category, the next person says that noun and adds another, the third person says the two nouns and adds another, this continues until time is up
  • Ex: 1: dog  2: dog, cat   3: dog, cat, mouse  4: dog, cat, mouse, horse
• Movement Memory: the person who picks the card does a move, the next person copies and adds another, etc..etc….
• Chain Reaction: the first person says a word, the second person says a word that starts with the last letter of the first person’s word…. 
  • Ex: 1: dog  2: girl  3:lamp  4:potato
• What’s bigger than that?: The first person says a noun, the second person says another noun that is bigger than the first persons, the third states and even bigger noun, and so on and so forth
  • Ex:  1: rat  2: A cat is bigger than a rat.  3: A horse is bigger than a cat
  • Note: you can also play this with other comparatives
• Social: Everyone must answer a question together
• Tornado: whoever gets this card has the digits of their points swapped
  • Ex: 32 points becomes 23 points.
  • Note: only play this with a hardy group of students that won’t become too sad or angry when they lose a ton of points thanks to this card.
• I have never: everyone raises three fingers, the first person states something they have never done.  Anyone who has done it puts a finger down.  This continues in a circle until someone loses by having all their fingers down
• Alphabetical Category: the first person states a noun starting with the letter A, the next person states a b-word from the same category, this continues until someone is stuck and/or time is up

King’s Dice:

A simple spin on this game is to play with a six sided die instead of cards. Players will take turns rolling the die to see what mini-game/rule they must follow. This way, you only need six rules – which is easier for kids to remember. I recommend playing this version with your younger students. It’s also a great variation for when you don’t have a lot of time for a full game.

All versions of this game are quite long and should be played for at least half the class time. So this is best used as a fun review before a test or right after finishing a unit. I hope you try this game out with your students and enjoy!