El Rey!

I really like this game because it gets students engaged with one another, especially since they will naturally end up competing with people at their own level.  It also ends up providing students (and you!) a quick and effective check to see where they are in comparison with the rest of the class.

Students get in two lines.  Their partner is the person opposite them in the line.  You can divide the students into different groups with two lines each - there will be a winner for each group and, the more people in a group, the more difficult it is to win.  In addition, Ilike to move the desks into lines for this activity because it gives students a concrete place for where they are in the line as they will be changing places after every round.  It works best if there are around 6-12 people in each group (3-6 pairs).  Students at one end of the line are in the "castillo" (the castle), while students at the other end are in the "barrio bajo" (slums), while the middle are somewhere in between depending on how close they are to either end.  The goal is for students to work their way up to the "castillo" to become the "rey" (the king).

Students use their own paper and number 1-5.  When students are ready, five words/phrases are displayed. Students translate the phrases as fast as they can - the first student done yells "El Rey!" (or some other variation).  I count down slowly from 5 to give the rest of the class a chance to finish, but they are not allowed to write anything after I finish counting down.  Then, the correct answers are given and students correct their answers.  Then, they compare their results with their partner - whoever has more correct answers moves up one spot, while the person who has fewer correct answers moves down one spot.  If they got the same score, then it's decided by rock-paper-scissors.  NOTE: after every round, every student except the current "king" (the person in the castle that got the most correct answers) moves.  If you have an odd number of students, then the person at the end of the line in the slums without a partner automatically "wins" and gets to move up.  Once students understand what they're doing, each round only takes a minute or two, and you continue playing as long as you'd like.  On the final round, the person in the castle who gets the most correct answers is "El Rey" and "wins".

I usually offer some sort of incentive for whoever becomes the king, and a penalty for being in the "slum", usually being "study more!"

Strip Bingo

Copied from the MoreTPRS Listserv - Thanks Andrea!

Thought I'd share a game that I found online ( sorry I can't remember the
original source). First of all its called "strip bingo" so it has their
attention! They refer to a mini situation or a list of phrases, and write down
one word or phrase in each of their 5 boxes in their "strip" of paper. Info
through and call each word and they ALL say the English (or vice versa). At that
point anyone who had the called word(s) at one of the end squares on their strip
of paper gets to rip them off. The catch is they can only tear off a word when
it's at the last word on one end of their paper. First one to have all of their
words called and ripped off wins. Try absolutely loved it and it got tons of
reps with the phrases we were focusing on. Best of all, there's no prep!