ESL Word Games for the Classroom.

Teacher-led word games for English learners. You pick the list and the mode, the class joins from their phones, and the projector shows the board. Six dictionaries, no student accounts, and a per-student tier for a mixed-ability room.

★ ESL / EFL ★ Free To Start ★

ESL Word Games for the
Classroom.

Join a class game right now — no account

The button opens the classroom game in this browser. Enter a class code and a display name to jump in. Nothing asks for an email or a password.

Play now — no sign-up

No email · No password · Runs on the school Wi-Fi

▶ Run an ESL GameWhole-class · 5 minutes ⚔ Pair-up Duels2-by-2 practice

Try a 60-second ESL round

Pick a CEFR list, then join adjacent letters on the board. This is a real round — the same motion as the class game. Use the list in class when you are done.

Lesson list

cat
dog
pen
run
open
ten
red
book
desk
map
sun
hat

Run this list with the class

10 ESL word games for the classroom

Ten games for a mixed-ability language room, from the quietest warm-up to the loudest. The ones that need no device say so on their own row. The rest run in the browser, in the language you are teaching, judged against that language’s own dictionary rather than a translated English list.

1
Describe It, Never Name It
Setup:
Ten cards, each with one word from this week, face down.
How to play:
A student draws a card and describes it in the target language without using the word, its translation, or a gesture. The rest guess. Thirty seconds, then the card goes back and the next student draws.
On LexiClash:
No device needed. Circumlocution is the skill that keeps a learner talking when the exact word will not come, and it only trains under the ban.
- Time: 10 min
- Group: Groups of 4–5
- Drills: Circumlocution
2
Spelling Relay
Setup:
Two columns on the board, two markers, teams in lines.
How to play:
Say a word. The first student writes the first letter, runs back and passes the marker. The team spells it letter by letter, one runner at a time. A team may fix an earlier letter, but only on their own turn.
On LexiClash:
The Spelling practice mode drills the same list letter by letter afterwards, for the students the relay moved too fast for.
- Time: 10–15 min
- Group: Two teams
- Drills: Spelling under pressure
3
Same Board, Your Language
Setup:
Choose the round’s language when you open the room.
How to play:
Everyone plays one shared letter board and finds real words in the target language. Answers are checked against that language’s own dictionary, so a Spanish round scores Spanish and a Hebrew board reads right to left.
On LexiClash:
Classic mode, with the language set in the create-room dialog. Six languages ship with their own dictionary.
- Time: 5–10 min
- Group: Whole class
- Drills: Recognition in the target language
4
Minimal Pairs Point and Say
Setup:
Write six confusable pairs on the board — ship/sheep, live/leave.
How to play:
Say one word. Students point at the one they heard. Then reverse it: a student says a word and the class points. The pointing keeps the quiet students in without making them speak first.
On LexiClash:
No device needed, and better without one — the whole point is your voice and their ears.
- Time: 5–10 min
- Group: Whole class
- Drills: Sound discrimination
5
One Target Search
Setup:
Pick the target word before the round starts.
How to play:
The class hunts a single word on a shared board instead of racing for volume. Other words they find still score, but the round is about the one you chose, which slows the room down and gives you something to discuss.
On LexiClash:
Word Hunt mode, chosen on the host screen before you start the round.
- Time: 5–10 min
- Group: Whole class
- Drills: Sustained attention on one form
6
Act the Verb
Setup:
This week’s verbs on slips of paper in a cup.
How to play:
A student draws a verb and acts it with no sound. The class calls out guesses in the target language. Accept a wrong tense, then write the right one on the board and move on quickly.
On LexiClash:
No device needed. Works with a beginner group who cannot yet read the list, which is the case a screen game cannot cover.
- Time: 10 min
- Group: Whole class
- Drills: Verb recall
7
Support, Core, Challenge Ladder
Setup:
Split the list into three tiers before the lesson.
How to play:
Every student does the same activity, but on their own tier. Nobody is told which tier they are on. Move a student up mid-lesson when they finish early, and down without comment when they stall.
On LexiClash:
The Warm-Up practice mode runs the list at the tier set for each student, so one activity fits the whole spread.
- Time: 10 min
- Group: Solo, same room
- Drills: The right difficulty per student
8
Two-Minute Blitz
Setup:
Open the list. Nothing else.
How to play:
Two minutes, as many correct answers as each student can manage, then stop dead. Ask three students what their last word was rather than who scored highest, and the room stays with the learner who got fewer.
On LexiClash:
The Blitz practice mode is the timed run; the list is whatever you set for the week.
- Time: 2–5 min
- Group: Solo
- Drills: Fluency and speed
9
Letter Wheel Rush
Setup:
Put the wheel on the projector.
How to play:
Students build words from a ring of letters against the clock. Longer words are worth more, so a strong student is stretched by the same round that a beginner can still score on.
On LexiClash:
Wheel Rush mode, chosen on the host screen alongside Classic, Word Hunt and Blast.
- Time: 5–10 min
- Group: Whole class
- Drills: Word building from constraints
10
Read the List Aloud
Setup:
Put the week’s list on screen.
How to play:
Read down the list together, then each student reads three words alone while the room listens. End by asking which word was hardest to say — not to know, to say. That answer is your pronunciation plan.
On LexiClash:
The Word List view shows the week’s words on their own, with nothing to score, which is what makes it usable as a read-aloud.
- Time: 5 min
- Group: Whole class
- Drills: Pronunciation of the written form

Built for English learners.

Six built-in dictionaries: English, Spanish, Hebrew (RTL), Swedish, Japanese, Russian
Free student accounts — quick one-time setup, then tracks progress forever
Live multiplayer a whole class; pair-up duels for 2-by-2 practice
Per-student accuracy + class-wide missed-word patterns
Five live class modes: Classic, Word Hunt, Blast, Wheel Rush, Vocab Quiz
Works on any phone, tablet, Chromebook, or laptop browser
5-minute warm-up format fits any lesson plan
Free to start — no student logins; free tier covers 3 classes of 50

Set the level per class.

Support

Beginner

3-4 letter words, longer timer, sight-word focus. Use the Word Wheel mode for guided practice.

Core

Intermediate

Mixed lengths, standard timer. Boggle grid surfaces vocabulary patterns and prefixes.

Challenge

Advanced

Long words, tight timer, custom advanced lists (TOEFL, IELTS, academic vocab).

Ten minutes, start to finish

The whole loop fits in the last ten minutes of a lesson. You paste a list, put a code on the projector, and the class plays from their phones while you keep the controls. Nothing is printed, nothing is installed, and no student signs up for anything.