ELT Guide-1: Communication games

Devised by the British Council's English Language Teaching Institute (ELTI), specifically Donn Byrne and Shelagh Rixon, this 1979 publication is a teacher-friendly handbook which presents a range of games designed to promote the communicative use of language in the classroom.

Games were devised which facilitate student talk and collaboration (and which do not simply practise isolated elements of grammar or pronunciation, for example), and each one has clearly identifiable objectives. Most of the games feature information gaps, which motivate students to find out from and share with each other the pieces of information needed to make up a whole ‘picture’. Section 2 additionally lists over 60 games originally designed for native speakers, discussing how, in general, these can be adapted for the English as a foreign or second language classroom. Section 3 addresses issues in the ‘Presentation, classification and retrieval of games’ so that they are kept in good, complete order, ready for use at any time. Finally, there is a select bibliography; transcripts of ELTI recordings of students playing games; and publishers’ and manufacturers’ addresses.

This book is free to download below as a pdf file.

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