10 TEFL Activities with Little or No Preparation

How often do you find yourself staring at your lesson plan, trying to think of something new to wake up a group of tired students, or to make grammar practice a bit more interesting? If you’re like most teachers, you don’t always have the time – or energy – to invent brand new activities for every class.

That’s when it helps to have a bank of familiar activities to fall back on. They may not be new, but they’re effective, flexible, and can be adapted to different language points and levels with almost no preparation. With a clear focus, a reason for students to be motivated (competition often works well), and clear instructions, these activities keep lessons engaging without adding to your workload.

Books like Five-Minute Activities (Ur & Wright, 1992) or Keep Talking (Klippel, 1984) are full of these kinds of ideas. And don’t forget your colleagues – some of your best ideas may come from them!

Here are ten activities I’ve used and reused in classrooms from Indonesia to Spain. They’re simple, quick to set up, and dependable when you need something that works. They’re not new – and that’s exactly the point. They’ve stood the test of time because they’re adaptable, effective, and trusted by teachers in all kinds of contexts.

Variation on “Backs to the board”

You may already know Backs to the Board: a representative from each of two teams sits facing away from the board while their teammates explain the word you’ve written, without saying it or using variations of it.

To extend the activity, try whole sentences instead of single words. Teams have one minute to explain the sentence to their teammate, again without using any of the words, spelling them out, or resorting to gestures. You can adapt the sentences to any tense or structure you want to practise, making this activity useful for a wide range of language points.

Sentence reduction

Write a long sentence or short paragraph on the board, rich in vocabulary. In teams, students take turns erasing one, two, or three consecutive words. After each change, the sentence must still make grammatical sense. If it doesn’t, replace the words and move to the next team.

Continue until no further reduction is possible. Students are often surprised by how short the sentence can become while still remaining correct. The winning team is the one who removes the most words.

Variation: Do the opposite – start with a single word and have students expand it into longer and longer sentences.

Spelling and Vocabulary Chain

Write a single letter on the board, for example S. The first student thinks of a word beginning with S and adds the next letter, e.g. ST. The next student adds another letter to build on that beginning, and so on.

At any point, if a student believes no word exists with the current sequence, they can challenge. The writer must then name the word they had in mind. If they can’t, they’re out. If they can, the challenger is out. The last student remaining is the winner.

This is a quick-fire activity to practise spelling, build vocabulary, and keep students on their toes.

Picture stories

Give each group four or five pictures (find them in old magazines or print from online). Ask them to create a story using the pictures in sequence. You can keep the context open or guide it by choosing a particular tense, function, or vocabulary set.

If the focus is oral communication, don’t let them write the story down – have them tell it aloud. If you also want to practise writing, ask them to write as they go. When finished, each group shares their story with the class.

This activity works well for creativity, fluency, and narrative practice, and is easily adapted for different levels.

What’s true?

As a getting-to-know-you activity, ask each student to write three true statements about themselves and two false – but believable – ones. One by one, they read their five statements to the group. The others ask questions and discuss to decide which are true.

To introduce the activity, model it yourself first by writing five statements about you on the board.

Variation: Instead of full sentences, ask everyone to write five one-word “facts” about themselves (you can model this as well – e.g. 32, Liverpool, Three, Smith, Doctor). In pairs, students then try to guess the questions that would produce those answers.

Continue the story

Divide the class into small groups and give each one a different opening line to a story. After a few minutes of writing, groups pass their paper to the next group, who continue the story from where it left off. Keep passing until the papers return to the original groups, who write the conclusion and then share their stories aloud.

For a quicker, oral version, run it as a chain story: dictate the first sentence, then have each student add a sentence in turn. To practise a particular structure or vocabulary item, assign it beforehand and require each student to use it somewhere in their sentence.

This activity encourages creativity, builds fluency, and can be easily tailored to the language point you want to practise.

Energetic Writing Practice

Divide the board into three columns, each with a grammar point or structure you want to practise (e.g. first, second, and third conditional; yes/no questions; tag questions).

Students work in pairs: one is the writer, the other the runner. Give each pair a stack of small slips of paper and some Blu-Tack. The writer creates a grammatically correct sentence for one of the categories, then hands it to the runner, who sticks it on the board. After a few minutes, shout “Change!” so they swap roles.

Set a five–ten minute time limit. At the end, pairs check the sentences on the board together. Incorrect ones don’t count toward the team’s total. The pair with the most valid sentences wins.

Variation: Increase the challenge by requiring each sentence to contain at least ten words.

Need another writing activity? Try Writing with story grids.

Secret identities

Give each student a secret famous identity written on a slip of paper and taped to their back or forehead. They circulate and ask yes/no questions to discover who they are.

You can adapt the focus by choosing identities that fit the grammar you want to practise:

• Past simple: all famous people are dead (Did I live in the USA?).
• Present perfect: all are still alive (Have I acted in many films?).
• Future forms: imagine that the people are “not yet born” (Will I be an actor?).

This simple game combines speaking practice with plenty of movement and interaction.

Opposites

Stand the students up and call out two opposing ideas, people, concepts, adjectives, or places (e.g. beach or mountains, Spielberg or Hitchcock, red or blue). Point to one side of the room for the first option and the other side for the second. Students move to the side that matches their choice.

Pick a few students each time to explain their choice. If you like, let the activity develop into a short debate between the two groups.

This works well as a warmer or energiser and gives students plenty of opportunities to justify opinions.

Grammar and gap fill auctions

Split the class into teams and give each team a budget (e.g. $100 or ¥10,000).

Grammar auction: Prepare a worksheet of 10+ sentences, some correct and some incorrect. Teams discuss each one, decide if it’s right or wrong, and then place a “bet”. If they’re correct, they double their stake; if not, they lose it.

Gap-fill auction: Provide sentences with missing words. Teams bet on the correct answer for each gap.

Using real or photocopied money adds to the atmosphere. The team with the most money at the end wins.

Note: In some contexts, even pretend gambling may be culturally inappropriate. If that’s the case, you can easily adapt the activity by replacing money with points, tokens, or even coloured slips of paper.

This activity turns error correction and gap-fill practice into a lively competition that students take seriously.

Wrapping Up

These ten activities aren’t new, but that’s their strength. They’ve stood the test of time because they’re simple to set up, adaptable to many language points, and consistently effective in keeping students engaged.

For more inspiration, take a look at our downloadable worksheets and activities or our list of 25 warmers and fillers.

Do you have a go-to no-prep activity that always works for you? Share it in the comments below.