Making Decisions ESL Games and Activities
Here is a free spontaneous decisions game to see how quickly students can decide things. The game covers making spontaneous decisions with will and giving reasons for decisions. Students take it in turns to pick up a card and read the situation and question to the group. The first student to respond by making a decision with will and giving a reason for their decision gets three points. The other students then have a chance to each get one point by making their own decision with will and giving a reason. However, their responses must be different from the first student. If the first student doesn’t form their response correctly, another group member can challenge the student and be the first person to answer. The student with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.
In this fun will for decisions game, students race to match spontaneous decisions to given situations. The reader turns over a card from their pile and reads out the situation on the card. The players then race to find an appropriate decision card in response to the situation. The first player to put a matching decision card on the table and read out the response wins and discards their card. There are always two possible decision cards for each situation, so students need to be quick to win. The game continues until one player has got rid of all their decision cards. That player wins the game. When the game has ended, students play again with a new student being the reader, so as to give everyone a chance to play.
In this useful making decisions game, students play dominoes by matching questions to decisions or vice versa. The first player puts a domino down either before or after the domino on the table, making sure the question matches with an appropriate decision or vice versa. The other players then take it in turns to match their dominoes in the same way by putting them down at either end of the domino chain. The first player to get rid of all their dominoes wins the game.
In this engaging decision making game, students create hypothetical Would you questions for a partner and guess which choices their partner would make. In two groups, students create Would you rather / choose / prefer...? questions to ask a partner using the prompts on their worksheet. Next, students pair up with someone from the other group. Working alone, students guess and underline what they think their partner's choice would be for each question. Students then take it in turns to ask their partner the questions, asking the reason for each answer. Students put a tick for each answer they guessed correctly. The student with the most correct guesses wins.
In this productive making decisions activity, students complete second conditional questions about moral dilemmas and play a guessing game where they predict a partner's decisions. In two groups, students complete second conditional questions about moral dilemmas with the verbs shown in their correct form, adding in the correct endings from the bottom of the page. Next, students pair up with someone from the other group. Working alone, students guess whether their partner would decide yes or no to each question. Students then ask the questions to their partner to see if their guesses were right or wrong. Students put a tick for each correct guess. The student with the most correct guesses wins.
In this entertaining making decisions board game, students discuss Would you rather questions with a partner and race to make decisions that they both agree on along with a justified reason for each answer. Students take it in turns to pick up a card and read the Would you rather...? question to the group, e.g. 'Would you rather own your own boat or your own plane?' The students in both teams then discuss the question with their partner and race to make a decision that they both agree on along with a justified reason for their answer. The first team to make a decision and come up with a grammatically correct response, justifying their answer wins and moves their counter forward two spaces. If a team makes a grammar mistake or comes up with an unjustified reason, the other team can steal the win by creating a suitable response of their own. The first team to reach the 'finish' wins the game.
This productive making decisions activity helps students practice language to make and justify decisions. First, students underline the correct words to complete phrases for making and justifying decisions. Next, students take turns reading each situation to a partner and asking 'Would you rather / choose / prefer...?' questions about the given choices, e.g. 'Would you rather take a trip to the beach, the city, or the countryside?' Their partner listens to each question and then uses the language from the worksheet to make a decision and justify it. The other student then circles their partner's decision and notes down their justification. This continues until students have received their partner's decisions and justifications for all four situations. Afterwards, students report back to the class on their partners' decisions and justifications.
