If you're going to work as a substitute English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher, you'll need to have plenty of educational games and exercises ready to share with your class on a moment's notice. There may be times when an emergency absence leaves you unprepared unless you plan in advance. There are some fun and informative things to do when you substitute in your ESL class.

Hot Seat

A great ice-breaker, the game of "hot seat" is played by placing one student in a chair at the front of the classroom, facing away from the teacher and chalkboard, but toward the rest of the students. Hold up a piece of paper behind the student with a word on it. The object of the game is for the class to give clues to the person in the "hot seat" about what is on the card without actually saying the word. You can require each person to raise his hand to give a clue, or if the setting allows for it, have a free-for-all with everyone calling out the clues at the same time until the person in the "hot seat" guesses what is on the card. When the first person guesses the word on the card, he gets to write out the next card, and the game goes on until everyone has had a chance in the "hot seat."

Miming

Miming is a fun way to get ESL students using their language skills. Pantomime an activity, and have the students yell out what it is they think you are doing. When a student guesses correctly and yells out the answer in English, she becomes the next pantomime person and gets to act out an activity. The goofier the activity, the more fun your students will have trying to figure it out. You can help make the exercise easier by giving them categories first, like food or animals.

Association Flash Cards

Write out two sets of flash cards: one set of nouns and one set of verbs, or one set of nouns and one set of adjectives. Each card should have a corresponding card in the second deck. A card that says, "duck" in the first deck could have a corresponding card in the second deck that says something like, "quacks," or "swims." Shuffle each deck, then have the students take turns choosing a card from the first deck and trying to find the corresponding card in the second deck. Each time someone chooses the correct match, he gets a point if he can make a sentence that includes the two words.

Roll the Dice

Have the students sit in a circle, facing each other. Be the first to roll a set of dice into the middle of the circle, and whatever number you roll, you will need to tell the students that many things about yourself. Then pass the dice to the next person, and have them do the same. You can tailor the game to fit in with whatever lesson plan their teacher had been working on. For example, if the lesson is about tenses, the person that rolls the dice will have to use that many sentences spoken in whatever tense you decide to call out. If the class has been working on verbs, then the player rolling the dice will have to come up with that many actions or sentences that include that many verbs. This is a great game to play if you have no lesson plan to work with and have had no time to prepare for the substitute shift. .The class time will go by quickly, and the students will have a great time rolling the dice.