Teaching English as a second language can be a difficult job. People's minds wrap around their native language and it can be difficult to break their paradigm. It can also be difficult to keep interesting. Integrating games into your teaching can help bring your class to life. Here are a few simple games to play with your class that require no money and no preparation.

Hangman
Hangman is a popular game for children and even adults to play. It can also be a good game to help people learn English as a second language. The way to switch this game up is to use the student's native language. Write a word in their language as the word they must guess. Now, give them a clue about the word. They now have to guess the English letters that correspond to the foreign letters. Draw a part of the anatomy of the hanging man with each mistake made.

Tongue Twisters
Tongue twisters are a fun, if difficult game to play in any language. Tongue twisters are a good way to learn pronunciation and phonetics of words. As they stumble over the tongue twister, they will hear the way the sounds interact and the ways that certain sounds create assonance and dissonance. Here are a few good tongue twisters to try: "She sells sea shells by the sea shore." "He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts."

Bilingual Word Association
This is a variation of word association in which you use both English and their native language. Make a list of words that you are working on with your students. Now take that list and say the word to each student. They are to say the first English word that comes to mind. If they are wrong, that is okay: they may have said a related word. If they have, explain the way that word relates to the correct word. This will help them learn the complex ways the English language interacts with itself.