10 fun vocabulary classroom games for English language teachers

New words rarely stick after one lesson. Learners need to meet a word several times, use it, and pull it back out of memory before it becomes theirs. Vocabulary games give you a way to do that without the lesson turning into a list of drills.

Here are 10 vocabulary classroom games you can drop into any English lesson, from a five-minute warmer to an end-of-unit review. Each one comes with how to play, how to adapt it for younger learners, and, where it helps, how to run it on students' phones.

Quick reference: which game to use when

GameBest forPrep timeNeeds devices?Describe itSpeaking and recall, all levels5 minutesNoInteractive vocabulary quizChecking a whole unit10 to 15 minutesYes (phones)20 QuestionsQuestion forms and word meaningNoneNoThe categories gameRange of vocabulary, spellingNoneNoFictionaryAdvanced learners, word parts5 minutesOptionalWord wheelSpelling, lesson starter2 minutesNoLetter scrambleReview at the end of a lesson or week5 minutesNoSynonyms gameExpanding range, upper levels2 minutesOptionalCharadesVerbs, actions, younger learners5 minutesNoWordle-style guessingSpelling and letter patterns2 minutesNo

Why vocabulary games work

Games are not only a treat for the end of term. They give students the two things vocabulary research keeps pointing to: repeated encounters with a word, and chances to recall it rather than reread it.

1. Repetition matters. A 2019 meta-analysis of 26 studies in the journal Language Learning found a medium-sized link between how many times learners met a word and how well they learned it. The size of the effect depended on factors such as spacing, visual support and how engaged learners were (Uchihara, Webb and Yanagisawa, 2019).
2. Practice fades without review. A 2020 meta-analysis of word-focused activities such as flashcards, word lists and fill-in-the-blank exercises found average gains of around 60% on immediate meaning-recall tests, falling to about 39% on delayed tests (Webb, Yanagisawa and Uchihara, 2020). A quick game a week later is how you win some of that back.
3. Spreading practice out helps. A large review of verbal memory studies found that spacing study sessions apart leads to better long-term recall than cramming the same practice into one session (Cepeda et al., 2006).
4. Recalling beats rereading. In a well-known study with foreign-language vocabulary, students who kept testing themselves remembered far more a week later than students who kept restudying the words (Karpicke and Roediger, 2008).

Every game below asks students to retrieve a word, explain it or use it, which is why they work well as review.

1. Describe it

This game practises learned words and shows you quickly who understands them. It is close to the popular "Backs to the board" activity, which the British Council's TeachingEnglish guide to teaching vocabulary recommends for improving vocabulary recall and getting learners to participate.

How to play

1. Choose one student to be the describer. The rest of the class are guessers.
2. Give the describer a word they know, without the others seeing it. Also give them two related words they are not allowed to say.
3. The describer helps the group guess the word without using the word itself or either of the banned words.
4. Whoever guesses correctly becomes the next describer.

Example: describe "boat" without saying "boat", "sail" or "water".

For younger learners: skip the banned words, and ask every guesser to write their answer down before anyone calls out, so the whole class stays involved. If you want to pick describers fairly, a spinner wheel with the class's names takes the "why me?" out of it.

2. Interactive vocabulary quiz

A live quiz is a fast way to review a whole topic, and students can play along on their phones. With an online quiz maker like AhaSlides, you are not limited to multiple choice. Three question types suit vocabulary well:

1. Short Answer: show a definition or a picture and have students type the word. There are no options to guess from, so spelling counts.
2. Match Pairs: students match words to definitions, synonyms or pictures.
3. Fill in the Blanks: students complete a sentence with the missing word, which tests meaning in context rather than in isolation. Stretch it to a whole paragraph and you have one of these cloze activities.

How to play

1. Build a short quiz of 8 to 12 questions on the words from the unit, or start from one of the ready-made quizzes in the AhaSlides template library.
2. Students join with a code on their phones and answer individually or in teams.
3. Show the leaderboard after every few questions and go over the words most people got wrong.

For younger learners: put students in teams so they can talk through each answer together. The discussion is where much of the learning happens, and the team format helps quieter students take part.

3. 20 Questions

Twenty Questions has been played as a parlour game since at least the 18th century, and it still works in the classroom. It builds deductive reasoning and makes students think about what a word means and where they would use it, while practising question forms at the same time.

How to play

1. Think of a word your students know or have been studying.
2. Students can ask up to 20 questions to work out the word. You can only answer yes or no.
3. Once someone guesses the word, start again or let a student choose the next one.

For younger learners: use simple, familiar words and help them plan a few questions in advance ("Is it an animal?", "Is it bigger than a cat?"). Narrowing the topic to one category, such as fruit or pets, also helps.

4. The categories game

This game tests how much vocabulary students can pull up under a little pressure.

How to play

1. Students write down three to six categories. These can be agreed in advance and linked to the topics you have been studying, such as food, jobs or places in town.
2. Pick a random letter and write it on the board.
3. Students write one word for each category that starts with that letter. Set a timer to add a challenge.
4. Give a point for each valid word, and two points for a word nobody else thought of.

For younger learners: play as one big team, with you writing their ideas on the board. A visible countdown timer adds plenty of excitement.

5. Fictionary (the dictionary game)

Fictionary, also called the dictionary game, is the parlour game behind the board game Balderdash. It introduces new words in a memorable way and encourages students to look for familiar prefixes, suffixes and roots.

How to play

1. Reveal an unfamiliar word, but not its definition. Choose one yourself or use a random word generator.
2. Each student writes a made-up definition that sounds convincing. You write down the real one.
3. Read all the definitions aloud, or show them on screen, and students vote for the one they think is real.
4. Students score a point for picking the real definition, and a point for every classmate who votes for their invented one.

To run it on screens, collect the definitions on an Open Ended slide, then copy them into a poll so the class can vote.

For younger learners: this one is harder to adapt for beginners. Choose words suited to their level, or ask students to guess which category a word belongs to (animal, food or job, for example) instead of writing a definition.

6. Word wheel

The word wheel makes a good lesson starter and tests spelling as well as vocabulary.

How to play

1. Write eight letters in a circle on the board or a slide. Include at least two or three vowels.
2. Students have 60 seconds to write down as many words as they can make from the letters, using each letter only once per word.
3. To make it harder, or to focus on a sound you have been practising, put one extra letter in the centre that every word must include.

For younger learners: ask them to look for short, two- and three-letter words, and let them work in pairs or small groups.

7. Letter scramble

Cambridge English's Vocabulary Games and Activities pack for B1 and B2 learners suggests mixing up the letters of words as a fun way to review vocabulary at the end of a lesson or a week. It needs almost no preparation.

How to play

1. Jumble the letters of words you have been learning and write them on the board. For example, "tlop" is "plot" and "eruluct" is "culture".
2. Students have 30 seconds per word to unscramble it.
3. Repeat with several words, or set a handful as a lesson starter while students arrive.

For younger learners: if spelling is likely to be a problem, fill in the first letter or two so they can work out the rest.

8. Synonyms game

This game suits intermediate and advanced learners who want to stretch their range.

How to play

1. Give students a simple word with lots of synonyms, such as "old", "sad" or "happy".
2. Students submit their best synonym. On a live word cloud, the most popular answers appear biggest, so you can see at a glance which words the class already knows.
3. Talk about the less common answers: how is "elated" different from "content"? When would you use "ancient" rather than "old"?

For younger learners: instead of synonyms, ask for any word in a category (colours, for example) or a type of word (verbs, for example).

9. Charades

Charades gets students moving and tests comprehension without a word being spoken. It works especially well for verbs, feelings and everyday actions.

How to play

1. Fill a pot with words or phrases your students know, or ask students to write some.
2. Fold the slips of paper and put them in the pot.
3. One student picks a word and acts it out for the class without speaking or making any sounds.
4. The rest of the class guesses the word. Whoever guesses correctly goes next.

For younger learners: keep all the words in one category, and allow a sound effect as a hint if nobody can guess from the actions alone.

10. Wordle-style guessing

The word game Wordle, whose official version is now published by The New York Times, is easy to turn into a whole-class activity. Making your own version lets you choose words at your students' level.

How to play

1. Choose a five-letter word and keep it secret. The class has six guesses, and every guess must be a real five-letter word.
2. Write each guess on the board and mark the letters: green if the letter is in the word and in the right place, yellow if it is in the word but in the wrong place, and grey if it is not in the word at all.
3. Students use the clues to narrow down the word.

For younger learners: choose a word from your current topic, and let the class agree on each guess together. A quick poll is an easy way to decide which word to try next.

A 15-minute vocabulary review you can run tomorrow

If you want to combine a few of these games, here is a simple structure for revising a unit's words:

1. Warm-up (3 minutes): letter scramble with five words from last week, to bring them back before you add new ones.
2. Recall (7 minutes): a short live quiz mixing Short Answer, Match Pairs and Fill in the Blanks questions, with a leaderboard at the end.
3. Stretch (5 minutes): the synonyms game on one of the words students found hardest.

Then bring the same words back in a different game the following week. Spacing the practice out this way is what the research above suggests.

Frequently asked questions

What are some good vocabulary games for the classroom?

Describe it, 20 Questions, the categories game, charades and letter scramble need little preparation and no technology. For quick whole-class checks, a live quiz or word cloud on students' phones works well.

How do you make vocabulary practice fun?

Add a light element of competition (teams, points or a leaderboard), keep rounds short, and let students move, talk or guess rather than just copy words down. Changing the game each time keeps the same words feeling fresh.

How often should students review new vocabulary?

Little and often. Research shows that learners need repeated encounters with a word, that gains from a single session fade over time, and that spreading practice out beats cramming, so revisit new words across several lessons rather than once.

Are vocabulary games suitable for adult learners?

Yes. The categories game, Fictionary, the synonyms game and live quizzes all work well with adults, especially at intermediate and advanced levels.

For more ideas, see our ESL classroom games for all ages, our guide to the fill-in-the-blank game, six types of gap fill exercises and our overview of retrieval practice.