ESL Game – Word Webs – How to Make Them and How to Use Them As ESL Games

This ESL game is called “WORD WEBS.”

I believe that most people are taught how to make Word Webs sometime before high school… but if you never learned how, I will teach you right now.

First you would pick a Subject. For this example we will pick the word “Winter.”

We would write “Winter” in the middle of the page/board. We would then draw a circle around the word.

Next we would need to think of words that are associated with Winter. So, we could also write “Snow,” and then draw a circle around the word and use a line to attach it to the “Winter,” circle.

From “Snow” we could attach “Snowballs,” “Skiing,” “Cold,” “Snowman,” and any other word which is related to the circled word. From the word “Cold,” we could link other circled words such as, “Ice,” “Freezies,” “Ice Cream,” and any other word which is related to the circled Keyword.

The way that I use this game in the ESL classroom is:

1. I do one or two examples on the board. I ask the students for help to think of the keywords and if they are nervous to answer… I will do the first one by myself so that they get an understanding of how to make a word web.

2. I put the ESL students into groups. For my classes… I usually put them into groups of no bigger than four ESL students.

3. We pick a word to use as our main keyword/subject…

4. I give the students ten minutes to try to make the best word web.

5. Once time has expired… I will invite all of the students to come up to the boards and work as one group and make the best Word Web on the board.

6. Collect the papers and check the papers.

ESL students love to do these word webs because they can write about anything if they are CREATIVE enough.