Talk about Fear ESL Game

While we like to focus on online-friendly ESL activities and games, sometimes it’s nice to go back to the good old days of paper and scissors and make a game for all you ESL teachers who are working in the classroom – boots on the ground! With Halloween fast approaching, it’s a great time to talk about fear in the classroom. That being said, here’s a great talk about fear ESL game! A Halloween printable.

How it works

Play this game as a class. Print out the PDF and cut out all the small cards. Depending on the size of your group, you may need to print more than one copy of page 4.

1) Page 1 contains the frightometer (pronounced, of course, like thermometer) which must be put in the middle of the table for everyone to see.

2) Page 2-3 contains different fears. Cut out all the fears and mix them up face down on the table.

3) Page 4 contains the levels of fear e.g. I am very afraid of global warming… Make sure every player has a set of 5 different cards from this page.

4) Choose a player to start. He turns up a fear card from the center of the table and asks the room “How afraid are you of…”

5) While the other students choose a level of fear from their hand, the player’s objective is to guess the overall level of fear of the thing in question.

6) Take the cards from the other students and then let the player place the fear on the frightometer. The player must justify his response!

7) Then, reveal the levels of fear from the other students. If the response the player chooses is the same as the most common of the other students’ cards, they receive a point. If there is a tie between two levels, and they have chosen one of the two, give them the point!

8) The turn goes to the player to the left and the process is repeated.

There you have it, a simple and fun way to talk about fear in your class without needing everyone to share their fears personally to the class.