Easy ESL Game for Greeting and Saying Your Name

Whether you're teaching early English learners or looking for a great activity to drive the point home, this easy ESL (English as a Second Language) game - "The Name Card Game" - is ideal. The ultimate goal of the game is to allow your students to practice important greeting phrases, but they will also have a lot of fun, too!

The basic phrases used in this game are: Hello, My name is (name), I'm (name), How are you?, I'm (fine, so-so, okay, great, happy, etc.), Nice to meet you, Goodbye.

The instructions are as follows:

1. Give your students 9 individual cards. You can give them a piece of paper and have them cut it into 9 pieces (1 inch by 2 inches is definitely big enough), cut the paper yourself beforehand, or assign it as homework.

2. Have the students write down their name on each card. You can also have them write down their phone number, address or class number, as well.

3. When they are finished writing, the students will stand up and walk around the classroom greeting each other. Practice the important phrases before the students move around the room.

4. Every time they "meet" another classmate, they will greet each other and exchange cards.

5. Students will exchange the cards until they no long have their own name cards, but instead 9 different name cards from their friends.

6. Once the students have finished the greeting activity, have them sit down in their seats and make a Bingo card by laying out 3 rows of 3.

7. You, the teacher, will say, "Hello. My name is (your name). Then choose a student in the room and say, "Hello Minsu/Jenny/Johann."

8. All the students who have that person's name card will flip it over.

9. The student you called on will then say, "Hello, my name is Minsu/Jenny/Johann." They will then choose another name card.

10. Repeat until someone gets a Bingo!

I've found that this game requires a decent amount of time, especially if you pass out the papers and have them write their names in class instead of assigning it as homework. If you do not assign the name cards as homework, allow for this game to take 20-30 minutes depending on how many students you have in your class.

Good luck with this fun and easy ESL game! If you enjoyed this article, please view my other ESL articles by clicking "Wendy Rose Gould" at the top of this page. Thanks!