Interactive Online Games ESL Learners Will LOVE (Make Your Own with Baamboozle)

Short on time? Want to create a quick and engaging game to practice auxiliary verbs? Or revise vocabulary before a reading text? I’ve got a perfect solution for creating interactive online games ESL learners will go bananas for.

* This is a sponsored post.

Online ESL Games for Kids

There are so many ways in which we could engage our students in class. Now that we have so many ways in which we could deliver content.

Gone are the days where we rely solely on worksheets. I remember when we would photocopy these boring verb matching worksheets (if you’ve been on the black for as long as I have been – when you know, you know, ha).

Let’s not get started on photocopier woes.

It’s not uncommon to see my head stuck in a copier at least once or twice a week.

Anyway, I have used my fair share of online tools to get my students in the groove to help them practice grammatical concepts or even simple phonics skills.

Some of my favorites are Wordwall, Boom Cards and Quizlet.

But I have found that most of these do require some fiddling around to make them interactive and to have the ‘team work’ or ‘team play’ aspect working.

For example, I can get individual Boom Decks going for each student, however I can’t have them compete in a game for example.

Enter Baamboozle.

I was introduced to this platform the other week. I have been searching for something that doesn’t require that much time or energy to put together a quick game that the whole class can participate in.

Games for Learning English

Baamboozle is so easy to use. When I load the site, I automatically see my login prompt, a way to enter my details and then I’m in!

Once you click on games, there are literally hundreds of already made games that you could choose (and modify) to suit your learners.

Here, I chose an ‘action verbs’ game when I searched for it. You can see the cards with the visuals and the pictures.

Preview of a game chosen in Baamboozle. ESL online games. — Preview of a game chosen in Baamboozle.

ESL learners LOVE visuals and they needs lots of them when they are learning or revising new content.

Each card includes a picture along with the sentence underneath for the student to complete or choose the missing word.

ESL Online Games for Beginners

I have always wanted a platform where you can create online games quickly, because there have been so many times that I’m rushing to get to the class on a crazy morning hangin’ with the copier. Anyone else feel me?

If I can quickly search to the vocabulary / grammatical concept I want to revise with my students, then I can quickly choose a game, edit it to add my own questions and then add it to my library for use.

Online ESL Games for Zoom

The BEST part about these games is that you can literally use them online with your students.

Check out this game that I set up to use with my students (as an online game):

ESL games to play in class in teams and with Zoom

Once you’ve picked the game, you can play as a team and there are several options.

Online ESL Games. Create games with Baamboozle.

I chose ‘Baamboozle’ which is a team competition. However, you can choose ‘story dice’, ‘four in a row’, Tic Tac Toe, Bingo, and my favorite ‘Memory’.

English Games in Class

There’s nothing better than having a set of games ready for you to choose and use in class in a quick moment.

I especially love the library feature in which you can add your own ‘created games’ to and access anytime.

Here’s another image of the game in action:

Online interactive games to play in teams on Zoom

My students especially love the interactive format of these games.

The best part about them is they can be played on any device that can access the internet and a browser.

I’ve been looking for a platform that combines a ‘team competition’ and individual games in one and this was definitely combining both!

I still use other platforms, if you’ve seen me on Boom Cards (LOVE them) and TinyTap (also a great one). They are however, time consuming to create. So I would need to plan ahead.

TinyTap is more suited to toddlers and preschoolers as well.

With Baamboozle, I can log in, create my game and be done in 5 minutes!

Create some NEW games for ESL students with Baamboozle today, I wouldn’t recommend anything that genuinely wouldn’t work for my students and my classroom, and I felt Baamboozle deserved the recognition.