Control of the Bowl
If you’ve been searching for speaking activities for adults, then you’ve stumbled across the right place. Some of my favourite ESL speaking activities for adults are the ones which don’t especially require any preparation. These are the ESL activities for speaking that TEFL teachers can ‘pull out of their magic hat’ to give teen and adult lessons and immediate boost of energy with lots of speaking involved.
One such ESL or EFL speaking activity for adults is ‘Control of the Bowl’ and have have used this adults speaking game in many of my own lessons over the years with both Chinese and European language learners. All you need is a bowl and a few pieces of A4 paper.
You can watch the ‘Control of the Bowl’ video below to help you to understand what to do on our video channel.
Preparing ‘The Bowl’
Give each teen or adult student in your class a slip of paper. On this paper, ask them to write one of the following:
Any common object
A famous person
Name of a famous film
Name of a famous book
A well-known place
An animal
A famous phrase
For example, six of your students might choose the following:
Once your students have written on the paper, get them to fold up their paper and put them in the bowl. You should end up with 15-20 different pieces of paper in the bowl for this adults speaking game. If you have fewer students, simply give each student more pieces of paper.
Playing ‘Control of the Bowl’
‘Control of the Bowl’ is an ESL speaking game for adults which lasts around 30 minutes. Firstly, divide your class into three teams. The game is divided into three playing rounds and the teacher will need to keep scores on the board. Your students will be using various ways to describe the words in the bowl to their team.
Control of the Bowl: Round One
Ask one student from Team 1 to come to the front and give this student the bowl. Start the clock…the student has 60 seconds to describe as many of the words in the bowl as possible. The student takes a piece of paper from the bowl and DESCRIBES what is on the paper. For example:
Donald Trump: “U.S president…silly hair…not many people like him”.
Titanic: “Film about a ship that sinks when it hits an iceberg”.
Kangaroo: “Australian animal which jumps”
The student cannot actually say what is on each piece of paper, but must DESCRIBE ONLY. Once Team 1 has gotten the paper correct, then the student at the front can take a new piece of paper to describe. Keep going until 60 seconds are up. Any papers guessed correctly are kept by Team 1 and do not go back into the bowl.
It is now Team 2’s turn. Get one student to come to the front and start the clock. This new student again has 60 seconds to DESCRIBE the papers to their own team. Once 60 seconds is up, it is now the turn of team 3. Keep the bowl going around the teams until the bowl is empty. Ask each team to count how many papers they got correct and write this on the board.
Fold up all the papers again and put them into the bowl. It is now time for Round 2 of this ESL speaking game!
Control of the Bowl: Round Two
In this round of Control of the Bowl, teams must MIME what ever is on each paper. This sounds impossible, but remember that the teams now have an idea about what is on the papers! This round is absolutely hilarious and will bring a lot of fun and laughter into your ESL class. Again, each team only has 60 seconds and must try to get as many words from the bowl as possible.
Any words guessed correctly are, again, kept by each team and do not go back into the bowl for that round. After 60 seconds, the bowl goes to the next team. Keep going until the bowl is empty and then each team again counts how many papers they got right. Add these totals to the number of the board and return all the papers to the bowl for Round 3!
Control of the Bowl: Round Three
This is the final round of this TEFL speaking activity. In this final round of Control of the Bowl, your students can only say ONE WORD to describe what is one the paper. Students are not allowed to use one of the words on the paper. For example:
Donald Trump: “President”
Titanic: “Iceberg”
Kangaroo: “Australia”
After 60 seconds, stop the clock, and give control of the bowl to the next team. Keep going around until all the words in the bowl have gone and write the scores on the board. Add all of the scores together and the team with the most correct answers from all three rounds combined is the winner!
This is an excellent speaking activity for upper-elementary and above teen and adult English students. Great for parties by the way, too!
Losing control of the bowl
If a team cheats, then they give up control of the bowl and give the bowl to the next team. For example, if a player speaks during the mime round or uses a word for the paper during round three, then this is cheating and they lose the bowl. The next team get their usual 60 seconds plus any remaining time from the team before. Have fun!
by Stuart Allen
Like this ESL adults speaking game and want to try more TEFL games for adults?
Swatter Stories - fantastic teen and adults team game to practice ESL vocabulary and listening skills.
Ring of Fire - the classic pub drinking game adapted for adults to practice English in the classroom.
Bingo - the teacher calls out words, definitions and phrases rather than numbers. Bingo with a TEFL twist!