The challenge of teaching speaking to young learners is that adult ESL methods fail completely. YapYapGo is a classroom speaking practice tool for ESL and EFL teachers - for young learners, the activities below build the same communicative competence through games rather than structured discussion. Teaching speaking to young learners requires a completely different toolkit. Six-year-olds do not have the metalinguistic awareness to think about fluency. Twelve-year-olds cannot sustain a 90-second monologue on an abstract topic. What young learners can do - remarkably well - is speak English during a game they find genuinely engaging.
The key principle: the game is real, the language is the medium. Children who are competing to win a game produce language as a natural consequence of participation. Children who are asked to "practice English" often produce nothing.
As noted above, YapYapGo is designed for secondary and adult ESL speaking practice - the activities below are specifically designed for primary ages. A classroom countdown timer is useful for games that have time limits, and it's particularly engaging for young learners who enjoy the countdown visual.
Why young learner speaking is different
Attention spans are shorter. Most primary-age children can sustain focused activity for 8-12 minutes maximum before needing a change of format. Plan shorter activities with more variety. Movement helps. Sitting still is harder for young children than for adults. Activities with physical movement produce more engagement and, counterintuitively, more language. Competition works - with the right structure. Young learners love winning. Activities with a competitive element generate energy. But whole-class winners and losers create tears. Team competition or partner competition works better. Concrete vocabulary, concrete tasks. Abstract discussion ("What do you think about climate change?") doesn't work. Concrete tasks ("Describe your pet using five describing words") do. Repetition is developmental. Adults need variety. Young learners benefit from repetition - hearing and using the same structures in different games consolidates acquisition.The activities
1. Simon Says (with vocabulary focus)
Classic format with a vocabulary twist. "Simon says touch something ROUND." "Simon says find something BLUE." "Simon says name something that is COLD."
The game practises vocabulary comprehension and production simultaneously. Children must understand the category and identify something in the room. As they advance, require a sentence: "Simon says find something smooth and tell me what it is."
Ages: 5-8. Level: Beginner. Time: 5-8 minutes.2. What's in the bag?
Place five objects in a cloth bag. One student reaches in, feels an object, and describes it without naming it: "It's small. It's hard. It's round. You use it to..." Other students guess.
The describing challenge is perfectly pitched for young learners: they have vocabulary for physical properties (big/small, soft/hard, hot/cold, rough/smooth) but need to use it in an unfamiliar way.
Ages: 6-10. Level: A1-A2. Time: 10 minutes.3. The picture sentence race
Show a picture (from a children's book, a flashcard set, or a projected image). Teams race to say a correct sentence about the picture. First correct sentence scores a point.
The competitive race element keeps energy high. The correctness requirement keeps language focus in place. Use pictures with multiple possible sentences to prevent repetition.
Ages: 6-12. Level: A1-B1. Time: 10-15 minutes.4. Story circle
Students sit in a circle. One student starts a story: "One day, a dog found a strange box." Next student adds one sentence. Continue around the circle. No stopping, no "I don't know."
Young learners love collaborative stories because they can take them in completely unexpected directions. The no-stopping rule prevents social withdrawal and forces production.
Ages: 7-12. Level: A2+. Time: 10-15 minutes.5. Find your partner
Each student receives a card. Half the cards have words, half have pictures. Students circulate asking "Do you have a cat?" or "Is your picture a ball?" until they find their partner.
The mingle format produces many brief conversations. The question repetition practises question forms naturally. Require students to say one sentence about the word/picture when they find their match.
Ages: 5-9. Level: A1-A2. Time: 8-10 minutes.6. The interview chair
One student sits in the "interview chair" at the front. The class asks questions for two minutes. The interviewee answers. Topics can be personal or in character (a character from a story, a favourite superhero).
Young learners love being the centre of attention in the interview format. Questions must be in English. The format practises both question formation (class) and extended answers (interviewee).
Ages: 8-12. Level: A2-B1. Time: 3 minutes per student.Tool tip: YapYapGo is designed for secondary and adult learners - for young learners, the activities above work better than structured pair discussion. However, the random student picker and classroom countdown timer work brilliantly with primary-age children: the slot machine animation generates genuine excitement when used to select students for the interview chair or for sharing time.
7. Hot potato question
Students pass an object around a circle while music plays. When the music stops, whoever is holding the object must answer a question from the teacher. Questions should be easy and achievable: "Name three animals." "Say one sentence about your family."
The suspense element keeps all children engaged even when they're not speaking. The achievable question level ensures the child with the object feels success.
Ages: 5-10. Level: A1-A2. Time: 8-10 minutes.8. The mystery sound game
Play a sound effect (rain, a train, a dog barking, cooking). Students must say what it is AND one sentence about it: "That's rain. I like rain because I can jump in puddles."
The one-sentence requirement pushes beyond single-word answers. Young learners are strongly motivated by the guessing element.
Ages: 6-10. Level: A1-B1. Time: 8 minutes.9. Sentence relay
Teams line up. Teacher shows a picture. Student 1 runs to the board and writes/says one word. Runs back. Student 2 adds one more word. Continue until a complete sentence is formed.
Physical movement + word-by-word sentence building = highly engaged young learners who are simultaneously practising sentence structure.
Ages: 7-12. Level: A1-B1. Time: 10 minutes.10. What am I?
One student thinks of an animal, food, or object. Others ask yes/no questions: "Are you alive?" "Can you fly?" "Are you small?" Student answers until someone guesses correctly.
Question formation practice in a genuinely fun guessing game format. Limit to 20 questions per round. The student who guesses correctly becomes the next "what am I."
Ages: 6-12. Level: A1-B1. Time: 10-15 minutes.For related activities that work at the secondary level, see ESL speaking activities for teenagers and 10 low-stakes speaking activities. For classroom community-building activities that work across age groups, see ice breakers for ESL class.
Sources:
- Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge University Press. - Principles of language instruction for primary-age learners.
- Reilly, V. & Ward, S. (1997). Very Young Learners. Oxford University Press. - Activity design for pre-school and primary ESL contexts.