ESL Classroom Activities for Teens and Adults: ESL games, fluency activities and grammar drills for EFL and ESL students. Paperback – July 9, 2012

I purchased this book two years ago to help me in my art classroom in the Northern VA area. With over 53% English Language Learners, I found this book to be extremely helpful. As an example, I taught a unit on Impressionism and one activity described how we can put words on a beach ball. When the ball is tossed to the students, they can then read the word that is under their thumb. Having students read "painterly" or "Edgar Degas" then saying these words out loud really helped themselves and others to say and hear the words, thus increasing their knowledge of the Impressionist period. (It beats them sitting at handouts all day, right)? This book is extremely helpful in my classroom and is a tool for the ESL student in any classroom. Those who are saying negative things about this book have never had ESL students in your class, I'd venture to say, and you are nit-picking at the occasional spelling mistake; however, the overall meaning is not lost. I have used this book for two years and have not seen one mistake. This book is crammed full of games that are very age-appropriate for high school students and adults, just like the title says, but I imagine some of the games can be adapted to younger children. For those who have not worked with ESL students, many are not at the AP level and can benefit at a game of Hangman. Totally worth buying.

I have found Shelley's book most helpful for me as a teacher new to ESL, working with boys who have very little English. Not only are the games and activities reasonably easy to prepare and set up, but her index system is really clear - which skill each game targets and which level(s) it would suit. There are often ideas for further adapting the activities, so you are getting a whole load of ideas in one book! The Kindle version has a link back to the list of contents on just about every page, so moving around in the book is very simple and quick. Using games and competitions is an obvious hook for keeping boys interested, and Shelley's fun ideas have really worked. I also found her introductory section excellent, covering topics such as setting aims, planning sessions, using different teaching styles and dealing with the management of the session and of the learners. I would thoroughly recommend this book.

I'd say if you find even one idea to engage your students and help them learn, then this book has succeeded. That should be no problem as there are ideas galore!

I use my ESL book by Shelley to review and relax with my students. Instead of drill-and-kill, they are motivated by the group work and like to have a little fun competition. I believe it helps them to see how far they've progressed - and the games can also be modified to fit with my themes and lesson plans. It's essential to download the Appendix, which Shelley will help you with - and it's super easy as well. This was a great find - I wish I had found it earlier!

I really like some of the games and activities I've read about but it has been difficult for me to follow some of the suggestions. I've been a teacher since 1988, so I'm not new to the profession, but I cannot imagine or envision how to implement some of the activities. Perhaps it is because I'm American and our classroom interactions are culturally a bit different from the UK. Also, some of the activities were UK dependent. Additionally, I had not realized that there were a variety of materials to download. Which made it difficult to follow. The download pages need page numbers or activity numbers so I know what they are connected to.In general, I believe I will find some activities to spice up my classroom. ESL Classroom Activities for Teens and Adults: ESL games, fluency activities and grammar drills for EFL and ESL students.

I am a newly qualified ESL teacher and find this book to be an invaluable resource. The first couple of chapters give great insight into the world of ESL teaching, along with useful teaching tips. There are so many good activities outlined in this book, from simple to more complex, and each has detailed information on target audience, skills category, group size/level and what is involved in the preparation. There are also free templates/sheets available for download which are extremely useful, and which reduce preparation time dramatically. Whether you are a new ESL teacher such as myself, or experienced, I have no doubt that this book will become an essential resource for teaching.

I have taught foreign languages and ESL for 20 years now and bought this book over a year ago for some fresh ideas. While at first I was a bit frustrated by the formatting/referencing (it just didn't seem as easy to find the activity I needed to teach the skill I wanted the students to learn/practice as other books I've used in the past), I eventually figured it out and have used this book as a resource for over a year now. The activities are fun and interesting and engage my learners. When recently I needed to download cards to go with an activity and had issues doing so, I emailed the author and she promptly responded warmly and effectively to my need. I was able to get the cards and do the activity with my students same day. I highly recommend Ms. Vernon's book and other resources she has available on her website as well.

This book has an amazing number of ideas. So many games I played as a child are very cleverly used as English games. I had to quickly write a creative arts program and it was a godsend, so many options to choose from and the game instructions written clearly with examples and options for extending or varying games. I’m hoping Shelley keeps writing and sharing more things.