Do you love board games? We do! We love to roll the dice, pick a card, and move around a game board, because board games are a great way to have fun with friends. With some board games, whether you win or lose, you are even practicing English while you play.

That’s why we host board game nights at CultureWorks, a top school for English as a second language (ESL) in Canada. Here you can study hard in classes and have fun in after-class activities like board game parties that keep you practicing English day and night!

Here are four fun board games that can help you improve your English at an ESL school like CultureWorks.

1. Play Scrabble in ESL School

Have you heard of Scrabble? In Scrabble, you are given seven tiles with letters on them, which you use to build words. Each letter is worth a number of points based on how much that letter is used in the English language.

You win points when you connect your words to other words on a Scrabble board, or add letters to a word and make it longer. For example, you could win many points for putting T, I, N, and G onto the end of ‘STAR’ to make ‘STARTING,’ a whole different word.

Scrabble is excellent practice for English because you can make very simple words with your letters, increase your English vocabulary, and learn how often different letters are used in everyday English conversation.

2. Play Apples to Apples at ESL School in Canada

In the game Apples to Apples, you have two sorts of cards: Things, which have objects on them, and Descriptions, which describe different objects. On your turn, you put down a Thing card, and everyone else secretly puts down a Description card they think matches that Thing.

Usually, the Descriptions do not match the Things perfectly, and that is part of the fun! The player who put down the best match wins a point. You and your friends in ESL school will have fun comparing the descriptions each player gives to the Thing, because sometimes they are very unusual!

3. Play Bananagrams in ESL School

Bananagrams is a lot like Scrabble, except that you do not get points for letters. Instead, the purpose of the game is to make words as quickly as possible!

Each person starts with 21 tiles with letters on them, which they use to make words that are connected together. Whoever uses all their tiles first, wins. This game is very good for practicing spelling and using your English vocabulary, because you need to think of words quickly, like you would in a conversation with a native English speaker. It’s like an English spelling race!

4. Play Cranium After Your ESL Program Classes

Classmates you meet in your ESL program will have many different talents. Cranium is a game that tests lots of kinds of skills: sculpting, acting, knowledge, spelling, and more. It is also great for a big number of players!

In Cranium, you roll dice to see what kind of skill you need to use, and then work with your team to complete the challenge on the card. For example, if you pick a drawing card, your team will need to guess what you are drawing.

Cranium is fun because it helps you get to know other people you are playing with, and even if you do not know how to sing or draw something, people will help you learn. This is one of the best parts of ESL school! While you learn English, you also learn about the culture you are in and the people you are with.

Interested in coming to ESL school in Canada?

Visit CultureWorks to get started with us.