PowerPoint (PPT) games are on of the most important teaching aids for any English teacher with a computer and screen in the class. What makes PPT games even more useful is that teachers can easily change the contents to suit their lesson plans.
With PPT Bomb games you can review vocabulary, learn grammar or practice English phrases. The ideas are endless! There are many educational PPT games out there, and students love them, but it can be easy to use them in the wrong way.
Teachers should pick the right PPT Game Template, edit the content and play the game correctly in class. In this article we will share ESL Powerpoint Bomb game templates, give suggestions to pick the right ones, show how to easily edit them and explain how to play Powerpoint Bomb games in ESL class.
Table of Contents
How to play an ESL Bomb Game
When to use a Powerpoint game in ESL Class?
PPT Bomb games are a lifesaver in any ESL class. Teachers can use it as a warmup to energize the class, a practice activity during the learning phase or at the end of class as a review.
Most of these games are based on movies or TV shows that kids enjoy, so they will have fun with the characters and elements from each story. That way you can focus on student engagement. Place students in groups so that they can play the game with other classmates. It’s more fun if there is a competitive element too.
The amount of students that you should add per group depends on the class size. The maximum amount of groups that you should have is 4. More than that and it gets difficult to keep control of the class and too much time in between each group’s turn so the students will get bored. 3 groups is the ideal amount.
Make sure that each student gets a turn in their groups, otherwise louder students will answer everything. If a shy student is stuck however, encourage them to ask their friends. The aim on ESL Bomb games is for students to learn, have fun and feel included.
30 ESL Powerpoint Games
Some of the best games on the site, all with fantastic animations, include Pokémon, Frozen, Avengers, Super Mario, Naruto and Harry Potter. On opening the Pokémon game one can see that it’s got some instructions for teachers on how to use it. Note that Pokémon characters have different names in various languages, for example, in Korean Snorlax translates to something like Sleepy Giant.
Students can play individually or in teams and must select and answer questions to gain points. They can win bonus points, but are always at the risk of picking a bomb or losing their points when they have to swap points with another team. Mystery balls and different actions by these famous animation characters keep students on the edge of their seats, making this game highly exciting and effective.
Download the PPT Bomb Games FREE —> Click the RED ‘Download’ Button
How to edit PPT games for class
These PPT games can be easily edited using the Bomb Game Generator. Step one is to open the PPT game, click and change the title, change the questions and answers to review a lot of the vocabulary and grammar that was done in class. Photos, images, sound bites and music can be added.
PowerPoint provides detailed step-by-step instructions and its VBA program will automatically adjust all images, sounds, and font settings. Drag-and-drop or copy and paste text or pictures onto the edit slides, which will automatically resize to fit. The font settings can be made bigger or changed per single slide. One can even add sound bites and music files. It won’t be necessary to fiddle with the slides, animations, or to make links. The game is automatically saved as a PPT template file, along with thumbnail images.
Powerpoint Games Template for Kids
When picking a template for a PPT Game to play with kids, make sure that it is:
- A suitable level for the students
- An interesting theme or topic
- Covers actual work from class
- No bugs or too big when loading
You can download Free PPT Games for Teaching English here:
PPT Games Template FREE Download
Powerpoint Games for Zoom
It is possible to play Powerpoint Games on Zoom with your students. Place students in groups and give each member a specific turn. If they are 3 in a group, tell each person what number they will be: First, second or third.
Take out a piece of paper to write down the scores. That will make it easier to keep score as you will be sharing the Powerpoint game.
Next, use the Sharescreen function to show the Powerpoint game to your students. To make it even more fun try doing it in ‘advanced PPT sharing’ on Zoom. That way it will show you on the PPT – Almost like a game show host!
Play the game normally. Here’s a pro tip: If a student struggles you can send them a hint through chat. That way they don’t feel embarrassed if they don’t know the answer.
Pokemon PPT Game
Here is a fun Pokemon PPT Game that you can use with your students in class. You can add questions, answers and each option has a different prize which makes learners enjoy the process.
You can download the Pokemon PPT Bomb Game here:
https://www.teamteacherchina.com/esl-ppt-bomb-games-collection
You can add 26 different questions for each letter of the alphabet. 26 is a good number because it doesn’t overwhelm students with too many options. Giving students a choice of what letter to pick makes them more invested because it give them a say on their destiny. What fun is a game if you don’t take part. This investment is a good lesson for playing other learning games with students too.
Students pick from one of the 26 letters of the alphabet to play this ESL Bomb Game. Place the students into teams and within the teams each member gets a turn to pick a letter and answer the question. It keeps them engaged and makes learning a social experience in stead of isolating the students as individual learners.
You can make a question and answer for each of the letters. Students are expected to answer the question. If they get it right, they earn a prize but if they get it wrong, they get nothing. The whole idea behind using an esl bomb game is for students to learn while having fun. So don’t move on immediately if they get something wrong. Guide them to the answer, that way you increase their confidence and helps them enjoy the class, which means that they are more likely to return.
Make some of the questions more challenging and if a student has trouble answering, ask their partners if they can help them out. Teamwork makes these PPT bomb games more enjoyable.
When the student gives and answer, you can click on the pokeball if it is correct, or the “X” if it is incorrect. When you click on the pokeball, it will bring up a pokemon and an amount of points. Write the points for each team on the board and calculate a winner at the end. You don’t need to give a prize for the winning team, winning should be prize enough but sometimes it is fun to add some stakes to the game. For example, winners can leave a minute early. It could be fun to add a punishment like losers have to do one extra question for homework, but the main idea is to keep the game fun and positive.
Students love the reveal of the pokemon because they start talking about what they know or like about the particular pokemon. That excitement and discussion generated makes bomb games centered around popular games so useful for esl class.
You can also make it a bomb, which means that the team will lose points. This is a funny surprise because students love the emotional rollercoaster ride. Try not to add too many bombs though so that students can accumulate more points.
Pokemon PPT Bomb game is an easy to edit, fun game to use in ESL class with younger learners.
Conclusion
A large number of games that were made using the PowerPoint bomb game generator can easily be adapted to be used in the classroom. PPT bomb games provides teachers with a great variety of fun ways to review lesson content in a format that students love. These games can all be edited changed to contain the targeted vocabulary and grammar, but are often hard to find, which is why they are listed in this article. The best of these websites are monuments of huge selfless dedication by educators with a passion to the profession who makes it available to other teachers too. Neil, the creator of the website discussed, deserves to be applauded for his blog, these games are fantastic for teaching English or perhaps any other subjects as well.
Thanks to Neil at Team Teacher China!
Scroll to the bottom and download by pressing the “RED” download button.
Website for FREE PowerPoint games for ESL / EFL classes: https://www.teamteacherchina.com/esl-ppt-bomb-games-collection
Website for the more advanced Slide Bomb Game generator: https://pptgamedesign.wordpress.com/
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