This is a fantastic warmer to revise vocabulary with ESL students. Divide the class into teams of no more than 3-4 people each. In this game, only one person in every team is active at any point of time, so if the teams are big, the other students tend to get bored and/or distracted.
In my classes of 12-18 students, I divide them into groups of 3-4. Bring as many chairs as there are teams to the middle of the classroom, and arrange them in a circle.
One student from every team comes to the middle and sits in their chair.
Now, give the students any category. e.g. animals.
One student starts off by naming any animal. The others must not repeat this name, and must go on to name other animals in turn, without spending much time thinking, until one student can’t think of any animals’ names. Then, he’s dead and the other teams go on playing the game. The winning team gets a point.
Some categories I’ve used while playing Word Tennis in my ESL classrooms –
- past tense verbs – ate, drank, played, wrote etc.
- past participle verbs - eaten, drunk, played, written etc.
- adjectives – beautiful, tall, handsome, loud etc.
- prepositions – on, in, at, over, along etc.
- advice (e.g. I have a cold) – You should see a doctor. If I were you, I would stay in bed. etc.
- already – I have already eaten breakfast. I have already seen ‘Avatar’.
This is one of those games I learned during an observation, and was so surprised to see how well it works. The students really love it.. they’re on their feet thinking of words.. producing language.. and being competitive.
If you’re having students produce whole sentences (You should.. If I were you..), make sure you write the process language on the board as a visual cue. And drill it pre-game. Enjoy! 
