Session Games Toolkit

🔗Semantris

Semantris is a fast-paced and engaging word association game in which students type related words to clear items from the screen. It works for all levels and helps develop vocabulary range, lexical flexibility, and quick thinking.

💡 Skills Practiced: Vocabulary expansion, word association, semantic connections, spelling, fluency

⏱️ Time Estimate: 10–15 minutes

🕹️ How to Play:

For this game, you’ll need to use an external website. Share your screen during the session, or ask the student to open the game on their computer and share their screen.

Go to research.google.com/semantris and choose one of the two game modes:

🎮 Arcade Mode (Faster-paced)

A highlighted word appears on the screen. The student quickly types the first related word that comes to mind.

The AI analyzes the word and moves the most closely associated words down the list.

The goal is to score as many points as possible before the words reach the top of the screen.

🧱 Blocks Mode (Slower-paced)

Several word blocks appear on the screen.

The student types a word or short phrase related to one of the blocks to make matching blocks disappear.

The goal is to prevent the blocks from reaching the top of the page.

Adjust by Level:

Start with Blocks mode for beginners or students who need more time to think. Move to Arcade mode for faster-paced practice once students feel comfortable. Decide together who will type the words—if your goal is to practice spelling, have your student do the typing.

🔎MicroMacro

This is an interactive detective game where you and your student explore a detailed city map to solve the crime and find the suspect. It’s perfect for intermediate and advanced levels, encouraging observation, storytelling, and speaking practice.

💡Skills Practiced: Speaking fluency, storytelling, giving directions, present continuous, vocabulary for everyday life and city scenes

⏱️Time Estimate: 15–25 minutes

🕹️How to Play:

For this game, you’ll need to use an external resource and share your screen with your student.

1) Go to https://webapp.micromacro-game.com/democase/en/democase.html

2) You will see a short guide on how to play the game:

🔍* To search Crime City for the answers, drag the map. Zoom with the buttons or pinch/use your mouse wheel.*

• 👆🏻 If you think you've found the right answer, just click on the place in the scene.*
• ❕This is a criminal case. To solve it you need evidence, not just speculation.*

3) To see the current task, click on the card with the question mark in the bottom right corner of the screen.

4) Follow the prompts together and discuss the clues as you go. Ask your student to explain what they see, describe what might be happening, and justify their ideas. If you are struggling, you can find the answers here.

Extend learning after solving the case

Once the mystery is solved, the map can be used for various speaking activities:

• Giving Directions: Choose two buildings on different sides of the map. Ask the student to explain a route from one to the other using “go straight,” “turn left/right,” “next to,” etc.
• Storytelling & Character Description: Zoom into any area and ask the student to describe what is happening. Who are the characters? What are they doing? What do they look like? Encourage them to create a background story for the characters.
• Present Continuous Practice: Ask students to describe ongoing actions (“The man is painting a wall,” “The kids are playing in the park”).
• Speculate & Predict: Ask questions like “Why do you think this character is here?” or “What might happen next in this scene?”
• Vocabulary Focus: Focus on city life, professions, crimes, or objects in the scenes. You can challenge students to include new words in their descriptions.

🔠 Wordle

This is a fun and engaging word-guessing activity in which students try to identify a hidden five-letter word. It works well for all levels and helps develop spelling awareness, deduction skills, and vocabulary recall.

💡 Skills Practiced: Vocabulary recall, spelling, deduction strategies

⏱️ Time Estimate: 8–12 minutes

🕹️ How to Play:

For this game, you’ll need to use an external resource and share your screen with your student.

1. Go to https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html (or https://wordly.org/ if you want to play an unlimited number of games)
2. You will see a 5×6 grid where the student can make up to six guesses. With each guess, Wordle highlights letters to give clues:

🟩Green: the letter is correct and in the right position

🟨Yellow: the letter is in the word but in a different position

⬜️Gray: the letter is not in the target word

1. Start the puzzle by asking the student to choose their first five-letter word. After the game shows the colored clues, discuss what each color means and decide on the next guess together. If your student cannot think of a word on their own, offer a few options to choose from or use this website to generate several possible words for the next attempt.
2. Continue guessing until you reach the correct word, or until all six attempts are used.
3. After solving the puzzle, do the follow-up activity:

For Beginners: Ask simple, language-focused questions such as “What does this word mean?”, “Can you use this word in a sentence?” “What synonyms/antonyms can you recall?”

For Intermediate levels and higher: Encourage your student to expand the new vocabulary creatively. You can ask: “When might you use this word in real life?”, “Can you create 2–3 sentences that show different meanings or contexts for this word?”. If you played several rounds, you can also challenge your buddy to choose 2–3 recent words and build a short paragraph or scene that includes all of them.

📁 Scattergories

In this game, you and your buddy need to come up with words that start with the same letter and fit different categories. Each round begins with a random letter and a list of categories. Your task is to find a word for each category that starts with that letter. This game works well for all levels and encourages vocabulary recall, quick thinking, and creativity.

💡 Skills Practiced: Vocabulary retrieval, creative thinking, categorization

⏱️ Time Estimate: 10–15 minutes

🕹️ How to Play:

For this game, you’ll need to use an external resource and share your screen with your student. Each game of Scattergories consists of three rounds.

1) Go to _{https://swellgarfo.com/scattergories}_. You will see the letter for the round.

2) Press Play to start, and you will see 12 categories. For your first game, we recommend reducing the number of categories to 5 or 6. To do this, press the “-” on top of the categories section and then press Restart.

3) For each category, find a word that starts with the given letter. For example, if the letter is “B”: Animal:* Bear, Food: *Bread, *Country: Brazil, Movie: *Batman, *Object: *Backpack.

4) You have 2 minutes to write down your words.

5) When the time is up, compare your answers. Cross out any words that match your buddy’s. Players score 1 point for each unique word that is not crossed out.

6) Play 2 more rounds and count your points. The player with the most points wins.

✨ Alternative Mode: You can also choose just one category and compete to list as many words as possible that fit that category. In this mode, words do not need to start with the same letter — they just need to match the category.

Adjust by Level:

• Beginners: Use fewer categories or allow more time per round. Instead of competing against each other, work together to complete the list.
• Intermediate and higher: Use more categories, reduce the time per round, or challenge students to come up with rare or unusual words for extra points.

🎥 Watch a short video tutorial for this activity here.

🤔What’s the Question?

This is a fun and flexible activity that helps students practise forming questions in English. Students are given an answer and must come up with the question that matches it. It’s perfect for reviewing question structures (who, where, when, why, how, etc.) and works great as a warm-up, grammar practice, or icebreaker.

💡 Skills Practiced: Question formation, grammar accuracy, creative thinking, speaking fluency.

⏱️ Time Estimate: 10–20 minutes

🕹️ How to Play:

For this game, you’ll need to use an external resource with random “answers” for this activity.

1) Go to _{learnhip.com/cards/cardset.php?w=f642bc91}_.

2) Share your screen (or send the link) so the student can see the cards. Each card shows an answer.

3) Click on a card and read the answer aloud (e.g., “93 million miles”).

4) Ask the student to say a question that would produce that answer (e.g., How far is the sun from the Earth?).

5) Discuss together whether the question fits the answer. Encourage creativity—there can be more than one correct question!

6) Continue with several cards, choosing randomly or letting the student pick the next one.

✨ Alternatively, you can skip the online cards and personalize the game. Prepare your own set of “answers” related to your own life or to a specific topic you’ve recently discussed with your student to refresh the vocabulary. Give clues about the topic or question to make it easier for your buddy to guess.

📝 Examples:

Answer: In the morning.

Possible questions: When do you usually have ENGin sessions? When do you feel most productive? What is the best time to go for a run?

Answer: Spaghetti.

Possible questions: What’s your favorite food? What did you eat last night? What would you order at an Italian restaurant?

🎥What Happens Next

This is a fun and interactive video-based activity in which students watch short clips and try to predict the outcome. It works well for all levels and helps develop critical thinking, speaking fluency, and storytelling skills.

💡 Skills Practiced: Prediction, speaking, critical thinking, storytelling, use of future tenses

⏱️ Time Estimate: 10–15 minutes

🕹️ How to Play:

For this game, you’ll need to use an external resource with short video clips and share your screen with your student.

1) Go to _{learnhip.com/whathappens}_ and choose a number.

2) Click Short Version to watch the scene setup. When the video pauses, ask the student to guess what will happen next.

3) Discuss possible outcomes together. Encourage creative and even funny guesses!

4) Click Full Version to see how the scene actually plays out. Compare the student’s prediction with the real result.

5) To watch the next video, choose a different number and press Short Version.

✨ After watching the full version, do the follow-up activity:

• Beginners: Ask simple questions like “Was the ending funny, scary, or surprising?”, “What did you see in the video? Can you name 3 things?”, “If you were in the video, what would you do?”
• Intermediate/Advanced: Encourage deeper reflection with prompts like “Why did you expect that outcome?”, “How would you change the ending to make it more surprising?”, “Was the ending logical or unexpected?”, “Do you think this video was real or staged? Why?”, “What emotions did you feel while watching?”. You can also challenge them to retell the video in their own words, create an alternative ending, or invent a completely new story inspired by the clip.

🎥 Watch a short video tutorial for this activity here.

🔉Guess the Sound

This is a fun and interactive listening activity in which students guess real-world sounds. It works well for all levels and helps develop everyday vocabulary, listening skills, and memory.

💡 Skills Practiced: Listening, vocabulary, sound-word association, everyday English

⏱️ Time Estimate: 10–15 minutes

🕹️ How to Play:

For this game, you’ll need to use an external resource with audio clips. Share your screen to play the sounds during the session or ask the student to open the website and play the sounds on their computer.

1. Go to learnhip.com/soundquiz/ and pick one of the sound categories

• 🏠 Sounds from Around the Home:* vacuum cleaner, doorbell*
• 🌞 Sounds of Summer:* bees buzzing, sprinklers*
• 🎃 Halloween Sound Quiz: spooky creaks, howling winds
• 🚗 Street Sounds: honking horns, bicycle bells
• 🐶 Animal Sounds: dogs, frogs, crickets, lions

2. Each quiz includes several sound clips. Play one sound from start to finish and let the student guess what they’ve heard. If needed, listen to the audio several times. If your student gets stuck, offer help by giving clues: “You hear this sound in the morning, when you cook breakfast,” *or *“an animal makes this sound.”

(Optional) Write down guesses or discuss out loud.

Click on the “Show answers” at the bottom of the page to check the answers.

3. After guessing the sound, do the follow-up activity

• For Beginners: ask follow-up questions like “Where do you hear this sound usually?”, “Do you like this sound?”, “Do you hear it often or rarely?” and provide some sentence starters to help your student answer: I hear this sound at… I like/dislike this sound. I hear it…
• For Intermediate levels and higher: ask follow-up questions like *“When did you last hear this sound?”, “Is this a pleasant or unpleasant sound? Why?” “What emotions do you associate with this sound?”. *You can also challenge students to rank the sounds from most to least pleasant or create a short scene or story based on 2–3 sounds.

🎥 Watch a short video tutorial for this activity here.

📖 Story Cards

This is a fun, creative speaking game where students build stories based on random images. It works well for all levels and encourages imagination, vocabulary use, and fluency.

💡Skills Practiced: Speaking fluency, storytelling, creative thinking, use of past and future tenses

⏱️ Time Estimate: 10–15 minutes

🕹️How to Play:

For this game, you’ll need to use an external resource and share your screen with your student.

1) Go to learnhip.com/storycards and click “Deal the cards.”

You’ll see a group of random, quirky images. Share your screen so your student can see them clearly. You can refresh the set if needed.

2) Pick one of the two storytelling styles:

• Option A: Ask the student to create one story using all the images in sequence.

Example: A bear with a suitcase, a flying car, and a broken umbrella could become a wild adventure story.

• Option B: Ask them to create a separate mini-story for each image.

Each picture becomes a short, separate story (good for beginners).

Encourage them to speak in full sentences and use connectors like “Then... Suddenly... Because...”

3) No need to describe the image directly: Let your student imagine what happened before or after the moment shown — not just describe what they see.

The goal is not to say “This is a cat on a skateboard,” but rather to imagine what led up to that moment or what might happen next. For example: “Max had always dreamed of becoming the world’s first feline skateboarder…”

If your student gets stuck, offer help by asking:

• “Who is this character?”
• “Where are they going?”
• “What happened before this?”
• “Why is the character feeling that way?”
• “What might happen next?”

4) Adjust by Level

• For Beginners: you can decide to use 1–2 cards only. Give sentence starters (e.g., “This is a story about…” or “One day…”). Model a short example. Ask simple follow-up questions to support their ideas.
• For Intermediate levels and higher: encourage longer stories, use of past tense, dialogue, or even different genres (e.g., mystery, comedy). You can challenge learners to include specific vocabulary or grammar points you’ve recently covered.

🎥 Watch a short video tutorial for this activity here.