Barrier Games: Communicative vocabulary learning

A barrier game is called ‘a barrier game’ because you quite literally erect a barrier between two students so one can’t see what the other is doing, forcing them to rely on communication to complete a task together.

Barrier games take many forms, but there is one style of barrier game I use and re-use because it’s quick to prepare and yet highly effective.

To start with, print off some coloured game boards including eight boxes of different colours. Laminate them, so that students can write on them using board pens and then clean them off. You’ll end up with something that looks like this:

Barrier game boards

Then, put students into pairs, give them a game board each, and put up barriers between them. I use bits of cardboard from old boxes, but anything that stands up will work.

From there, you have several options. For lower level learners, you might give them pictures of vocabulary words, and they simply need to instruct one another to ‘put the crab on the blue square’, ‘put the shell on the red square’, and so on:

A simple barrier game

More advanced students might be told that they can’t say the word they are describing. For example, saying ‘in the green square, write the word for someone who travels in space’. Of course, this also boosts oracy, and works on spelling:

And of course, barrier games can take all shapes and sizes. For example, I use them with younger students to practice using prepositions: I give each student a picture of a park, and three coloured balls. Students have to ask where each ball is, and place the balls on their pictures correctly. I use this slide to offer some prompts:

At the heart of barrier games is successful communication. They are infinitely adaptable. Use them in your lessons and let me know how you do!