In his book entitled “Lessons from Nothing - Activities for Language Teaching with Limited Time and Resources”, Bruce Marsland provides a number of “activities using no resources”. My favourite ones are those designed for the intermediate – advanced level. Here are a few examples which I warmly recommend:

Alibi
This is a parlour game. The teacher starts by informing the students that a crime –  a hideous murder - is said to have been committed the previous evening. He/she continues to build the tension by suggesting that three students in the class are suspected. Then he/she names the suspects and asks them to leave the classroom (or move out of earshot) to devise their “alibis” for the previous evening. The teacher stresses to them that they must know the exact details of what they did and where they went and must claim to have been together the whole time.
While the three students are deciding on their story, the teacher splits the rest of the class in three groups, each of which will interview each student in turn.
After 5-10 minutes, the three suspects are brought into the classroom and the three groups of “detectives” have the chance to question all three suspects separately. Any difference between the suspects’ stories will be seen as a proof of guilt. At the end of the questioning sessions, the interrogating groups share the evidence they found with the class and a class vote will decide which (if any) of the students is guilty. The class may even choose a suitable punishment.

Commentary
This is a game on narrative tenses.
The teacher chooses a group of two or three “storytellers”. The rest of the class act as “performers”. The teacher gives the storytellers the beginning of a story.
Example: “John had been waiting for Rachel for an hour.”
As the teacher says this, he/she chooses a “John” from the assembled performers. He mimes waiting and impatience.
The storytellers now continue the story, one sentence at a time, and see it performed in front of them by the rest of the class.

Bus Stop – Improv
This is an improvisation scene based on a conflict of interests or beliefs.
The teacher assigns Student A the role of waiting for the bus, then whispers to Student B that the person waiting for a bus is actually mad, and that he or she is really standing in the middle of Student B’s kitchen. Without using physical contact, Student B must get Student A to leave the kitchen.
The teacher then gradually introduces more characters: somebody waiting for a train; a psychiatrist who believes all the others are patients in a hospital; a cleaner trying to mop the kitchen floor; a film director and camera crew trying to record the events for a television documentary: anything to get the students involved in the situation developing around them. The result is a dynamic collection of simultaneous and unique interactions in the target language.

Puzzle story
The students are expected to solve mysterious situations or to explain unusual contexts.
Example 1:
Clue : A dead man is found lying in the desert, completely naked, and holding a broken match. There are no footprints anywhere nearby.
Solution : The man had been travelling with friends in a hot air balloon, which had started dropping towards the desert. They tried to reduce the weight in the balloon by taking their clothes off. When this didn’t work, they drew dots to select someone to jump from the balloon. The one who drew the broken match had to jump.

Example 2:
Clue: Simon lives on the ninth floor of a block of flats. Every morning he takes the lift to the ground floor as he goes to work. Every evening, however, he takes the lift as far as the fifth floor and then walks the rest of the way. Why?
Solution: Simon is very short and cannot reach the button to take him up to the ninth floor in the lift.

As shown by the selection of games presented above, there are many opportunities for English teachers to build a learning environment on the already existing foundation of materials and methods available as well as their own experience with learning and teaching this language. Developing language skills may become an easier task for those who know how to handle diversity and personal development challenges and create opportunities out of the most difficult situations.