Warming up the word activities

ESL warm-up activities are a great way to get students motivated and excited for the English lesson. They are usually played at the beginning of class and set the tone for the entire class.

Rather than sitting down and piling up the grammar exercises and new keywords, warm-up activities can help English students see the language in a more positive way.

These are some of my favorite ESL warmers for students. The tasks are designed to get the students’ mentally warmed up and ready for class.

1. Find Someone Who

Find someone who is a versatile ESL warm-up activity and icebreaker. It is suitable for adults and children.

It can be played in many ways, for example, to practice a specific tense, encourage students to form questions, or some other target language.

For example,

Find someone who can say the English word for *picture*

Find someone who has visited England (encourages the student to ask the question using the present perfect tense)

Find someone who loves chocolate (getting-to-know-you exercises suitable for the first day of class)

The activities can be made more difficult by selecting pronouns or questions with conditionals. You can find many “Find Someone Who” activity sheets on ISL Collective.

2. Picture Prompt

Picture prompt is one of the simplest games you can play with ESL students, from beginner to advanced.

Introduce a new topic by showing the students a picture of the topic you are studying. This may be a good way to get students thinking more deeply about the subject and recalling some keywords or vocabulary words related to the topic.

Beginners will be able to point out things they can see in the picture, such as flowers, trees, bikes, and children. You can ask the students questions, such as “what are the children doing?” and encourage full sentences if you think they are capable.

Intermediate-level students may be able to expand on their answers and provide complete sentences. They can give much more descriptive answers.

Advanced students may be able to form a story around the picture or describe what’s happening.

You may also be interested in: Best ESL Icebreaker Activities and Games

3. Would You Rather

Would you rather is a game that can be played with ESL students. It’s an effective way to review vocabulary, sentence structure, and idioms.

You can play would you rather on your own, in pairs or in groups with students. Students must decide which they prefer, for example, whether they would rather eat strawberries or drink iced tea.

Beginners may struggle with this game because it requires them to use higher-order thinking skills, such as comparing two options and deciding which they prefer.

Intermediate-level learners shouldn’t have any difficulty, and they can practice using the past tense, choosing between comparatives (such as “better” or “worse”), or using conditional sentences.

Advanced learners may want to try this game with more than two options or play using conditional sentences.

Rather than think of all the “Would You Rather” questions yourself, you can ask the students to create their own questions and ask other students. You could answer the questions in pairs, groups, or as a class.

A simple Google search of “would you rather” questions will help you find a plethora of questions you can ask.

4. Two Truths One Lie

“Two Truths One Lie” is a classic game usually played in pairs or groups. Each student has to make up at least two truths and one lie.

Students are given some topics to choose from, such as movies, sports, hobbies, or perhaps a particular tense to focus on.

Beginners may struggle with this game because they often have trouble formulating a believable answer if they haven’t heard of the topic before.

Intermediate-level learners should be able to participate in this activity effectively. They will need to be able to form a response quickly and convincingly for any topic given.

Advanced learners will not have any problem creating lies and truths on their own. They may want to think about the believability of their responses when playing this game.

5. Odd One Out

EFL students love pointing the odd one out in pictures, making it a great ESL warm-up activity.

You can show groups of pictures that relate to the topic of study. Students choose which picture is the odd one out and explain why it is the odd one out.

This game is ideal for lower-level students and young learners who are still building their knowledge about categories or things.

Alternatively, if you don’t have pictures, you can write the words on the board—for example, Halloween, Christmas, Easter, and Wednesday.

6. Spot the Difference

Kids in elementary or primary school love the ESL warm-up game “Spot the Difference.”

If you can find a picture related to the topic you’re studying, start the class by asking the students to notice the difference between the pictures.

The difference could be a slight change in color or the position of something.

This game is ideal for any level learner because it doesn’t ask them to use many higher-order thinking skills. It’s simply about noticing differences and pointing out what they are.

You can make this activity more challenging by asking questions related to the difference in the pictures, such as “What color are the children’s outfits?” or “How many people are wearing hats?

7. Describe the Picture

You can play this ESL game with two partners. Show one person in each pair a picture with a lot of detail in it. Then the student has to describe the picture to their partner in 30 seconds. Their partner has to draw the picture based on the description. The team with the closest matching picture wins.

This game is ideal for any level learner but may be more challenging if you’re not using pictures related to your study topic.

You may also be interested in: Best Free ESL Worksheets for Kids

8. Find the Objects in the Picture

Similar to “Where’s Wally” but for English language learners!

This game involving pictures is “Find the Object in the Picture.” In this game, students have to find the specific items in a busy picture. Students would have to describe the location of the objects using prepositions of place, making it suitable for beginner learners.

The teacher could also have a competition to see which student can find the object in the picture first. The students can run up to the board and circle or touch the object when they find it.

9. Show and Tell

The game “Show and Tell” is a simple ESL game that can be played any time with any group of students.

In the game, one student will have to draw or bring in an item to the front of the class. They then have to show it to their classmates and talk about it for 1-2 minutes. The other students can ask questions.

Advanced learners may want to use this game to make jokes or tell funny stories about pictures or items they may bring.

This game can also be played as a competition. Students have to fill out a sentence with the words, “I brought in _____ because it’s ______.”

This game can be continued throughout the year, with a different student making the presentation each day.

Useful Links

• Advanced ESL Lesson Plans
• Free ESL Game Ideas
• ESL Worksheets for Kids

10. Listening to Piano Music

Not exactly a warm-up activity, but some teachers play classical music before class begins or when doing a creative exercise.

Classical music, such as Mozart and Beethoven, is an excellent way of calming everyone down, especially if they are giddy young children.

Classical music is known to have some benefits for all ages and can be incorporated into your routine:

• Creates a calming effect
• Improves concentration skills
• Improves creativity
• Improves brain function

11. Free-Writing Activity

A free-writing activity is a way of relaxing the student and teaching them useful skills such as brainstorming. The students hopefully will improve their writing speed by practicing this simple activity throughout the semester.

A free-writing game can be related to your lesson, with students writing about the topic and their experiences.

For example, you could tell them to write about their childhood memories, favorite food, or daily routine.

Sometimes, it may not be related to a lesson at all and simply involves students expressing themselves before class begins or while doing another creative exercise.

To start the game, students are given 5-10 minutes to write on any topic you choose. After that time has elapsed, students can share their responses.

No erasers and dictionaries are required! The game aims to improve students’ writing fluency in a more relaxed way. It is not recommended for ESL learners in the beginning stages of learning English.

12. Hot Potato

Students stand in a circle and pass an object around. When the timer goes off, or the music stops, the student holding the hot potato has to do something.

For example, the students have to describe the object as they are passing it, only using positive adjectives. If they say the wrong adjective (such as “It’s ugly”) or can’t think of anything else to say, then they get sent out of the circle.

Hot Potato is a fun warm-up activity that could also be used to practice asking questions, verbs, or new vocabulary.

This game can also be made into a competition by seeing who gets sent out last.

13. Shape Hunt

Students explore the classroom and find any object that is in the shape of a circle, square, rectangle, triangle, or star. After they bring that object back to their desks, they write down the shape’s name and what it is.

This activity can be a warm-up game for some teachers, as it is related to identifying shapes (a skill some young kids have problems with).

Additionally, this ESL warm-up activity allows students to walk around the classroom to familiarize themselves if they are new.

14. Listening and Speaking Game

Students are given a word prompt and have to speak about it for no more than twenty seconds. The other students in their pair or group will act like radio hosts and interview them.

When the time is up, the interview can be over, and another student will take their place.

Some ideas for a word prompt include:

• Best movie you’ve ever seen
• Best vacation you’ve ever had
• Your favorite food
• Your worst subject in school and why it’s so hard to learn. 

15. Simon Says

Sometimes even just saying the words “Simon Says” makes students crack a smile. This is especially true for younger students who know what “Simon Says” means.

The students will have to do everything Simon says. It can be a good way of preparing children for English classes by taking them out of their seats and moving them, even if just for a minute.

“Simon Says” is a good way to practice action verbs and body parts, like, “Simon says put your hands on your head!” or even animals: “Simon says act like a monkey!”

If you give an order without saying “Simon says” at the beginning of the sentence and the student does the action anyway, then they lose and sit down!

16. The Categories Game (Stop The Bus!)

This one is a great activity to get students engaged before class begins. The teacher will say a letter of the alphabet, and the students have to think of things that start with that letter.

Start the lesson by choosing some categories, such as animals, colors, fruit or vegetables, numbers, shapes, and seasons. Give the students time to copy the categories into their notebooks.

The teacher calls out a random alphabet letter, for example, C. The students have to find a word that begins with each category’s letter ‘C’.

The first student to come up with a word for each category wins.

17. Warm-Up Questions

Rather than answering the teacher’s questions, the students are encouraged to prepare their own questions.

The teacher can give the intermediate or advanced students a topic, and students in groups have to write down a single question they could ask related to that topic.

For example, if your topic is social media, students could prepare questions such as:

• How often do you use social media?
• What are the benefits of social media?
• What can you do on social media?
• Do your grandparents use social media?

The questions should be engaging with no yes/no questions. Students can also make this into a survey by asking ten students in the class and noting down their answers on a piece of paper.

They can share their interesting findings with the class.

18. Small Talk

A simple game, yet an important skill, is small talk. This is a suitable activity for teens and adult students.

The best part about small talk is that it requires almost no preparation for busy teachers like us!

The teacher writes some questions or a topic on the board, and students have to stand up and talk to others about it in the classroom.

19. Hot Seat

This is said to be the mother of all ESL warm-ups. The whole class can get involved in this one and have a lot of fun.

Prepare a list of vocabulary words from the previous classes. Bring a chair to the front of the class and split the class into two teams.

One student from the first team can sit on the “hot seat” facing the class. Make sure they cannot see the whiteboard.

Set a time limit (say 1 minute) and write a vocabulary word on the whiteboard. The team must say things related to the word until their teammates guess correctly. Continue until the time runs out. The team that has the most correct answers wins!

Conclusion

These warmer activities will get your class on the right foot and set the tone for an enjoyable English class. I hope you enjoyed these fun ESL warm-up activities and use them in your next lesson!

Looking for a nice warm-up activity to introduce some vocabulary and get your students talking in English? Try out some samples.

Make the most words

Write a topical vocabulary item on the board. In twos or threes, students make as many new words from it as they can. Use longish seed words such as apologise, dictionary or September. Score teams a point per word and award a bonus point for the longest.

Make the longest words

Write a topical target word vertically down the board, for example, WINTER. In twos or threes, students attempt to come up with the longest word that begins with each letter. Give teams a point per word and a bonus point for the longest.

Waterfall Industrious Nausea Terrified Empty Retailer

What does your name mean?

Using a dictionary, google or any other resource, students find and write down an appropriate adjective that begins with each letter of their first name. For example:

Flirtatious, Relaxed, Extrovert, Desirable

Mixed-up sentence

Write a sentence on the board but mix up the word order, then challenge students to reconstruct the original sentence. For example:

morning hadn’t eaten wish that döner kebab I at this 5am

Mixed-up sentence (anagram variation)

Write a sentence on the board but this time scramble the letters of each word. For example:

hwy ddint’ I dusty draher ta vieyunrsit?

What do you know about bananas?

Set a five-minute time limit and in groups have students think up and write down as many facts as they can about bananas (or cats, Belgium, David Beckham, etc.). One point should be given for each true sentence.

How many sounds can you hear?

Students sit in silence for two minutes and write down every sound that they hear. Let them compare their lists with their neighbours before seeing who has the longest list?

The A to Z game

Give students a theme, for example, jobs, things you take on holiday, food. Write the letters A to Z on the board. Teams of students must race to write an appropriate word next to each letter on the board.

Things to do with a potato

Produce a potato (if that’s not possible, introduce the concept of a potato). Ask students to come up with a list of as many unconventional uses for it as they can. For example paperweight, weapon, pen holder, smartphone dock. The longest list wins the potato.

Odd one out

Give the students a couple of examples to guess, then get students to come up with their own ideas. Here are some examples:

apple, peach, banana, tomato – a banana doesn’t have seeds strawberry, branch, bowling ball, boat, iceberg – bowling balls don’t float window, river, envelope, client, oregano – client doesn’t begin and end with the same letter comb, champagne, knife, plum – the word plum doesn’t contain any silent letters

Note: There can be more than one correct answer

Name ten

Have students think of 10 items that fit particular criteria. For example:

• Jobs where you have to wear a uniform
• English football clubs
• Sports that are played with a ball
• Foods that contain egg
• Animals that lay eggs
• Three letter parts of the body – eye, arm, leg, hip, ear, toe jaw, rib, lip, gum

Two truths and a lie

An ESL classroom staple. Write or dictate three sentences about yourself. Two statements should be true and one false, for example:

I used to be an air steward I can ride a unicycle My favourite food is sushi

Now invite students to discuss in pairs which statement they think is the lie. Ask each pair which statement they think is untrue and have them explain why. Reveal your answer, and ask students to come up with three sentences about themselves. I find students need quite a lot of time (at least five minutes) to come up with three ideas. If some students are still short of a sentence or two, start the game anyway, and they can finish their statements during play. Check students’ statements and then have them take it in turns to read them out to the class. In each case, the other students have to guess which is the untrue statement.

Mastermind (AKA Bulls & Cows, Jotto)

Based on the code-breaking board game where players have to deduce the order of 4 coloured pegs which the other player had hidden behind a plastic guard. It’s slightly complicated to grasp but fun when you get the hang of it.

Think of a four letter word and write XXXX on the board, each X represents one of the letters of your word.

Invite the first student to guess what the word is.

Start a new line underneath your original XXXX. If the first letter in the student’s word is the same as the first letter in your word put a ✓ in the first position. If the first letter is not the same as the first letter in your word but is contained somewhere in your word put a half-tick /. If the first letter of the student’s word is not contained anywhere your word put an X.

In the following example, the teacher chooses the word FIRE.

XXXX XXXX – COAT X/XX – BEST X✓X✓ – HIKE /✓X✓ – RIDE ✓✓✓✓ – FIRE

A word of warning. Stick to 4 or 5 letter words. It’s much more difficult to guess longer words and it can also be tricky trying to mark each guess.

When students are familiar with the game you can get them to come and put their own words on the board.

I’m going on a picnic and I’m taking a …

This is a guess the rule type game. Think of a rule which governs which items can be taken on a picnic, for example, it must be six letters long, or it must start with a vowel. In this example, the rule is that the word must be an uncountable noun.

Teacher: I’m going on a picnic and I’m taking milk. Student A: I’m going on a picnic and I’m taking eggs. Teacher: No, you can’t take eggs. Student B: Can I take orange juice? Teacher: Yes, you can take orange juice. Etc.

Continue until students guess the rule. If they’re not making any progress, continue to add further items you would take e.g. love, information, air (the choices don’t have to make sense within the picnic scenario). Invite the students alone or in pairs to come up with their own rules and let them run the game.

Find more:

Engaging ESL Warm-ups and Fillers: Over 30 Creative Ways to Kickstart Your Class

Warm-up activities play a crucial role in the English language classroom. Students often arrive to class feeling tired or preoccupied, making it important to gently transition them into the learning environment rather than diving straight into challenging grammar or vocabulary tasks. A well-designed warm-up can engage students, sparking their interest and encouraging active participation. It can also serve as a review of previously taught material or as an introduction to a new topic. Additionally, these warm-up activities can double as go-to fillers for those moments when your lesson plan wraps up early or unexpected issues arise, ensuring a seamless classroom experience for both you and your adult learners.

The great thing about the activities on this page is that they all require no preparation at all. However, if you keep a copy of our Collaborative Crosswords book in your bag, then you’ll have another perfect class-starting activity. These crosswords designed for pair-work are great for introducing a theme and some suitable vocabulary. Read more about these activities here.

Teaching Online

We have an accompanying online-focused website LearnHip where you will discover lots more online activities which work well as warmers and fillers.

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No-preparation ESL Warm-up Activities

Below, you’ll find a selection of warm-up activities that require no prior preparation. These versatile exercises can also serve as convenient fillers to fill any extra time you might have towards the end of your lesson.

Quick questions

Begin your lesson by writing two or three questions on the board that introduce the theme of the lesson. For example, if your topic is books, you could write: What’s your favorite book? What was the last book you read? What kind of books do you prefer? etc. Allow the students 5-10 minutes to discuss the questions in pairs or small groups, and then invite them to share their responses with the class.

If you need inspiration, check out our extensive collection of over 500 themed conversation questions on this page. For even more convenience, these questions are also available in easy-to-use card sets featuring additional exercises in our book, 50 Conversation Classes.

Make the most words

Write a topical vocabulary item on the board. In twos or threes, students make as many new words from it as they can. Use longish seed words such as apologise, dictionary or September. Score teams a point per word and award a bonus point for the longest.

Make the longest words

Write a topical target word vertically down the board, for example, WINTER. In twos or threes, students attempt to come up with the longest word that begins with each letter. Give teams a point per word and a bonus point for the longest.    Waterfall    Industrious    Nausea    Terrified    Empty    Retailer

What does your name mean?

Using a dictionary, google or any other resource, students find and write down an appropriate adjective that begins with each letter of their first name. For example: Flirtatious, Relaxed, Extrovert, Desirable

Mixed-up question

It’s always good to start the class with a question. Write a good one on the board but mix up the word order, then challenge students to reconstruct the question and then discuss it in pairs or small groups. For example: most item you have the ever expensive what’s bought?

Mixed-up question (anagram variation)

Alternatively, write a question on the board but this time scramble the letters of each word. For example: tahw si ruyo seealirt rommey?

Letter string dictation

This is a great way to lead into the topic that you want to cover in the class and also serves as a simple activity to help students recognise letters of the alphabet. Think of a couple of questions for students to discuss in pairs or groups. Write the questions down and then dictate them as a long string of letters. For example: whatsyourfavouritecolour? whatdidyoudoattheweekend? whatkindofbooksdoyouliketoread?

After dictating the letter strings, students should attempt to form the questions and then discuss and report back to class.

For more advanced students try dictating the letters backwards and then have the students decode the question. This is more challenging because students will find it more difficult to predict the next letter and therefore must focus on the letters being dictated. For example: ?teemotekiltsomuoydluowohw

For more ideas on using dictation see the article 10 Dictation Activities.

Hangman

This popular filler can also be a great way to start a lesson with beginner learners who are still unsure of the alphabet. Just put a recently learned word on the board and let the students take it in turns to guess a letter. If you don’t know how to play, you can read an explanation here.

Word ladders

In this activity, a word must be transformed step by step into a target word. To illustrate the idea, write the word run on the board and explain that the target word is fit. For each turn, only one letter can be changed. See if the class can find a valid sequence together. Some possible sequences are:

Students will need access to a dictionary in order to check if their words are valid. If you want to find possible word pairs, there is a site with a  handy word ladder generator. Put students in pairs and have them create their own word ladders to test their classmates with.

The A to Z game

Give students a theme, for example, jobs, things you take on holiday, food. Write the letters A to Z on the board. Teams of students must race to write an appropriate word next to each letter on the board. Read more about the A to Z game here.

What’s the missing word?

Find a group of compound words or collocations which share a common word. For example, bedroom, bathroom, living room, classroom, showroom, etc. Give students one of the word/collocation parts, such as bed and have them guess the missing part, add to the list writing bath, living, class, etc., until they successfully guess the word. Here are some more examples:

• ear, boxing, diamond, finger, wedding  (ring)
• tea, soup, table, dessert (spoon)
• kitchen, tea, bath, beach (towel)
• green, light, ware, boat, work, wife (house)

What do you know about bananas?

Set a five-minute time limit and in groups have students think up and write down as many facts as they can about bananas (or cats, Belgium, David Beckham, etc.). One point should be given for each true sentence.

Things to do with a potato

One of many brilliantly simple warm up ideas from one of my favourite teaching books. Produce a potato (if that’s not possible, introduce the concept of a potato). Ask students to come up with a list of as many unconventional uses for it as they can. For example paperweight, weapon, pen holder, smartphone dock. The longest list wins the potato.

How many sounds can you hear?

Students sit in silence for two minutes and write down every sound that they hear. Let them compare their lists with their neighbours before seeing who has the longest list? If you like this activity try doing a guess the sound quiz.

Odd one out

Give the students a couple of examples to guess, then get students to come up with their own ideas. Here are some examples: apple, peach, banana, tomato – a banana doesn’t have seeds strawberry, branch, bowling ball, boat, iceberg – bowling balls don’t float window, river, envelope, client, oregano – client doesn’t begin and end with the same letter comb, champagne, knife, plum – the word plum doesn’t contain any silent letters Note:  There can be more than one correct answer.

Name ten

Have students think of 10 items that fit particular criteria. For example:

• Jobs where you have to wear a uniform
• English football clubs
• Sports that are played with a ball
• Foods that contain egg
• Animals that lay eggs
• Three letter parts of the body – eye, arm, leg, hip, ear, toe jaw, rib, lip, gum

Two truths and a lie

An ESL classroom staple. Write or dictate three sentences about yourself. Two statements should be true and one false, for example: I used to be an air steward I can ride a unicycle My favourite food is sushi Now invite students to discuss in pairs which statement they think is the lie. Ask each pair which statement they think is untrue and have them explain why. Reveal your answer, and ask students to come up with three sentences about themselves. I find students need quite a lot of time (at least five minutes) to come up with three ideas. If some students are still short of a sentence or two, start the game anyway, and they can finish their statements during play. Check students’ statements and then have them take it in turns to read them out to the class. In each case, the other students have to guess which is the untrue statement. See this page for more ideas on using dishonesty for fun and profit.

Homophone Quiz

Say a word from a list of homophones and challenge students to write both (or more) forms of the word. Possible words include: bear,bare,piece,peace,not,knot,here,hear,witch,which,flower,flour,would,wood,be,bee,heal,heel,soul,sole,air,heir,break,brake,mist,missed,read,red,board,bored,buy,bye,pair,pear,male,mail,jeans,genes,not,knot,where,wear,so,sew,sow

Mastermind (AKA Bulls & Cows, Jotto, Wordle)

Based on the code-breaking board game where players have to deduce the order of 4 coloured pegs which the other player had hidden behind a plastic guard. It’s slightly complicated to grasp but fun when you get the hang of it. Think of a four-letter word and write XXXX on the board, each X represents one of the letters of your word. Invite the first student to guess what the word is. Start a new line underneath your original XXXX. If the first letter in the student’s word is the same as the first letter in your word put a ✓ in the first position. If the first letter is not the same as the first letter in your word but is contained somewhere in your word put a half-tick /. If the first letter of the student’s word is not contained anywhere your word put an X. In the following example, the teacher chooses the word FIRE. XXXX XXXX – COAT X/XX – BEST X✓X✓ – HIKE /✓X✓ – RIDE ✓✓✓✓ – FIRE A word of warning. Stick to 4 or 5 letter words. It’s much more difficult to guess longer words and it can also be tricky trying to mark each guess. When students are familiar with the game you can get them to come and put their own words on the board.

I’m going on a picnic and I’m taking a …

This is a guess the rule type game. Think of a rule which governs which items can be taken on a picnic, for example, it must be six letters long, or it must start with a vowel. In this example, the rule is that the word must be an uncountable noun. Teacher: I’m going on a picnic and I’m taking milk. Student A: I’m going on a picnic and I’m taking eggs. Teacher: No, you can’t take eggs. Student B: Can I take orange juice? Teacher: Yes, you can take orange juice. And so on. Continue adding items to your picnic list until a student correctly guesses the rule (the choices don’t have to make sense within the picnic scenario e.g. love, information, air ). When you’ve finished, invite the students (alone or in pairs) to come up with their own rules and let them run the game.

Word Association

This must be one of the oldest ESL warm-up activities, but sometimes the simplest ideas turn out to be surprisingly effective and word games don’t get any simpler than word association. Give an initial word, for example, banana and each student takes it in turns to say a word which they associate with the previous word. If the connection isn’t obvious, challenge the student to justify their choice. banana – monkey – zoo – tourists – hotel – bible …

Tell a story

This is another circle game. Going around the class students take it in turns to add three words to your story stem. You could start it off with relatively mundane stems such as Yesterday I went …, If I won …, I have never or something more imaginative like, A wolf howled, the rocket landed …, Princess Martha kissed … Write the story on the board and elicit corrections as you go along.

Party Trick

This is a great way to practise can & can’t. Ask the class to think of one thing they can do which nobody else in the class can do. For example a student could ask the class, can you count to ten in Chinese? You could turn it into a knock-out competition – playing until there is one person left standing.

Three things in common

This is a great icebreaker, but you can also use it as a lead-in to a theme or to test your students’ knowledge of a grammar point. Simply ask students to work in pairs and find three things that they have in common and then report back to the class. You can narrow the topic down to areas like three things we both did at the weekend, three foods we both like, three things we both don’t like about this city, three things neither of us has done yet but would like to, etc.

Free Speaking Tic Tac Toe

Similar to the long-running BBC Radio show. Draw a Tic Tac Toe grid on the board and in each space write a topic that you think some of your students might be interested in or have some knowledge of. Play the game with two teams, to claim their X or O, a team member must attempt to talk about the topic in the chosen square for 45 to 60 seconds (depending on their level) without pausing or repetition. Possible topics for your Tic Tac Toe board might include Sport, Breakfast, Smartphones, Family, Movies, Cats, Rock Music, Soap Operas, Chocolate, etc.

One-upmanship

I discovered this great activity at BusinessEnglishResources.com. Start off by explaining the concept of one-upmanship, that some people always like to appear to be more interesting or superior to others in their company. Tell the students a relatively mundane story about something that happened recently and invite a student to tell a similar story but to top it in some way. Each student, in turn, tries to top the previous student’s tale. For example: You: Yesterday I overslept and was five minutes late to class. Student: That’s nothing, I overslept and was an hour late. Student B: An hour! I once overslept a whole day! If the students are sufficiently advanced you could have them watch and read through Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen sketch which is a very funny skit on the subject of one-upmanship.

Spontaneous Scatter Sheet

Scatter Sheets are a great way to review vocabulary, introduce a theme and get students talking. As a warmer, have students brainstorm words connected to a theme, for example, the seaside, London, marketing, etc. Write these words on the board randomly, not in straight lines or columns but higgledy-piggledy and at jaunty angles. When you have around 20 words on the board, go around the room asking each student, in turn, to describe one of the words, when it’s been successfully guessed, circle it and move on to the next student. Encourage students to let the describer produce at least two sentences before shouting out the answer.

Spin the marker

Sometimes students just want a chance to talk and express themselves in an unstructured way and it’s a good idea to encourage this. Spin the marker pen and whoever it points to can dictate the conversation, ask questions, suggest the topic, etc. Spin the marker again when you feel the conversation has run its course. I find this activity works best when students are sitting in a small circle not too far apart.

Fortunately / Unfortunately

English learners often have trouble remembering and correctly pronouncing these two useful words. One way to practice it is to start a story and have learners alternately advancing the story using these adverbs. For example: Teacher: Yesterday my car was stolen. Student A: Fortunately, it was insured. Student B: Unfortunately, the insurance company went bankrupt. Student C: Fortunately, my grandfather said he would buy me a new car. Student D: Unfortunately, he’s lost his mind and doesn’t have any money. Etc.

Organise yourselves!

Have students arrange themselves in order according to a given criterion. For example by age, alphabetical order of first name or surname, the number of shoes owned, etc.

Whose weekend?

Give each student a slip of paper and ask each student to write down three things they did at the weekend. Collect up the slips of paper and randomly read each one out. The students must guess whose weekend is being described.

Provocative statements

Write a provocative statement on the board and then put students into small groups to discuss their opinion of it. For example, some drugs should be legalised, Facebook should be banned, Breaking Bad is overrated, one child is enough, organic food is a waste of money, etc. Have students report back to the class. You could make a list of arguments for and against the thesis.

Draw the kitchen

I often use this when I work in-company. Ask the students to think of a room or area which they are all quite familiar with and then have them guide you as you try to draw a plan of the room on the board. This is great for practising there is and there are as well as prepositions of place and furnishing vocabulary.

The Categories Game

I tend to use this as a filler rather than a warmer. Put students into teams and write on the board six vocabulary categories. Now give them a letter of the alphabet and the teams must race to think of a word beginning with that letter for each category. Writing stops when the first team yells finished! and points are given for each correct answer. See The Categories Game post for a more detailed explanation as well as a list of possible categories.

Compound word quiz

This is a fun little quiz you can do at the beginning of a lesson to get your learner’s brains buzzing. Choose five groups of three compound words with the same stem and write them on the board without their stem. For example paste, ache, brush (the stem is tooth) or ball, man, board (the stem is snow). Put them on the board (as below) and give students five to ten minutes to figure out what the missing stem is.

________paste

________ ache

________brush

Here are some more examples:

doorbell, doorman, doorstep | headline, headcount, headlight, headset, headhunter | backpack, backseat, backfire | timeline, timetable, timesaver | blackbird, blacklist, blackout | lighthouse, lightbulb, lightweight | daydream, daylight, daytime | nightlife, nightclub, nighttime, nightmare | sunburn, sunset, sunshine, sunrise | waterfall, waterbed, waterproof, waterfront, watercolour | lifeboat, lifetime, lifeguard | paperback, paperwork, paperweight, paperboy/girl

Kim’s game

If by rifling through your bag, your pockets and the classroom store cupboard you can come up with about 15 smallish items, you can play an impromptu version of Kim’s game. This is a fun memory game which is great for introducing and practising some useful vocabulary, and also for reviewing there is, there are, there was and there were.

Pit Pat Putt

This is a fun pronunciation game for practising tricky vowel sounds. It needs zero preparation, just a board or flip chart. Students practise giving each other their phone number using a code.

The longer I teach the more I realise that it’s not necessarily grammar we need to revise as often as we can; after all we cover grammar on every course, tenses are still the same, we just explain them in a bit more complicated way, adding some nice parts like mixed conditionals and inversion 🙂

What needs constant revision, however, is vocabulary, especially on the more advanced levels – the students learn the words but don’t use them regularly. One way to make them revise vocabulary is to do short warm-ups in the classroom. I’ve got my favourite ten activities that I use regularly:

1. Charades – I wrote about my little magic box that I use in case of emergency 🙂 however, we may use the charades on any lesson, especially to revise vocabulary connected with jobs, daily routine or – and that’s the funniest thing – proverbs or idioms.

2. Making sentences/ stories with specific words – it’s a simple and short activity, just give three words from the last lesson and tell students to write sentences with them. It’s a good exercise to check whether they can put the words or expressions in the correct context, so I usually do this task with phrasal verbs.

3. Battleships – it’s a nice, though not so short activity, perfect for the lower levels that still should work on their spelling skills; it can also be connected with a nice homework: to make students prepare a board with 3-4 words from the last lesson and let them play as a warm-up on the next classes.

4. Alphabet race – students work in groups and have to come up with words beginning with as many letters as they can. It’s good to give them a specific area of vocabulary: adjectives, words connected with a farm, things you can find outside etc.

5. Making a story about the picture – it’s a great warm-up for a grammar-oriented lesson. Pick a picture from a coursebook with 2-3 people and ask questions about them, about their jobs, families etc. Then you can use those people and their background as example sentences while explaining grammar, or ask students to make a short role-play between those people.

6. 20 questions – a classic game, one person thinks about a particular word and other students have to guess what the word is, they can ask twenty questions but the answer can be only yes or no. The questions can be simple, like is it big? is it food? or quite complicated.

7. What’s in your name? – it’s an old acronym game, where you write words beginning with single letters of your name. The idea is to make students create acronyms within certain boundaries – for example, how do you feel today? (in my case that would start with Moaning, huh).

8. What can you do with… – a potato? Oldie but goodie, especially with creative students or teenagers. You give a word (a noun, obviously) and the students have 3-5 minutes to come up with as many uses of the thing as possible. But in case of teenagers never ask about a banana. Or a cucumber.

9. Hangman – I’ve never understood why it’s so popular, but my students love this game and can play it every lesson. I usually use it to introduce the topic of a lesson or as a filler.

10. Short speeches – I’ve started using it only recently, when I realised that the IELTS exam task ‘you have one minute to prepare for a two minute monologue about the topic given’ is a really challenging thing for my students. In order to get my students prepared to that kind of thing, I’m using it as a part of a normal lesson in all my groups, though differently. My pre-intermediate level can prepare a speech at home and have 30 seconds to talk. Intermediate students also know the topic earlier but it’s more difficult (e.g. your favourite food and how to prepare it) and have a minute to talk. Intermediate+ have 2 minutes to prepare and speak  for 60 seconds, and advanced and above – well, they do the IELTS thing. The funny thing is, after some nervousness at first, my students really appreciate the task.

So, that’s my top ten of easy, short and enjoyable warm-ups.

Enjoy 🙂