Word warm up activities

Чем заменить надоевший вопрос “Hi, how are you?“ Делюсь продуктивными заданиями, которые помогут преподавателям перейти к теме урока плавно, а не застрять на small talk о личных вопросах. Активности не займут более пяти минут, но на 100% вовлекут студента в урок. В статье — 6 заданий на разогрев и еще 5 идей для конца урока.

Содержание:

1. Warm up activities
2. Cool down activities

1. Warm up activities

Зачем учителям тратить время на вовлечение ученика? Ради создания психологического комфорта, чтобы показать свою эмпатию, break the ice. Сделать этот этап продуктивным и небанальным помогут красивые фото, иллюстрации, цитаты, новости.

Guess the theme

Покажите картинку по теме урока: еда, роботы, погода. Далее задавайте вопросы follow up questions, которые разговорят студента. Например: “Are you optimistic or pessimistic about it?” Это задание легко и быстро переключает на нужную тему.

My favourite things

Если урок о путешествиях, можно спросить студента о любимых местах для отдыха, любимых занятиях: favourite summer / winter destinations, favourite place to stay, favourite activities. 

Если у вас ученик низкого уровня, то используйте упражнения, где есть начало предложений. Задача учащегося — закончить их.

Is it the same in your country/city? 

Подготовьте три факта, связанных с темой урока, например, о нациях, о загрязнении городов, о правилах поведения в разных странах. Задайте ученику вопрос: «А у вас в стране, в городе так же?»

Найти факты и статистические данные вы можете на сайте Statista.com.

Вам могут быть полезны и другие активности для уроков:

Agree/Disagree

Задание подходит и для индивидуальных, и для групповых знаний. Во втором случае разделите студентов на пары. Отберите противоречивые утверждения по теме урока и предложите студентам порассуждать.

Спорные утверждения вызывают эмоции и провоцируют учеников думать. Они запоминаются лучше, чем стандартные вопросы.

1 min news watch/read

Краткий обзор новостей не займет много времени. Он особенно подойдет студентам высоких уровней, с которыми особо уже не поиграешь и которые зевают от фразы “How are you?”

Могут пригодиться сайты The Week и BBC. Если у ученика не открываются какие-либо ресурсы, то можете использовать на уроке скрины текстов новостей.

Categories

Предложите ученикам назвать пять успешных брендов, вредных продуктов и т. д. Такая вовлекающая игра тоже мотивирует студентов думать и погружает в контекст урока.

2. Cool down activities 

Активности в конце урока нужны, чтобы поделиться обратной связью с учеником и повысить его мотивацию. Например, “Now I can” — полезная секция, которая дает студенту представление о его уровне, знаниях и результатах урока. Еще короткие задания позволяют исправлять ошибки и узнавать мнение ученика о занятии.

• 5 min Vocabulary activities
• 5 min Grammar activities

The Bragging game

Игра подойдет для отработки сравнительных и превосходных степеней прилагательных. Похвастайтесь, у кого что лучше, больше, красивее.

Come up with a complaint

Задание поможет отработать Present Continuous для выражения раздражения. Выберете тему: школа, погода, город, друзья. Задача студента — составить как можно больше жалоб.

The Alibi 

Игру можно использовать для отработки Past Continuous. Придумайте ситуацию, а студент должен оправдаться, например: “You were seen climbing into your friend’s window”. 

The Instruction

Активность полезна для тренировки использования предлогов места. Дайте ученику инструкции, какую мебель и предметы интерьера, куда поставить и повесить, и листок для рисования. В конце задания покажите оригинал картинки и проверьте, есть ли совпадения.

Word formation

Дайте студенту перечень суффиксов и слов. Можно подбирать группы слов с одинаковым суффиксом.

• Govern 
• Develop 
• Depart 
• Treat 
• Manage 
• Move 
• Environ 
• Agree 
• Invest 
• Equip

Загляните в эти статьи, если нужно еще больше заданий:

Помните, пять минут — это очень много времени, провести его можно весело и с пользой. Продуктивных уроков!

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.

For English Language Teachers or Those Looking to Get Started…

Teacher tips, new teacher checklist, teacher planner, and notes. Subscribe for ESL News, jobs, and more!

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!

By

August 25, 2021

Do you usually start your ESL lessons by diving right into grammar drills, textbooks, and new vocabulary? Or, do you use ESL warm-up activities at the beginning of each class? Warm-up activities for English classes are an important teaching tool and often make or break a lesson. With that in mind, we’ll give you some easy warm-ups you can incorporate into your virtual or physical classroom!

If you’re new to teaching, you’ll want to get initial training and qualification with a TEFL certificate. You can explore our online TEFL courses to get started!

Why are ESL warm-up activities important?

They get students into learning mode

When starting a language lesson, it is important for you as the teacher to get your students into the right mindset first. This applies to all ages and levels. ESL warm-up activities for adults may differ a little from ESL games and activities for kids and teens, but they are of the same importance.

Until students are focused, they’re not going to retain new information. Warm-ups provide a way to refocus students’ attention. For example, warm-ups can help if your students are tired from school or work, are stressed or preoccupied with personal problems, or come to class either overly excited or tired.

They can provide a mental break

ESL warm-up activities and icebreakers can also be used in the middle of the lesson if your students need a break. If you notice that students are no longer paying attention, are bored or tired, or just need a respite from difficult content, pull out a warm-up activity in the middle of class to get things back on track!

Need a last-minute ESL lesson plan? Try these!

They are engaging

Warm-ups are designed to grab students’ attention and motivate them to participate. ESL warm-up activities for online classes are especially important because you need to keep your students engaged in front of their computer monitor for quite some time. Throwing in some quick and easy ESL games for teaching online every once in a while does just the trick.

Here’s an example of a teacher using the collaborative whiteboard function of an online teaching platform to engage students in a quick, fun activity:

What makes a good warm-up activity?

Effective warm-up activities for teaching English should be:

• Considerate towards your students’ emotional/physical state when they enter the classroom (for example, if students are tired, use a warm-up with movement to energize them)
• Simple to understand and execute
• Easy to carry out, i.e., require little to no preparation (Check out some great no-prep ESL activities here!)
• Age- and level-appropriate
• Time-efficient (not take up too much time)
• Interesting and appealing
• Leading towards the lesson content or target language
• Using mostly known vocabulary to increase students’ participation and confidence

Check out these tips for creating ESL lesson plans.

ESL warm-up activities for kids

Here are five original ESL warm-up activities for young learners that respect children’s need to move their bodies frequently and express themselves creatively.

You can get more ideas in this Micro-credential course: Games and Activities for the Online Classroom (Young Learners).

1. Strike a pose

This is a simple ESL warm-up activity that includes a lot of movement. You can use it when your students enter the physical or virtual classroom for the first time. They won’t know each other yet, so starting the lesson by introducing each other with their names is a good idea.

Have your students stand in a circle so that they can see each other. Give them a minute to come up with a gesture or pose that represents them. Then, the first student steps forward and says, “My name is [insert name],” accompanied by the gesture or pose that he or she came up with. Now, everybody repeats the student’s name and gesture. Next, student B steps forward and says his or her name with a gesture or pose. Now, everybody repeats student A’s and student B’s names and gestures. Next is student C. Continue until everybody has said their name and all students can remember all of the names and gestures in one round.

2. Charades

Students take turns acting out a word provided by you while their classmates try to guess what it is. This is a good opportunity to review vocabulary from a previous lesson or to try and introduce a new word. Young learners become really immersed in this activity and they usually try very hard to act out the word’s meaning.

Get more tips for teaching ESL vocabulary lessons.

3. Question time

Have all students stand up, and ask them a question — feel free to get creative! You could ask anything (How is the weather? What time is it? Which superhero wears the colors red and blue? What did I have for breakfast today? etc.). The student who raises his or her hand first gets a chance to answer. If the answer is wrong, the next student to raise their hand gets a chance. If the answer is right, that student gets to sit down. The goal is to not be the last student standing!

4. We are fun, fantastic friends!

This is a great team-building ESL warm-up activity that can be played in pairs or groups.

Depending on the class size, divide the students into pairs or groups. For online platforms that don’t allow breakout groups, students can work individually. Assign each group or person a letter (and maybe don’t use difficult letters such as X or Q). They now have to find two adjectives and a noun with that starting letter to describe themselves. When everybody is ready, each group introduces themselves in front of the class.

Students usually come up with funny, original ideas that make everybody laugh. You will hear things like “We are amazing, active animals,” “We are cool, cheerful classmates,” or “We are beautiful, bouncy balloons.”

• Pro Tip: You can easily adjust the difficulty of this warm-up to the level of your students by changing the number of adjectives that they have to use.

Want to teach English online to groups? Get started here.

5. All about me

Break students into pairs and tell them that they have one minute to talk about themselves. They can choose what they want to discuss, such as something they like, where they live, their birthday, how old they are, their hobbies, and so on. When the time is up, their partner talks about himself or herself. After these two minutes, switch up the pairs and start over. Continue swapping partners each round until everyone has talked with every classmate.

If you are teaching English online and cannot split students into pairs, simply give them each one minute to address the whole class.

ESL warm-up activities for teens and adults

As mentioned before, teenagers and adults have an equal need for a fun warm-up activity as young learners. Here are some slightly more complex warm-ups that will engage your older students and prepare them for the lesson.

Take a look at these tips when using games to teach English to adults online.

1. Sentence scramble

For this activity, you can divide the students into small groups or pairs or they can work on their own. Come up with a few sentences before class, and write the sentence’s words on your physical or virtual whiteboard in a random order. The first group or individual student to unscramble the words and read the sentence aloud correctly wins that round.

When creating the sentences, you can use motivating mottos, the target language of the day, or review a grammar point from a previous lesson.

Here’s how to teach English grammar — even if you’re terrible at it!

2. Storytelling

This is a great ESL warm-up activity for encouraging teamwork and practicing vocabulary and grammar. It can be used in the online classroom as long as you have a whiteboard behind you that is visible to the students.

Ask each student to give you one word they know. This can be a noun, an adjective, a preposition, anything they want to include in the story. Collect the words by writing them on the whiteboard. When you have all the words from your students written on the board, let them collaborate to tell a story with them. If they need help, you can ask questions like “How shall we start?” “Which word shall we use first?” or “What comes next?”

Check off the words as the class tells the story, and make sure everyone gets a chance to contribute!

Read more about the power of storytelling in the ESL classroom.

3. Speed interview

This activity revolves around improving fluency and asking questions. Students will have a chance to learn about each other and to use English freely. It’s a good activity for intermediate to advanced learners.

Write a topic on the board or tell your students the topic of the day. This can be as simple as “Food” or more complex, such as “Your favorite memory.” Put students into pairs and have them interview their partner by creating questions related to the topic. They can ask as many questions as they can within one minute, and then their partner has one minute to ask them questions. After the time is up, put students into new pairs and repeat as time allows.

• Pro Tip: Instead of putting students into pairs, you can also let them take turns speaking to the whole class at once and asking their classmates the questions they created.

4. Guide me

For this warm-up activity for English teaching, show students a map of a town, and choose a starting point and a destination on the map. Then, in either pairs or as a whole class, have students provide the directions to the destination to guide you through the map. You can use this primarily as a speaking activity or even get in extra writing practice by having students write the directions down.

Alternatively, you can give students maps (either digitally or physically), a starting point, and a set of directions they have to follow to find out where their destination is. Have students race to see who can follow the directions the fastest and figure out the secret destination first!

5. Art appreciation

Print out some inkblots or images of abstract paintings ahead of the lesson. Hold up one of the pictures and ask the class, “What do you see in this picture?” Give your students some time to think, then call on them or let them raise their hands. Let them express the impressions, feelings, or words they associate with the picture, without correcting them or interrupting them. It is very important that the students feel comfortable expressing their thoughts for this warm-up activity.

The results are very rewarding, and you can learn a lot about your students’ personalities, which you can reflect on later to tailor your lessons to your students.

For more ideas, take this Micro-credential course: Games and Activities for the Online Classroom (Adults).

ESL warm-up activities, no matter for which age, level, or group size, lead up to a fun, successful, meaningful lesson that your students will get more out of. Warm-ups give your students a chance to use the English they’ve learned so far, to review, and to experiment with new expressions — plus, they’re loads of fun!

Want more games and activities? Read this next: ESL Pronunciation Games for Teaching Kids, Teens, and Adults.

Jumping right into an English lesson is
difficult for some learners. The quiet concentration necessary in an English
class differs greatly from the raucous movement that usually occurs in the
hallways. Upon arrival in class, students need to adjust to this vastly
different environment and get into the learning mode. English teachers can help
their students accomplish this goal by beginning their classes with simple warm
ups. These engaging activities allow students to ease into English and prepare
to delve into complex topics of study.
1. Board brush

Put Ss into two
groups and split the board into two halves. Write on one side A-M and on the
other N-Z. One group has to think of countries starting with one set of
letters. One student from each group comes to the board and writes a country.
They then pass the pen/chalk to  the next student in their group who writes
another country. Continue until everyone has  had a turn or the groups have run
out of ideas. Rub out any countries written in L1 and correct spelling of other
countries where necessary. Allow Ss to make a written record of the countries now
written on the board which will ensure that all Ss are starting at a more even
level of knowledge than they would have done without the activity.

2.Find the
similarities and differences

Put students into
pairs. Tell them to try to find five things that they have in common using the
structures: I am…(I am a boy. I am 16.Iam Polish .I am a student.) and
My…is/are(My mum is a teacher. My bag is black.)This is also a good way to
encourage peer teaching as stronger Ss will make sentences that they will have
to explain or translate for their partner. Allow 2 minutes for students to try
to find similarities, it doesn’t matter if they can’t think of five. Now join
the pairs up into groups of four. Ss now have to repeat the process but this
time using We are…or Our…is/are. Finally, elicit differences found in
open class, e.g. I’m 15. He is 16. Our mothers are teachers. Their
mothers work in a bank.

3.Throw the
questions

Ss write two
questions using the verbs to be which they could ask to other Ss in the class.
One should be an open question and one a yes/no question. If possible,
arrange Ss in a circle or at least have sitting so that they are facing as many
other Ss as possible. Nominate one student to start. They choose a second
student to ask a question to. At the same time they throw a ball or piece of
screwed up paper. The second student has to catch the ball and answer the
questions correctly. They then ask one of their questions to a different
student. Continue the activity until all Ss have asked and answered at least
one question.

4.Anagram race

This would be best
if it were done on scrap paper so that Ss had their notebooks closed. As an
alternative, ask Ss to turn to a clean page in their notebooks and tell them
not to look back at their notes. Dictate family members but as anagrams and Ss,
working alone, write down the letters as you dictate them, e.g. ioucsn (cousin)
tgaurdhe (daughter), peenhw (nephew), ceine (niece).
As soon Ss can’t refer back to their notes for this activity or it will be too
easy.  

5.Journal

The most common, and most easily implemented, English class
warm-up is a journal. Teachers can easily implement journal writing by providing
students with a spiral notebook or other bound writing piece. The teacher can
place journal prompts on the board daily, or simply ask the students to write
about events that are occurring in their life at that time. To ensure that
journals are effective, teachers should set a time frame for response and
clearly communicate their length and content requirements to students.

6. Mysterious Object Descriptions

Get students into the mood to learn by challenging them. Start off
class by presenting students with an object that is not easily identifiable.
Visit your local hardware store or a rummage sale and pick up some old or
abnormal objects such as plumbing fixtures or antique machines. Ask students to
start class by describing the object in as much detail as possible and
hypothesizing a potential use for the object in question. After students have
made their guesses, show the object’s true purpose to your students.

7.Part-of-Speech Challenge

Begin class with a part-of-speech review. Copy a passage out of a
textbook or class novel and give it to students as they enter the class. Once
class begins, instruct students to highlight or circle a set part of speech in
the passage. You could, for example, ask them to circle any nouns they find.
After students have had the opportunity to seek out the assigned part of
speech, go over the answers, allowing them to mark any words that they missed.

8.Tennis

Put Ss into two
groups or, in a large class, into an even number of groups. One group starts by
saying a city, the next must return with the country that city is in and the
first group must finish the rally by saying the nationality. If there are any
err6ors or hesita66tions, the point is lost. the second group then continues
with a new city. If possible, do this in two groups so that you are able to
effectively monitor and correct.

9.Whose is it?

All Ss write down
a telephone number on two pieces of paper (the same number on each). They keep
one copy and you collect in the other. Re-distribute the numbers and make sure
no-one has their own. Ss have to find out whose number they have by mingling
and asking: Is your number …? The other student either answers Yes,
it is. or says: No, my number is… As the game goes on, Ss may
remember numbers and be able to say: No, that’s … ‘s number:

10.Board race

Put Ss into two
groups. Choose one person from each group and read out a phrase from the
previous lesson. Ss must decide whether it should take in, on or at.
The first person to write the correct word on the board, wins a point. The two
Ss then change places with another student from their group for the next turn.
Examples:

(at) a party,
school, home, a barbecue

(on) holiday, my
left, my right

(in) the garden,
the middle, the photo, a classroom

11. I’m sorry, I
have a cold

Ss write down one
question asking permission to do something. Put Ss into groups of five or six.
Each student in turn has to mime their question because they have a bad cold
and have lost their voice.  When the other Ss have guessed, the next student
acts out their question. Monitor and check that Ss are using grammatically
correct English when guessing what the question is. When finished, elicit some
of the most interesting questions in open class.

12.Mixed up
messages

Write a postcard
on the board as below:

Dear
(1)____________________,

We are staying in
(2)____________. It is a/an

(3)_____________city
and the weather is

(4)_____________.
This morning we went to

(5)_____________and
(6)______________,

Tomorrow we are
going to (7) ______________.

Lots of love…

Put Ss into six
groups and number them 1-6, to correspond to the numbers on a dice. Each group
has to think of a word or phrase that could go into each gap (tell Ss that
number 6 should be an activity not another place).

When Ss are ready,
they choose one student from their group. The student from group 1 comes to the
front and reads the postcard on the board. When they get to a gap, they throw a
dice and, depending what number is shown, they ask the corresponding group for
their word and write this in correct place on the board. This may lead to some
strange postcards, e.g. We are staying in Rome .Yesterday we went to
Buckingham Palace and saw the animals. Repeat the process with a student
from the others groups.

13. Stop!

Put Ss into pairs.
Tell Ss that you are going to give them some tasks and, as soon as they have
completed them, they should shout stop! If they have got the correct
answer, they win a point, e.g. Name two things you can travel by beginning with
the letter “C”. Ss shout stop! as soon as they can think of these.
Elicit the answers and then give the next task: Name four places where you
can stay on holidays. Name three things you would pack for a camping holiday.

14. Define and
predict.

Have these words
written on individual slips of paper: climate, weather; hotter; drier; cleaner;
bigger; air pollution, water pollution, energy, plants, grow, population,
survive, endangered. Ss work in seven groups and each group has two words which
they have to think of definitions for. Ss should have an English monolingual
dictionary to help them if possible. When ready, Ss form new groups of seven so
that one person from each of the original groups is now in a game together. Ss
take it in turns to define their words and the other Ss have to guess what the
words is. When finished, Ss work together in their groups of seven to try to
guess what the lesson will be about and what each of the words will refer to,
e.g. We think it will be about the environment. Hotter – the world is
getting hotter because of global warming. Elicit ideas and then allow Ss to
open their books to check.  

15 .Optimist or
pessimist?

Dictate some questions
to Ss who work alone to write their predictions, e.g. How much money do you
think you will earn? How long will the Earth survive? What mark
out of 100 will you get in your next English exam? What age will you get
married?

Either as a whole
class or, if numbers are too large, in smaller groups, Ss have to ask each
other these questions and stand in order according to how they answered them,
i.e. they start with the question about money and have to order themselves from
the most optimistic (the person who thinks they will earn the most) to the most
pessimistic (the person who thinks they will earn the least). When they are
ready, ask Ss how much they think they willearn and what jobs they think they
will have. It is meant to be a light-hearted activity so don’t worry if their
answers aren’t entirely serious. Repeat the process with the other questions.

16.Mutual
dictation.

Tell Ss to draw a
simple map of their country and, at each compass point (N, S, E, W, NE, NW, SE,
SW) to draw a symbol representing the weather in that area. Ss should try to
use a variety of weather types, even if it is highly unrealistic. Ss then draw
a second, empty map and join up pairs. One student dictates the weather in
their country and the other tries to draw the correct symbols in the correct
places on their empty map. When finished, Ss swap roles and finally compare
what the drew with the original pictures.

17. Nonsense poem.

Tell Ss you are
going to read them two lines of poetry which contain several made up words. Ss
must try to work out what part of speech they are. Dictate the words, brillig,
slithy, tove, gyre, gimble, wabe. Read the poem and elicit the parts of speech:
Twas (it was) brilling (adj) and the slithy (adj) toves (n) did gyre (v) and
gimble (v) in the wabe (n). Now tell Ss close their eyes while you read the
poem again. They should try to get a picture in their minds of what the words
mean. Ss then discuss their ideas in groups of four and finally in open class.
(this poemis from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.)

18. Random
connections.

Ss need about
three small pieces of paper each. On these they write a country, city, river,
mountain or place in city, e.g. street, one word on each piece of paper . Once
Ss have done this, collect them all in. On the board, write on/in/of. Now put
Ss into groups of 4-5. One group choose one of the three words. Pick o8ut a
piece of paper at random and read it to Ss. They have to make a true sentence
about the place you read out using the preposition they have chosen, e.g. if
they chose in and the place in London, they could say London is in England.
   If they chose on they might say London is on the River Thames. If
they chose of they could say London is in the southeast of England. If
other groups think the sentence is grammatically or factually false, they can
try to correct it. Repeat the process with the other groups in turn.

19. What did I
say?

Tell Ss you are
going to dictate some sentences to them. They should finish the sentences so
that they are true for them, noting down only their own word or phrase not what
you read out. Make short pauses between the sentences to let Ss make up their
mind.

If I leave my
country, I will move to … I get annoyed about …I hate waiting for…Our school
suffers from … When I go out, people sometimes stare at… I hope doctors find a
cure for … On holiday, I made friends with …

Ss compare answers
in groups of four, then try to recreate what you read out. Elicit full sentences
and check the prepositions.

 20. Sales pitch

Elicit five of the
best places to visit in the Ss own country. These could be cities, seaside
resorts, mountain resorts, etc. Now split the class into five groups and give
each group one of the five places. Each group has to prepare a presentation to
show that their place is the best place to spend a holiday. Remind them structures:
It’s really peaceful/dramatic. What I like about it is
the natural beauty. It’s the kind of place where you can relax. It’s
the most unspoilt place I’ve ever been to. When finished, each group in
turn comes to the front of the class and Ss vote on which place (apart from
their own) sounded the most attractive.

21. Onion ring (if space allows,
otherwise, a traditional mingling)

Tell Ss to write
one question on any aspect of sport that they like, e.g. Do you like
watching the Olympics? Do you play for a team? Do you like playing sports at
school? How often do you go cycling? In an onion ring, Ss stand in two
circles, one inside the other. Each person in the inner circles faces one
student in the outer circle. Ss ask and answer each other’s questions and then
Ss in the inside circle move round one place each. Those on the outside stay
where they are so  that  Ss are now facing a different student. Ss ask and
answer again and the process is repeated until Ss on the inside have returned
to their starting point.

22. Board
pelmanism

This requires you
to make two sets of words on card, big enough to be seen by everyone in the
room. One set should be nine Past Simple forms and the other should be the
corresponding nine Past Participles. Example words: saw, gave, took, did,
knew, forgot, drank, ate, began; seen, given, taken, done, known, forgotten,
drunk, eaten, begun.

Stick these to the
board, with the words hidden, in two  sets  of  three columns and three rows,
the Past Simple forms on the left and the Past Participles on the right. Ss
work in two groups. The first group chooses one word from group 1 and one from
group 2(e.g. row 2, column 1 and row 3  column  2). Turn these over so that Ss
can see the two words. If they are from the same verb, give them tj the group
who guessed them. If not, turn them back so that the words are hidden again.
The idea is for Ss to remember where words are and make pairs so the group
which concentrates hardest has the best chance of winning. When Ss have found
all nine pairs, see who won, collect in the pieces of card and re-elicit all
nine verbs, past forms and Past Participles.

23. Draw it!

Tell Ss they have
2 minutes to draw a picture. It can be of anything they like but there must be
people in it and as many activities as they can show in 2 minutes .The
pictures  should not be drawn very carefully, simple stick figures will
suffice. After 2 minutes, put students into pairs, making sure they haven’t
seen each others pictures. One student covers their picture and takes a clean
piece of paper. The other describes their picture and the first student has to
draw what is described. When finished the Ss swap roles and finally  show each
other their pictures to see how well they  were able to draw from the
description  given.  

 24. Parts of
speech

Dictate sentences
to Ss and ask them to say what part of speech certain words are. Ss work in
small groups and put their hands up as soon as they know. Award a point for
each correct answer. Example sentences: They create (v) (a lot
of problems. He is famous for his creativity (n). Prices in the shops
have been reduced (v). The reduction (n) wasn’t very big. He is a
researcher (n). I’m very annoyed (adj). It’s not terrible but
it’s an annoyance (n).  We didn’t expect (v) to see you so soon.
He didn’t live up to our expectations (n). There have been a lot of improvements
(n) lately. The city is improving (v) all the time.

25. How many?

Ask a Present
Perfect question using have you ever … which is interesting and unusual
but which may also be answered yes by some Ss and no by others. Have
you ever ridden a camel? Now put Ss into two groups. Each group must think
of five similar questions. When they have thought of the five questions, they decide
together how many of the other group they think will say yes to each
question. They give you the five questions written down with their guess next
to each one. Read out the questions and Ss raise their hands if they have done
the things asked about. Make a note of the actual number saying yes and
tell Ss whose guesses were the closest.

26. Anonymous advice

Each student
thinks of a question to ask for a suggestion, e.g. about holidays, study,
clothes. They write this on a piece of paper. Collect them all in and
redistribute so that Ss don’t  know whose question they have. If Ss have their
own question, you should change it with someone else’s. Ss now write a
suggestion in response to the question written. Collect them in again and
redistribute once more. Ss add a second suggestion. Finally, place the papers
on a desk and allow Ss to come and find theirs and read what the suggestions
were.

27. Crazy signs

Talk to students
about street signs that show what you must do(e.g. Stop), those that tell you
what you mustn’t do(e.g. a speed limit sign means  you mustn’t go faster) and
those that tell you what should or shouldn’t do(e.g. a bumpy road sign means
that you should drive more slowly).

Now put the
students into groups of 4-5.Each group chooses a different place, e.g. school,
swimming pool, cinema .The  groups draw four signs that don’t actually exist but
could be used in their place, e. g .No singing in class. The four signs
must represent must, mustn’t, should, shouldn’t. When finished, groups
swap papers and try to work out what the four signs represent. They write four
sentences and then hand these back to original group to see if they are correct
in their guesses or not. Elicit some of the rules and advice in open class.

 28. What is the
verb?

Put the students
into six groups. Give each group a verb/verbs on a slip of paper: turn
on/off, put on/take off, down load, print out, put in/take out, click on. Make
sure that no other groups know what verb they have. Each group must think of as
many nouns as possible that their verb(s) could collocate with. Each group then
reads out their nouns, one at a time, and the other groups have to guess what
the verb is.

However, the other
groups only have one guess each so must decide whether to guess early or wait
and risk another group guessing first.

29.That’s not
mine!

Collect a pen from
each person in the class and place them on a desk, preferably in the centre of
the room where everyone can see them.

Nominate one
student to come to the desk. Pick up a pen (not that student’s) and ask: Is
this yours? Elicit the answer: No, mine is …(plus a comparative
form) newer/cleaner/ darker. Whatever they answer, choose a pen which
could be theirs and ask again. The student either replies: Yes, it is.
or they must give another comparative sentence but using a different
comparative adjective. Keep going until the student has his/her pen .That
student now nominates a second student to come to the  front .The first student
plays your role, the new student has to make comparative sentences to  identify
their pen. Keep going until all the pens have been returned or you think that
enough practice has been had.

30. Alien game.

Tell Ss you are an
alien from a different planet. You speak very good English but don’t know much
about the Earth. Start by introducing yourself and elicit from Ss that they
should ask if they can help: Hello, can I help you? Say yes and
ask Ss about a simple thing, e.g. What  is a school? Ss give a definition and,
whatever they answer (e.g. It’s a place where students go to learn.) ask: What
do you mean by…( e.g. students)? The class  give a new definition
and, again, ask question using: What do you mean by…? Next time,
deliberately mishear the students and ask: I’m sorry, did you say…? Finally,
tell Ss that should offer to do something to make it easier to understand, e.g.
 Shall I take you to my school? I can take you to my school if you like.

Re-elicit the
questions you  asked  and  they asked  and put Ss into pairs to do the same
thing with a different noun. Finally, nominate one pair to act out their
conversation in open 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.

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.

Warming up в переводе с англ. означает разминка. В спорте, например, разминка является важной частью тренировки, так как подготавливает организм к более интенсивным физическим нагрузкам. То же и применимо к уроку английского, разминка помогает учащимся настроиться на общение на английском языке и дает хороший старт на выполнение более сложных заданий. Этап речевой разминки предусмотрен для начала урока и длится примерно 5 минут. Регулярное проведение речевой зарядки позволяет повторить и прочно усвоить лексику, предыдущих уроков, закрепить в памяти школьников грамматические структуры и речевые обороты, овладеть навыком диалога, умением задавать вопросы, кратко и лаконично отвечать на них.

Существует большое разнообразие приемов для начала урока и именно это позволяет сделать урок ярким и интересным для учащихся.

1) A 5 Minute Activity. На сайтах https://en.islcollective.com, https://www.pinterest.ru можно найти огромное количество таких воркшитов на любую тему. Ученики активизируют свои знания по теме. Задание заставляет учеников критически мыслить, выбирая слова, которые лучше всего подходят. Задача: в группах или парах написать 3 слова в каждой категории. Может быть использовано в качестве соревнования в классе.

2) Bingo помогает закрепить лексику по изученным темам с помощью игры, а также тренирует навыки правописания на английском языке.

Задача: каждый ученик (или каждая пара) получает карточку со словами, цифрами, рисунками или пустую (куда нужно вписать слова). Все получают одни и те же слова, но в разном порядке. Каждый раз, когда учитель произносит слово, ученик ищет правильный слово на своей карточке и вычеркивает его.

Первый ученик, который вычеркнул пять слов подряд, кричит «Бинго» и побеждает.

3) Список слов на уроке Word lists. Это задание подходит, если слова, с которыми вы работаете можно распределить на категории. Повесить листы бумаги на доску (сколько категорий, столько листов). Разделить класс на мини группы. Задача школьников написать столько слов из категории, сколько успеют, например за 20 секунд.Как только время заканчивается, они должны перестать писать. Затем они переходят на одну категорию вправо. Ученики пишут слова в новой категории. Но! Они не могут повторять то, что написали до них, только добавлять что то. Если есть слово, написанное с ошибкой, можно его исправить. Если слово написано не полностью, то дописать. 

4) BrainStorming помогает учителю понять насколько хорошо учеником усвоен пройденный материал, а также проводит связь с уже узученной лексикой.

5) Mind blown, Weird facts и Mind tricks. В поисковой системе google можно найти самые необычные и интересные факты на любую тему, достаточно ввести в поиск mind blowing facts about и тему урока. Сделать из предложенных фактов правдивые и не правдивые предложения. Задача в парах угадать, какие предложения, правда, а какие нет.

6)

Предложения с неправильным порядком слов или предложения с ошибками помогают освежить изученный грамматический материал.

7) Story games используются для развития творческих способностей и применяются на среднем и чаще старшем этапе обучения. Гармошка who-is doing what-when-where-why (кто-что делает-когда-где-зачем) позволяет придумать веселую историюв группе или паре, а также отработать порядок слов в предложениях и грамматические конструкции.

Noughts and crosses or tic-tac-toe меняют скучную атмосферу урока за секунду. Можно использовать в качестве разминки и повторения необходимой темы, например неправильные глаголы. Учащиеся в паре, записывают в клеточках первую форму глаголов, но играя, называют вторую и ставят крестик или нолик.

9) Спиной к доске — способ повторить построение вопросов. Один ученик садится к доске спиной и к своим одногруппникам лицом. Доску этот ученик не видет. Учитель пишет на доске «ответ», например, Yes, I do; No, I can’t; Every summer; Yesterday; My best friend etc. Задача остальных учеников придумать и задать такой вопрос, чтобы ученик, сидящий на стуле ответил фразой с доски.

10) В качестве разминки можно выбрать короткий видео фрагмент (сайты Buzzfeed, Mystery science или 60 second docs) на тему урока, который впоследствии обсудить:

1 Tell me the title/name. Придумать название.
2 Tell me 2 people in the film. Главные герои.
3 Where is the film? Где происходит действие.
4 What’s it abt? О чем.

11) Puzzles – Пазлы. Выбираем картинку, распечатываем и разрезаем по контурам, чтобы получились части пазла. Либо делаем презентацию с пазлами. Делим группу на мини группы или на пары таким образом, чтобы групп/пар получилось столько, сколько частей пазла. Каждой группе / паре выдаем один отдельный кусочек. Они обсуждают то, что видят, делают предположения, что может быть изображено на целой картинке. Потом просим учеников всем вместе собрать все части вместе в общую картинку. Сравниваем их догадки с реальным изображением.

12) Discussion – Обсуждение.  Задача: обсудить все пары на доске. Выбрать из каждой пары что то одно и объяснить почему.

• Cat / dog
• Tea / coffee
• Swimming / running
• Bike / rollerblades
• Mobile phone / tablet computer
• Ice-cream / cake

13) Find the difference – найти отличия и сравнить картинки. Делим детей на команды. Выводим картинку на экран. По очереди команда А и Б называют отличия. Вы заклеиваете предметы на телевизоре строительным скотчем, а сверху записываете номер команды. Тот, кто не смог ничего найти, проиграл. Тоже самое можно сделать в парах. Отличия обводим ручкой или карандашом. Чаще давайте ученикам на дом искать отличия между двумя изображениями письменно. Это не только интересно и полезно для их навыков письма, но и позволяет отрабатывать разную новую грамматику. Например, если одна картинка — настоящее, а вторая — прошедшее (Past Simple, Present Simple). Или если на А делают одни вещи, а на Б — другие (Present Continous). Таких упражнений много в тестовых сборниках к YLE.

Разминка — это чрезвычайно полезный инструмент для начала занятий на энергичной ноте, а также отличный способ для того, чтобы заставить класс думать на английском. Важно, чтобы ваши разминки заставляли учеников как можно больше использовать язык. Все представленные приемы были опробованы и использованы на уроках.