WARM- UPS AND REFLEXIONS

WARM-UPS

“Question and answers” 

Interaction 

• Group work 

Aim 

• To practice asking and answering questions. 

Time 

• 10-15 minutes 

Skills 

• Speaking 
• Listening 

Grammar and functions 

• Yes/no question with the verb to be 
• Information questions 
• Introduction, greetings, personal information 

Vocabulary 

• Numbers
• The alphabet
• Cities 
• Countries 

Procedure 

1. Divide the class into groups of five. 
2. Have each group choose a leader. 
3. Give one set of cards to the leader of each group. Ask the leaders to shuffle the cards and give them out to the students in their groups (four cards per student). 
4. Explain how to play the game. The goal is to match questions and answers. The first student reads out one of his/her cards aloud. If a student from the group has a matching question and answer, they read it aloud. Matching pairs of questions and answers should be placed on the table in the middle of the group. Students continue asking and answering in turn until they have completed all the matches. 
5. The first group to finish the activity correctly wins. Ask the rest of the groups to finish matching their pairs also. 

REFLECTION: We can use this activity, in order to practice grammar structures and speaking skills. This could also be a whole class activity. You can prepare enough question cards for half the class and the matching answer cards for the other half. You can use this activity in basic levels. 

“The name game” 

Interaction 

• Group work 

Aim 

• To practice using the alphabet. 

Time 

• 15-20 minutes 

Skills 

• Speaking 
• Listening 

Grammar and functions 

• Spelling names
• Information questions
• Vocabulary
• The alphabet 

Procedure 

1. Write these two questions on the board: What`s your first name? How do you spell it? Ask students to form pairs and ask each other these questions. 
2. Then ask the whole class to put themselves in alphabetical order of fist name. Tell them to speak only in English as they do this. Check that the order is correct. 
3. Now divide the students into two, three or four groups. 
4. Explain that they are going to play a similar game but that they won`t use their real names. Give each student a name card and ask them to memorize their new game. 
5. Explain how to play the game. Students from the same group take turns spelling theirs names and lining up in alphabetical order. Encourage them not to look at their cards as they do this. 
6. The first group to do the activity correctly wins. Check by asking individual students to spell their new games. 
7. If time allows, the groups can then work together to put all the students in the class in alphabetical order, forming one line. 

REFLECTION: It is a funny way to practice information questions and spelling names. It can be used in first levels. 

A variation can be done: Divide the students into two teams, A and B, and give each student a name card. Have each team choose a leader and ask the leaders to stand-up at the board. In turn, students from each team spell their names and the leader from the other team writes them on the board. Encourage students not to look at their cards but don`t be strict about this. 

When they have finished, check that the names are written correctly. The group with the most correct names wins. 

“Getting to know your classmate” 

Interaction 

• Whole class 

Aim 

• To practice asking and answering questions in the present simple. 

Time 

• 15-20 minutes 

Skills 

• Speaking 
• Listening 

Grammar and functions 

• Yes/no questions with the present simple 
• Vocabulary 
• Verbs 
• Cognates 
• Likes and dislikes. 

Preparation 

Photocopy and cut apart the questions cards, one for each students in the class. 

Procedure 

1. Give the students a card each. Allows them a minute to read the information and decide on the question they are going to ask their classmate. 
2. Ask them to get a pen/pencil and a piece of paper or a notebook for this activity. 
3. Explain how to play the game. Students move around the room asking their classmate questions in order to find out how many of them answer Yes to their questions. When they find someone in the class who does, they write the student`s name down on a piece of paper. 
4. Model the activity by asking a few students a question like Do you like Japanese food? If they answer Yes, write theirs names on the board. 
5. Set a time limit of five to eight minutes and ask them to being the activity. 
6. When the time is up, invite individual students to report their results to the class, e.g. Two students speak Spanish. They are Miguel and Roberta. 

REFLECTION: It is a useful activity to use in the classroom, because emphasizes interactions between students. You can use this warm-up with all levels. 

For additional ideas, choose a topic on one of the cards and ask questions about it in such a way that students start an interesting class discussion. Encourage everyone in the class to give ideas and opinions. 

“Family tree” 

Interaction 

• Group work 

Aim 

• To review vocabulary associated with families. 

Time 

• 10-15 minutes 

Skills 

• Speaking 
• Listening 

Grammar and functions 

• Asking and answering questions about family members 
• Use of`s to show possession 
• Present simple 

Vocabulary 

• Family members 

Procedure 

1. Divide the class into groups of five students and give each student an information cards and each group a copy of the blank family tree. Alternatively, teachers could give each student in the group a copy of the blank family tree. 
2. The groups should sit in circles, if possible. If there are fewer than five students in a certain group, some students might have to work with more than one information card. 
3. Explain that each group should use the clues to fill in the family tree. Taking turns, each person in the group reads one of the clues in his/her information cards aloud. 
4. One person acts as a secretary and is responsible for filling in the blank family tree with the input of the rest of the groups. 
5. When the time is up or when they`ve finished, check their answers either orally or by drawing a blank tree on the board and asking different groups to fill it in with you. 

REFLECTION: You can use this activity to practice the Simple Present Tense and family members in interactive way. 

Another option is instead using a worksheet; students can make their own family tree with a partner. If time, allow, the partner can explain his/her partner`s family tree to the rest of the class. 

“What`s wrong?”

Interaction 

• Pair work 

Aim 

• To write affirmative and negative sentences with there is/there are + a, an, some, any 

Time 

• 10-15 minutes 

Skills 

• Speaking 
• Writing 

Grammar and functions 

• There is/there are + a, an, some, any 
• Vocabulary 
• The alphabet 
• Months 
• The zodiac 
• Parts of the body 
• Furniture 

Procedure 

1. Prepare students for the activity by drawing an envelope on the board. Write the name of the person and the city, country and zip code, but deliberately omit the address, e.g. Julia Richardson, Seattle, Washington, 98117, U.S.A. 
2. Ask students to tell you what`s wrong with the envelope. Ask questions like: Is there a name on it? Is there a city? 
3. Give each student a copy of the worksheet and ask them to form pairs. 
4. Explain the activity. In pairs, they study the pictures and decide what`s wrong with each one. They then write sentences about each picture. Sentences should start with There is/there are/there isn`t/there aren`t 
5. Set a time limit of about ten minutes and ask students to start the activity. 
6. When the time is up, check student`s answer by asking different pairs for their answer. Does everyone in the class agree? Elicit all possible responses. 

REFLECTION: You can use this warm-up to practice speaking and writing skills. Also, you can practice with different grammar structures. You could adapt the activity to use it with any level. 

“Once upon a time…” 

Interaction 

• Whole class 

Aim 

• To practice describing a sequence of events in the past. 

Time 

• 15-20 minutes 

Skills 

• Speaking 
• Listening 

Grammar and functions 

• Past simple 
• Connectives 

Preparation 

Photocopy and cut apart the verb cards. Make sure you have one card for each student in the class. If you have more than 38 students, make an extra copy of the worksheep and give repeat cards to the additional students. 

Procedure 

1. Introduce the topic by asking the student if they remember some of the stories they were told by their mothers when they were young. Choose one of those stories, e.g. Little Red Riding Hood. Ask students if they remember the whole story. 
2. Start telling that story and invited individual students to continue, e.g. 
1. Teacher: Once upon a time, a little girl was walking along in the forest. She was carrying a basket of food for her grandmother. 
2. Student A: There was a wolf in the forest, waiting for her 
3. Student B: He wanted to eat Little Red Riding Hood. 
4. Continue like this until students understand the concept of creating a story, one sentence at a time. 
3. Give each student a cue card and explain the activity. You are going to start telling a story and each student will add one or two sentences to it. Remind them that their sentences should include the verb on their cards and that the story should be told in the past tense. 
4. Start telling a story by saying Once upon a time these was a ____. (Insert an interesting noun here.) Have a student continue the story. This student should use the past tense form on the verb of his/her card to make the sentence. The story you create as a class can de absurd, it doesn`t have to follow a known fairytale storyline. If the student you call on can`t think of a semi-appropriate sentences, ask another student to contribute. 
5. Continue creating a story until all students have contributed. 

REFLECTION: You can use this warm-up in basic, intermediate and advance levels according to the structures that the students need to practice. 

An additional idea, ask student to form groups. Distribute cards and ask groups to write a mini-story with the cards they`ve been given.

CHAIN FAIRYTALE

 

 Make students form five circles.

 Explain the activity.                                                    

 Give an example.

 Ask to some of them if they had understood.

 Make a short practice.

 Begin with the activity.

 Each group must have a piece of paper and one student per each circle has to write the first sentences to start a fairytale (not one that already exists).

 REFLECTION

 Well, about use of this activity, our student will feel enthusiastic because they will be free to create a new story by using their imagination, writing skills, make them work as a group and also to improve what they know about English but I guess that the most important part of this game is that they will feel comfortable and will lose the fear of write and read aloud what the feel. These activities encourage student to learn more vocabulary because in a next activity they would be inspire to write a better story and more funny.

  

 

 

HEADS, SHOULDERS AND TOES...

 Make students form one circle.

 Explain the activity (tell them if they made a mistake while doing the activity the person must teach for about 5 or 10 minutes a class).

 Give an example.

 Ask to some of them if they had understood.

 Make a short practice.

 Begin with the activity.

 Have the students stand in a large circle. Then tell them that they have to touch their knees, head, forehead, elbow, neck, shoulder and so on, after doing that makes a practice with their body partby singing the song. Head shoulders knees and toes knees and toes... (as you sing the words they touch that part of their body but later you said head but you will touch your knees and so far in that way the student that touch its knees instead his or her head will teach the class for 5 minutes but you can continuous doing this for about 5 minutes if someone else made a mistake will do the same, they would start given a review of the previous class, this is a great way to stretch out and have fun and also they will be so worry to teach that will do their best.

 REFLECTION

 This activity is for all level because if your teaching to kinder garden students they will learn body parts and you can adapted to the level you want as the previous explanation, because in that case we want from them to get confused by doing the game in that way so because they would feel so focus in the game; besides, no body like to be at the front especially given a class in English and this will encourage them to study at home if we keep doing activities that include the penalty to pass to the front and teach a new topic or give a review and by doing this they will integrate the new knowledge to their previous knowledge. Well that´s what we as a teacher want from our students; even though, not always the thing works as we desire.

 

BALLOON JUGGLE

 Divide the group in two lines.

 Explain the activity 

 Give an example                                                                                 

 Ask to some of them if they had understood.

 Make a short practice.

 Begin with the activity.

 Have the student to keep all balloons in the air (1 per group just to start).This gets the group moving and cooperating. Once they've got the hang of it, make it harder by adding in more balloons or placing restrictions example: no hands to keep balloons up, no head, no shoulders, and so on (it’s up to the teacher). Ask participants to keep juggling the balloons in the air. The group who let fall down more balloons will do a penalty so everybody must work as one. The winner will choose the penalty for the looser.

 REFLECTION

 This activity is just to make your students cheer up at the begging of the class because sometimes they could arrived from other class or be stressed for any activity they had. This kind of activities are so useful at any level for the reason that students are always stressed for something especially if they are adolescents because they are passing throughout many changes in their bodies, but as always any activity could be modified if the teacher want to apply for example to teach the body parts. 

 

 

BOTTLE PASS

 Make students form a circle.

 Explain the activity ( the looser will answer some questions about the topic or do a penalty)                                   

 Give an example.

 Ask to someone.

 Make a short practice.

 Begin with the activity.

 Give to the student a plastic bottle or another item and telling them that it must be passed it but students can only touch it with their elbows i.e. by clenching them together to grip it. Alternatively you can have a relay race in teams and the first who let the bottle fall down will answer a question about the topic and if that person don´t answer the question their classmate will do the penalty.

 REFLECTION

I really like this kind of activities because students love them and they have fun while doing activity; similarly, each of them get involve with the new topic by asking questions from the previous topic or just they could have a good moment with their classmates, activities like these are good to increase students enthusiasm and we use this activity is for these levels because we can add some penalties just to push them to learn more and too make them laugh. It is necessary to help our students to increase somehow their macro skills. 

BACK TO BACK

 

 Make students walk around the classroom.

 Explain the activity ( the one without a partner will take a piece of paper from the penalty box)        

 Give an example.

 Ask to someone.

 Make a short practice.

 Begin with the activity.

 Have students running/jumping/walking around the room. When you shout out “back to back” they must find their partner as quickly as possible andstand back to back with a classmate. You can then develop it by adding “face to face” and“shoulder to shoulder”, etc. the student without a partner will take a piece of paper from the penalty box and he or she may take a piece of paper in which he can make to everybody to do a penalty, even to the teacher will do the penalty.

 REFLECTION

 This warm-up activity is as the previous ones, is just focus in creating a good atmosphere in the class. The teacher may add some penalties to make it funnier; likewise, students must face the challenge to find a partner to avoid do the penalty and cold be a great activity at the beginning of a semester because students must socialized whether they like it or not. The game it can be modified by adding open questions, building up sentences, tag questions or even to talk about a specific topic that could be in the penalty box an example could be what do you think about global warming? And this student must use the structure which is study in the class.

 

LIP READING

 Divide the group in two.

 Explain the activity 

 Give an example.

 Ask to someone.

 Make a short practice.

 Begin with the activity.

 A representative from each group must past to the front but he or she must remain absolutely silent at all times during the game if he or she talk and any chance will lose the point immediately. Show a flashcard/sentence on paper to them. They just can move their lips too said what it is on the flashcard or about the sentence- their group will be trying to guess what it is. The group with more points won.

 REFLECTION

 This is a great warm-up because we can make our students to talk; somehow, students felt the will to guess what his or her classmate is trying so say and they will be saying many things to guess about their classmate clues. This could be applied for any level because the more vocabulary they have the more things they will speak and for those lower levels would talk more and let their fears in the past; that is; when students face the situation they fear like to talk in public, later they will conquer their own fears and achieve more goal in the future.

 

MY FAVORITE PET

 Tell students to think of three animals they like the most.

 Explain the activity (the must use adjectives) 

 Give an example.

 Ask to someone.

 Make a short practice.

 Begin with the activity.

 Have students write three adjectives to describe each animal. Give an example: ¨My favorite animals are the following: a tiger. A tiger is aggressive, strong, and fast; a bear is big, furry, hungry, and finally a rabbit, is shy, cute and cuddly. After writing an example on the board, explain that they must use other adjectives on their own so that they don’t all end up with the same ones. But you could have a brainstorming session as a class before they write their words, if they’re looking a little lost. For lower-level classes, these adjectives can be basic, such as cute, strong, big, little, furry, lovable, etc. For higher-level classes, challenge students to find adjectives that their classmates may not know, such as ferocious, majestic, etc. walk around the classroom to make sure students are not writing nouns by mistake (this happens often).Get faster students to help slower students come up with their last few adjectives.

 REFLECTION

 We can take an advantage from this like we make them to learn more adjectives and they will learn how to use them to create descriptions later they would be ready to describe anything and using the adjectives in an accurately way. We may also use adverb of time, adverb of place, frequency adverbs, indefinite adverbs to said a short story to relate about an animal or a place and in that way they will learn how to use them to express ideas and describe things, persons and places.

FIND SOMEONE WHO...

 

 Make student to think of things they or their classmate didn´t do yesterday or today morning (this point is going to be fixed according with you are teaching the class).

 Explain the activity

 Give an example.

 Ask to some of them if they had understood.

 Make a short practice.

 Begin with the activity. 

 Have the students to stand up after they had think about the possible things they or their classmate didn´t do yesterday, today morning, two weeks ago, and so on. Then the teacher starts by saying find someone who didn’t do the homework yesterday morning and when the teacher had said that everybody will look for the once who didn´t do the homework and so on.

The student which did his or her homework is going to be in the same place but those who didn´t do their homework will look for someone like them and if one of them cannot find a partner is going to take the teachers turn by saying find someone who didn’t .. The activity will continuous until the teacher said stop.  

REFLECTION

 With this one, students will think fast and name as many things as possible to make their peers participate. It’s a funny activity because students will try to make their classmate to be at the front as they will do and at the same time is so funny to see everybody running around the classroom looking for someone that didn´t do whatever the student said. I guess that funny activities just help teachers to engage their students with the previous class or the new topic.

Twenty Questions

 

Do you remember car trips as a child playing twenty questions in the back seat? You think of a person or object and your siblings have twenty opportunities to ask yes/no questions to determine what object you are thinking of. This is an easy and short activity for you to do with your ESL class when you have a few minutes to spare. The first time you play, your students will need specific direction as to the types of questions to ask. You should help them understand how to ask strategic questions to identify the object. The more practice you give your students with this activity, the better they will get at it, and before long they will be begging you to play!

Pictionary

No matter what you are currently studying in class, you most likely have a list of vocabulary your students need to learn. When that is the case, a few minutes at the end of class is a great opportunity for either of these two vocabulary revision activities. Have your current vocabulary list written on index cards that you can use at a moment’s notice. Then, when you have a few minutes, have one student come up to the board and select one of the vocabulary words. Set a timer for between one and three minutes, depending on how difficult you want to make the activity, and allow him to draw pictures to try to get the class to guess the word. His classmates can call out their guesses while he draws. He is not allowed to use any letters, numbers or symbols as he draws. If his classmates correctly guess the word, you can either give another person a turn or have him select a second word. As you study more vocabulary throughout the year, add those words to your collection. By the end of the year, you will have all your vocabulary words collected ready for a

review.

Charades

The second vocabulary revision activity is similar. You can play a few rounds of charades with your students in a similar manner to the Pictionary activity. Use the same vocabulary cards, but this time have your student or students act out the vocabulary word rather than draw it. Either you can have one person act out the word for the entire class or have two people act out the word for one half of the class. As is traditional with charades, the actor cannot say anything. The first group to guess the word wins a point. If you like, keep a running score for the two teams for a month at a time and then award prizes at the end of the month. Then you can switch up your teams and seating arrangement for the next month’s competition.

Write a Communal story

With a few extra minutes, you can also have your class work together to write a communal story. Start with one sentence on the board. Have your students take turns coming up to the board and adding one sentence to the story. Each person will be able to use his or her creativity to further the story, and the whole class can make sure the grammar is correct with each addition. The more often you do this, the more creative your students will become in their additions. It will be fun for your class to see just how crazy they can get and still keep a logical plot.

Why/Because

This silly little game has the potential for some laughs with your students. Give each person two index cards or two small scraps of

paper. On one card, each person should write a question that begins with the word ‘why’. Then on the second piece of paper, each person should answer his or her question starting with the word ‘because’. Then collect all the why’s in one pile and all the because’s in another. Mix up each pile and then read one why card with one because card. The combinations can be very funny, and then after reading all the random match ups you can have your students match the correct answers with the correct questions.

Would You Rather

This activity is a good one for getting to know your students better. Keep a list of questions for your students starting with “Would you rather…” For example, you may ask, “Would you rather be a leader or a follower? Would you rather eat ice cream or cake? Would you rather have a cat or a dog?” You can be straightforward with your questions or be creative and out of the box. Ask your class a question and have your students move to one side of the room if they answer one way, the other side of the room if they answer the other way. Then ask random students on each side to explain why they chose the answer that they did. You can do as many or as few questions as you have time for. You may learn some interesting facts about your students and their preferences with this activity.

Telephone

This old-fashioned game can get new life in the ESL classroom. Have your students arrange themselves in a circle around the room. Come up with a long sentence yourself or have one of your students do it (check to make sure it is grammatical) and whisper it in the ear of the first student in the circle. The listening student then has one opportunity to whisper it in the ear of the next student. The process continues around the circle until it reaches the last person. That person then says the sentence aloud to the class. You should then tell the class what the original sentence was. Your class will be surprised at how much the sentence changed as it travelled around the circle. If you like, challenge your students to be as careful as they can when speaking and listening and see if the sentence can make it around the circle with minimal change.

White Board Slam

This activity will increase your students’ vocabulary as well as fill time at the end of class. Start by writing a word on the board that contains four letters. You can start with anything. Then, challenge your students to come up and change only one letter of the word to make a new word. If someone has an answer, have him come up and make the change. Then have another student come up and change the word again. See how many different combinations your students can come up with by changing one letter at a time with no word repeats. Also, give them the opportunity to ask for a definition of any of the words that they may not know throughout the activity.

Open Question Session

Sometimes just a simple opportunity to ask questions can benefit your class. If you have a few minutes, open the floor for your students to ask you questions. They can be about material you have covered in class, situations they have encountered that may be unfamiliar culturally, new vocabulary words, or any of many other possibilities. Likely, the question that one student asks will lead to another from a second student. Everyone will benefit from hearing the answers, and some students may even be able to answer questions of their fellow students. If so, let them share from their knowledge and experience. If no one has the answer but you, share it with your class and be glad that the question opened the chance to share.

Read Aloud Comprehension

If you have a newspaper or magazine with short articles handy, you can also use this to fill a few minutes in your class. Read aloud a short passage and ask your students to relate back what they heard or answer comprehension questions. You can never give your students too many opportunities to practice their listening skills, so the next time you have a few minutes, read a paragraph or two from the paper and ask your student what the article is about, what they know about the situation from what they heard, what they think the rest of the article is about, and what else they would like to know from the rest of the article.

 

Question and answers

 Divide the class into groups of five. 

 Have each group choose a leader. 

 Give one set of cards to the leader of each group. Ask the leaders to shuffle the cards and give them out to the students in their groups (four cards per student). 

Explain how to play the game. The goal is to match questions and answers. The first student reads out one of his/her cards aloud. If a student from the group has a matching question and answer, they read it aloud. Matching pairs of questions and answers should be placed on the table in the middle of the group. Students continue asking and answering in turn until they have completed all the matches. 

The first group to finish the activity correctly wins. Ask the rest of the groups to finish matching their pairs also. 

REFLECTION

We can use this activity, in order to practice grammar structures and speaking skills. This could also be a whole class activity. You can prepare enough question cards for half the class and the matching answer cards for the other half. You can use this activity in basic levels. 

 What`s wrong?

 

 Prepare students for the activity by drawing an envelope on the board. Write the name of the person and the city, country and zip code, but deliberately omit the address, e.g. Julia Richardson, Seattle, Washington, 98117, U.S.A. 

 Ask students to tell you what`s wrong with the envelope. Ask questions like: Is there a name on it? Is there a city? 

 Give each student a copy of the worksheet and ask them to form pairs. 

 Explain the activity. In pairs, they study the pictures and decide what`s wrong with each one. They then write sentences about each picture. Sentences should start with There is/there are/there isn`t/there aren`t 

Set a time limit of about ten minutes and ask students to start the activity. 

When the time is up, check student`s answer by asking different pairs for their answer. Does everyone in the class agree? Elicit all possible responses. 

REFLECTION

 You can use this warm-up to practice speaking and writing skills. Also, you can practice with different grammar structures. You could adapt the activity to use it with any level.

ICEBREAKERS

 

 

Self-Portrait

Have your students draw themselves. After they have done this, collect the papers and hang them up for the whole class to see. Now have students try to guess who the artists was for each picture. 

Letter Writing

At the beginning of the year, write a short letter about yourself as the teacher. Tell the students where you live, what your hobbies are, and if you have any children, pets, etc. Hand out your letter to each student in your class and ask them to write you back with similar information about themselves.

 

The Mingle Game

 

Give each student an index card. Have them write a question that they would like to ask the other students in the class. Examples might include, "What is your favorite song?" or "What is your favorite sport?" Next, have the students get up and walk around the room. When you say, "stop," students have to stand beside the person closest to them and ask the question that is on their own card. Both students have to answer the questions. Now have them mingle again and meet a new person.

 The "What Am I?" Game

Have the students get into a circle. Give each student a post-it note. Have each person write a noun on the post-it note. Then stick the post-it on the forehead of the person standing to right of them with the noun showing. Now have student take a turn to ask the group a "yes/no" question that will help them guess the noun on their forehead. If they do not guess correctly, the person on their right gets to ask a question. Keep going until all of the noun have been guessed, or your time limit has expired.

These are a few of my favorite things

Pass around a sheet of paper and some pens. Ask the students to write their name and their favorite TV shows (you can come up with your own topic for favorite things). Collect the papers and pens. Begin reading the answers, but have the class guess who wrote the response. 

 

Birthday Lineup

Call out any month of the year and have all students born in that month come up to the front of the room. It is up to the students to decide who stands first, second, etc., so they are standing from the first day of the month to the last day of the month. Now call out another month (don't call the months in order), and have those students try to position themselves correctly by day and by where they should stand as an entire month. This is a great way to get kids working together and knowing each other. Once all of the kids have lined up, test them to see if they are correct.

 Icebreaker Pictionary

Have the students draw pictures about what they like to do, what their favorite foods are, and what is their favorite subject in school. Have each student come up and show their pictures to the class. See if the students can guess what each student drew that tells a little bit about themselves. For instance, if a student draws a yellow M, can anyone guess that she likes McDonalds?

Show and Tell

Don't forget about this old time favorite part of class. Instruct students to bring in something that they cherish, or just want to share with the class. Give each student a turn to come up and tell about the item that they brought in. This way the class will get to know each other and something that makes each student happy. 

 The Snowball Activity

Have students write three things about themselves on a piece of paper. Then have them crumble up the paper to resemble a snowball. Let the students have a snowball fight for about one minute. Now everyone grabs one of the snowballs and has to try and find the person who wrote on it. Once they find their partner, they have to bring that person up in front of the class and explain what they learned about their new friend with the three facts written on the piece of paper. 

 

 

The Observation Game.

Line up the students in two lines facing each other. If there is an odd number of students, you can play the game, too. Give students 30 seconds to look each other over really good, paying attention to all details about their partner. The students in one line now turn facing the other way while the other line of students changes something about themselves. For example, a girl might take off a hair bow, or a boy might un-tuck his shirt. When the kids in the first line turn back around, they have to guess what their partner changed. Now switch and let the first line make the change and the second line guess the difference.

TOPIC LEAD-IN

 Individual Lead-In Questions

Participants can respond to questions in a predetermined order (e.g., left to right around the room) or by volunteering responses in random order. If you let participants speak in random order, remember that one of the purposes of this activity is to get people talking, so try to ensure that everyone in the group participates.

REFLECTION

This type of activity help students practice their speaking skills because they are asked to participate. Besides, this help to encourange all the students to speak because it gives the mthe chance to say something during the class.

The Numbers Game

 Set up a square, marked out in the four corners of the hall, and marked with numbers 1,2,3,4 respectively.

On the floor of the hall, spread out, will be 4 sets of numbers from 1-8 (so there will be four 1’s, four 2’s etc in the hall). Pupils will jog around the hall in and out of numbers.

The teacher shouts a number between 1 and 8. At this, the pupils have to pick up whatever number they are closest to, and using the numbers in the corners have to get the number the teacher shouted using adding or subtraction, e.g. if the teacher shouts 3 and the pupil picks up number 5, then that pupil must run to the corner numbered 2, as 5 minus 2 equals 3.

There will be a section marked out in the middle of the hall for those that can’t be solved, e.g. if the teacher shouts 1 and pupil picks up number 1 then they can't make 1 by adding or subtracting numbers 1, 2, 3 or 4.

Word Tree 

 Generate a list of words related to the topic. For example, in an infection prevention course, ask participants to give you words related to the phrase, "body fluids." Participants may suggest: "dangerous," "disease," "HIV," "gloves," "infectious," etc. Write all the words on the board, clustering by theme where possible. You can use this opportunity to introduce essential terms, too.

REFLECTION

This activity gives students the apportunity to come up with many ideas related with the topic they are going to study. Moreover, this help students have an idea about what they are going to study.

Multiple Choice or True/False Quiz

Rather than giving participants a multiple choice or true/false quiz at the end of a session, try giving it at the beginning. As facilitator, you can walk around and discretely scan participants' responses to help you to identify where to focus your attention during the training. Review the answers with the group at the end of the session. Note that participants should check their own answers.

REFLECTION

By doing this the teacher can see if the students have understood the topic already taught or if they need to have extra practice aabout it. In this case the teacher has to provide a better explanation about the topic.

 My name is?

 Go around the group and ask each person to state his/her name and attach an adjective that not only describes a dominant characteristic, but also starts with the same letter of his name e.g. generous Grahame, dynamic Dave. Write them down and refer to them by this for the rest of the evening.

REFLECTION:

Through this activity, students are going to be interacting each other and introducing themselves with something positive. It is useful for the teacher in order to know his/ her student’s name.

Supermarket

The first player says: "I went to the supermarket to buy an Apple (or any other object you can buy in a supermarket that begins with an A). The next player repeats the sentence, including the "A" word and adds a "B" word. Each successive player recites the sentence with all the alphabet items, adding one of his own. For example; 'I went to the supermarket and bought an Apple, Banana, CD, dog food, envelopes, frozen fish'. It's not too hard to reach the end of the alphabet, usually with a little help! Watch out for ‘Q’ and ‘X’

REFLECTION

Since this activity requires a high level of attention, students are going to be excited to know what is going on and it keeps their cognitive process activated.

Object stories

Collect together a number of objects and place in a canvas bag. The objects can include everyday items i.e. a pencil, key-ring, mobile phone, but also include some more unusual ones i.e. a fossil, holiday photograph, wig!

 Pass the bag around the group and invite each young person to dip their hand into the bag (without looking) and pull out one of the objects. The leader begins a story which includes his object. After 20 seconds, the next person takes up the story and adds another 20 seconds, incorporating the object they are holding. And so on, until everyone has made a contribution to your epic literary tale.

REFLECTION

This is another activity which allows students be focused on a sequence of events. It also implies to recall information and a stimulation of all the student’s senses.

Musical Opening

 Play a song that relates to the topic of your lesson. If your class has a projector, you might want to play a version on YouTube that features lyrics, if one exists. Play it once, and then ask students for their reactions.

REFLECTION

 This activity can help not only the teacher but also the students because both of them can have a clearer idea about the topic to be studied during the class.

Chorus of Words

Before class, choose an important sentence from your teaching material (one that includes vocabulary or grammar you want students to focus on). The sentence should be between 9 to 12 words. Write each word on a separate card. In class, invite one student to leave the classroom for a couple of minutes. Give each student a card, and tell them to say the words in different ways (whispering, shouting, singing, slowly, quickly, etc.) when the other student returns. They should say the words over and over several times, and they should talk over each other. Bring the student back into class. Ask him to listen to the words and try to write the correct sentence on the board.

REFLECTION

This activity can help students to practice their witing and develop this important skill. Besides, they can learn new vocabulary related with the new topic.

Mind Map

Write the topic of your lesson in the middle of the board. Draw a circle around it. Ask a student to give you a word that relates to the topic. Write it on the board, draw a circle around that word, and draw a line back to the circle in the middle of the board. Continue this process, adding new words until you have about 14 or 15.

This encourage students to remember and learn new words related with the topic they are studying and using them in context.