Warmers

The idea of a warmer is to increase student talking time at the beginning of lessons, to lead in to whatever is going to be taught during the lesson and to warm the students up. This should encourage the students to speak English and to feel comfortable in a completely English speaking environment.

IDEAS

Spelling Chain

The object of this game is NOT to finish spelling a word.

Divide the class into two teams, more if you have a large class. Write a letter on the board. Nominate a team to then add another letter. The next team has to add a letter; remember the object is not to spell a word. For example, you could write B on the board. The first team could add e; the next team could add t. If they did, they would be out because BET is a word. The object is for each team to continue to add as many letters as they can and make the opposing team spell a word. The teams cannot just add any letter e.g. AZQRS. If they do, the opposing team can challenge them to what could be spelt in this way. Points are given to the team that doesn’t spell a word.

Touch Bodies

This is very similar to ‘Simon Says’ Review the parts of the body for example: head, legs, chin, shin etc. Shout out ‘Touch your head’ and the students should do that. Do this very quickly and try to catch the students out i.e. so that they can’t remember where the chin is etc. or they don’t have time to touch a certain part of their bodies. This is a very good activity for younger learners.

Spelling B

Spell out words which have been taught in previous lessons; however, jumble the letters when you spell it out e.g. Y U F NN. The students have to write down the letters that they hear and then un-jumble them i.e. FUNNY.

Find someone who...

Write out a questionnaire such as the one below. Make enough copies for each student in class. Tell the students to stand up and mingle. They should ask their classmates whether they, for example as in sentence one, like chocolate.

For example:

Find someone who...

1...........................likes chocolate.

2...........................can speak three languages.

3...........................enjoys swimming.

They should then write the name of a classmate that the sentence applies to on the dotted line.

You could review a particular grammar structure with this activity:

1...........................has learnt to drive.

2...........................has been to Beijing.

3...........................has been to Hong Kong.

Prove it!

This is very similar to the activity above. This time give the students statements.
For example:

Someone in this class loves playing tennis.
Someone in this room likes fish.

Students must then mingle and find out if these statements are true or false.

Famous for five minutes

Tell the students to think about a famous person that they would like to be. The other students must guess who they are by asking questions. The students can only answer yes/no so therefore the questions have to be either Did you... Do you... Were you... etc.

I want to be famous for.....

Ask the students what they would like to be famous for; for example, 'I'd like to be famous for writing a very important book about history.' Give them a few minutes to think about it, and then tell them to tell their partners what they would like to be famous for and why.

Unfinished sentences

Write out sentences which the students have to complete, for example:

If I were rich, I ...........................

If I were famous, I...........................

If I could change something abut myself, I............................

Give the students a few minutes to complete the sentences and then put the students into pairs. Tell them to explain what they have written and why they wrote what they wrote.

A good resource for more ideas is 'Five Minute Activities' by Penny Ur; Cambridge University Press