ESL Warm-Up Suggestions

Students studying English as a second language usually have a hard time participating immediately in class.  Sometimes, teachers have to resort to doing about 10 to 15 minutes worth of warm-up exercises first in order to prepare the students for the speaking activities in class.  Here are some suggestions on what kind of warm-up exercises or icebreakers teachers could do in class:

·  Introduction Icebreakers
At the beginning of class, when students do not know each, the teacher could facilitate an icebreaker to help everyone get to know each other and start chatting.  One of the most fun icebreakers is called Alliterative Introductions.  It involves the student introducing himself to the class using a sentence based on the first letter of his name.  For example, Charles might say, “I’m cool Charles.  I like chasing cars.”  The usual pattern in this type of introduction is putting an adjective before the name then describing an action of a noun in the next sentence.  The more interesting the description, the more other people will remember it.  Students will need some help and some examples before they get the hang of it, but once they get it, they will really have fun!

A variation of this kind of introduction is the ice breaker called Name Chain.  It involves a student introducing then introducing the person on his right in the same way.  For example, “I’m cool Charles.  This is pretty Pamela.”

·  Imagine You Are A/An…
This is a great speaking game wherein each student would blindly select a card that has a written word of either an animate or inanimate object, for instance, a book, car, or bird.  Once the student has chosen a card, he or she describes the life of what is written on the card, without mentioning the actual word.  The other students have to guess the word.  This is a fun way to get the whole class involved in speaking English.  There could also be a follow-up activity on this.  The teacher could assign the students to write a related composition on the selected word, for example, “My life as a bird.” 

·  Pass the Torch Icebreaker
In this activity, the teacher has the students form a circle and then pass around a mock torch (or something similar).  The objective of this activity is that whoever holds the touch has to share some personal information with the circle.  For example, “I took this ESL course so I could learn English and be able to work in the publishing industry.”  All of the students in the group get to hold the touch for a short time.  When everyone has finished sharing, then the torch is placed in the center.  Any students who are willing to expand on the information they shared can pick up the torch and talk more.  The other students can ask questions to the person holding the touch.  For instance, “What kind of publishing company ?” or “Do you want to work in a newspaper?”