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ICE BREAKERS FOR FIRST DAY OF CLASSDirections for the TEACHER:
Choose 1 or 2 of the following activities to do the first day of
class.
EVERYBODY HAS SECRETSOn the first day of class, when you have
introduced yourself and explained the guidelines for your classroom
and you think thatall of your students have arrived, hand out four
or five small pieces of paper to each student. Ask them to write a
different aspectof their lives on each piece of paper (e.g. "I have
a dog named 'Spot'.") You should walk about correcting mistakes at
randomuntil they are all finished and have deposited their papers
into a hat, folded every which way, it doesn't matter how. Then
eachstudent draws the same number of papers as he or she put in,
taking care not to draw their own. Upon completion of the draw,
each student is required to find the writer of the papers in
their possession. However, there is a catch. The students should do
thisin a polite fashion, starting with introductions, small talk
and thus working around to learning the information they are
seeking.Shouting out "Who has a dog named 'Biffie'?" does not fly.
By the end of this exercise, the class members should have met
justabout everybody. You can participate, too, but students may
tend to avoid you as this is their first day and they are a bit
wary asof yet. That's up to you. Finally, in the ten minutes at the
end of class, you should, one by one, call out each student's name
andthen hear from the four or five different people who chose their
secrets. This is a dynamite exercise, lots of fun and low
pressure, and it will make everyone so much more comfortable
with each other. Enjoy!
LIE DETECTOR (MY FAVORITE)This is a simple one that works really
well with both small and large classes: The students think of three
sentences, two are factsand one is a lie. One by one, students
introduce themselves and say their three sentences. The rest of the
class asks questions andthen has to guess which one is a lie. It's
best for the teacher to go first, not only to provide an example,
but also to let thestudents know that the teacher is interested in
interacting with them.
LIES OR NOT?
Before you start this game you need to prepare a list of about
10 sentences about yourself and your family, some of which aretrue
and some false. Try to find sentences which are difficult for the
students to guess the answers to or are rather crazy. How to
play : First, get the class to divide into 3 teams (max 4
people?). Of course they can have fun choosing a silly name... and
writeup the 3 team names on the board. Now read out one of your
true/false sentences. Each team has to decide whether it is for
realor not; it is best to appoint a team captain who will give the
team's answer. (Of course it helps if you've had some
strangeexperiences in life. Few of my students believed an
Englishman like myself had worked on an ostrich farm). Read out
theremaining sentences, jumbling up the true and false. Teams score
a point for each correct answer. At the end they've discoveredsome
interesting things about you! Now it is their turn : each student
writes a list of say 5 or 6 sentences about him/herself, againa
mixture of true and false. (If they really know each other well, it
will be limited to sentences such as "last night I ate chickencurry
for dinner" - the others would find it pretty difficult to guess!)
Once they've finished writing, the first person in team one(T1)
reads out a statement, and the other two teams guess if it is true
or false. There are two points available : if teams 2 and 3
both guess correctly, they get 1 point each. If T2 guesses
correctly but not T3, then T1 and T2 get a point each. And of
course if
no-one guesses correctly, T1 wins 2 points. The game continues
in this way : the first person from T2 reads a statement, theother
teams guess if it's true or not, then the first person from T3,
then back to T1 and a different person from that group. Ireckon the
interest lasts about 35-40 minutes. Maybe more if they're slow in
writing statements.
QUESTION BOARD GAME (FOR PRIVATE STUDENTS or Can Be Adapted for
Group)To break the ice and allow you to get to know each other,
give the student ten pieces of paper. Tell them to write down
tenquestions, one on each paper. They can ask anything they want.
You should do the same, write ten questions but try and makethem
quite unique so that you won't repeat those the student asks. When
you are finished mix up the questions and line them upon a table
between you. Use a game piece to identify yourself and your student
and flip a coin. Move one space for heads, twofor tails. Take turns
asking the other person the question as you move along. Move
backwards for an incorrect answer or forwardfor a correct one. This
game can be played with more than one student but it works well for
breaking the ice and allowing youand your student to know a little
about each other.
GUESS WHO WROTE IT?Give students 5 index cards. Tell them to
write their name in the bottom right hand corner. On the top left
hand corner, tell themto number each card (1-5). Ask them 5
questions and tell them to write an answer for each question on the
cards without lettinganybody else see their answers.
EXAMPLE QUESTIONS (choose 5 or write your own)::
1. If you were the president of this company, what would you
change?2. Who has had the most influence in your life? Why?3. Would
you like to be famous? Why or why not?4. What would you do if you
had only twenty-four hours to live?5. What is the secret to
happiness?6. What would you do if you suddenly inherited a million
dollars?
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7. What is the most beautiful sight you have ever seen?8. If you
went to a deserted island which book would you take with you? which
person would you like to be with?
Then, collect all the cards and read the first question. Find
all the #1 question cards and read one answer aloud to the class.
Havethe class try to guess who wrote that answer. You may want to
ask follow up questions to enrich the discussion. Continue with
allthe answers and the rest of the questions. VARIATION: You may
have students write their own questions after you play one
round.
NAME/LIKE CHAIN WITH FIRST LETTER MATCHING (FOR BIG GROUP)A
quick way to learn students names is to get them to say their name
and with the first letter of their name they choosesomething they
like doing to fit that. For example my name is Shirley and I like
Shopping. The next student starts with "Yourname is Shirley you
like Shopping, My Name is John I like Joking" this then builds up
in a chain form around the class. At theend you do everybody's name
throughout the chain and by the end of the class you 'll know
everyone's name. Easy isn't it?
LINE UP (FOR BIG GROUP)Heres a warm-up exercise to wake up a
first or second class meeting. Have the students line up by
alphabetically order. DON'Thelp them. DON'T organize it. Have the
students ask each other their names and figure it out together.
Then you check it. Writethe names on the board. Round Two, line up
by Last name, alphabetically. Then Check. Other variations. Line up
by Birthday,Language, Distance from School, Size of family. Avoid
obvious things like physical size, weight, hair color, etc...
TEACHER PHOTOSStudents are usually very interested in the life
of their teacher. A good way to share information about yourself is
to bring your
photo albums into class. I keep my photos in a binder so that
the pages are easily removed (number them first). I let each
studentchoose a photo. They then think of three questions to ask
about each photo. I give them the answers and pair them up. They
thentell their partner about the photo and exchange photos. They
then change partners and share the information they learned
about
the new photo. You can change partners several times. It's fun
to ask questions about the photos at the end of the session
becausesometimes the information the last student has is different
from the information you gave out. This is a great way for students
tolearn about your family and experiences, even if your photos do
take a beating. You can also do the same activity with thestudents
photos.
FAMOUS PEOPLE CARDS: BEGINNER LEVEL ICE BREAKERI am an ALT in
Japan and teaching at a technical high school. It is like pulling
teeth to get the kids totalk so this is just the game to get them
started. Your first step is to make a number of cards withvarious
movie stars and such, add in a few local country celebrities as
well if possible. Put in theirname, age, residence, likes dislikes.
You can make them up if you have to but some accurateinformation
would be good. From there you distribute the cards and go over the
language necessary tocomplete the self introduction. I.E. Hello, my
name is ________ . I am __________ years old. I live in
__________. I like ___________. I dont like_____________. Have
the kids go around introducing themselves
and have them switch cards every few minutes. You should go
around and quiz them to keep thingsprogressing. From there you take
your cd player and explain that you will toss a ball or stuffed
animalaround the room. The smaller the better and shot puts and
tire irons are not a good idea. Explain thatwhen the music stops,
the person holding the item will have to go to the front and use
the card to do aself introduction. Add questions to a box and pick
students at random to pull a question out of the boxand answer it.
This forces the students to listen carefully to what the person has
to say. Works verywell in low level classes and where students are
very shy about talking.From there you can progress with the next
lesson about having the students write their own selfintroduction
and have it be a little more complicated.
FIND OUT IF For Levels: Intermediate through advancedMaterials:
Copies of the Classroom Handout, one for each student (SEE
BELOW)Directions: Introduce the topic by asking the class how much
they really know about each other. How
much do they know about their teachers? Which student has a
tattoo, for example? (Don't tell--even ifno one has a tattoo, it
will get their imaginations going.) Pass out copies of the
classroom handout andgo over any unknown vocabulary. You may also
want to do a brief grammatical review of presentperfect vs. simple
past. Remind students that conversation is quick and fluid. (I
actually teach the nogap/no overlap rule.) Tell students that they
are going to find out which of their classmates have hadthese
exciting experiences. They can ask anyone in the class any
question; if the person says "yes,"they need to ask at least three
follow-up questions to get the story. Instruct students to get up
andstart asking questions. They do not have to start at number one,
nor do they have to get through all ofthe questions on the list.
Instead, they should choose the ideas they find the most intriguing
and usethese as the starting point for good conversations. Students
should very quickly become engaged intelling their personal
stories. During this time, you can circulate and encourage
individual students toelaborate on their experiences. With about
ten minutes left in the lesson, call the class back together.
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Ask individual students to report on the most
interesting/surprising/exciting story that they heard.Encourage
students to retell the story, asking the original classmate for
clarifications if necessary. Youcould also ask for a report back on
one of the topics. For example "Did anyone find a classmate whohas
a tattoo?" Encourage students to continue their conversations
outside of class.
FIND OUT IF . . . (CLASSROOM HANDOUT)The purpose of this
activity is to practice asking questions and to get to know your
classmates better. To carry out thisactivity, you must find people
in the class who are described by the sentences below and get them
to sign your paperand give you specific details about the
experience.
Find out if someone in your class:
1. has had a problem with the police
2. has almost died
3. has met a famous person
4. has had a frightening experience on an airplane
5. has been on a terrible date
6. has gotten a tattoo
7. has performed a daredevil act
8. has backpacked in a foreign country
9. has been to a gay bar
10.has won something (for example, the lottery or a contest)
