8392 types of warm ups

Create new words: Language and skills vocabulary, spelling, combining letters into known words Level beginners / intermediate / advanced Time 2 minutes and more depends on teacher and

Warm Ups

1 Create new words:

Language

and skills

vocabulary, spelling, combining letters into known words

Level beginners / intermediate / advanced

Time 2 minutes and more (depends on

teacher and learners)

Materials paper and pen (dictionary for

checking spelling)

Preparation none

Procedure

Pair, group or individual work The learners should write as many

words as they can using letters in the words JOB ADVERTISEMENT.

They can use fewer letters but not more Examples: men, read, red, advent, tea, a, an, the, tear etc

The teacher can decide on categories such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and learners have to write words that fall into the category

or the topic is given such as PROFESSION, HOBBIES, TRAVELLING etc and learners should write words that would fall under the topic label

2 Fill in words:

Language

and skills

topic related vocabulary, spelling, dictionary work

Level intermediate / advanced

Materials paper, pen, dictionaries

Procedure: Individual/pair or group work.

The teacher writes words job advertisement on the blackboard like

this:

J

O

B

These letters are initial letters of words learners must write Less advanced learners can write any words, for advanced learners teacher can state the topic area such as JOBS (examples given), INTERESTS, ENVIRONMENT In case the teacher uses this activity as a warm up activity for the lesson that aims at making use of job advertisements in developing language and skills, such areas as WORK, PROFESSION, WORK PLACE are strongly recommended

The learners can check their words with each other or in dictionaries This activity can be organized as a competition with a time limit

Jobs around us:

Language

and skills thematic vocabulary, spelling,dictionary work

intermediate / advanced

Materials paper and pen (dictionary for

checking spelling)

Procedure: Individual work leading to class work The teacher

writes the alphabet in a column on the blackboard The learners must use every letter as an initial letter of a job If necessary the teacher can deliberately omit letters which are not initial letters of any job Less advanced learners can use dictionaries, for advanced learners a time limit can be set

Example: Accountant, Businessman, Correspondent, Designer,

etc

Who is this job for?

Language

and skills

scanning / answering questions

Level pre-intermediate / intermediate

Materials copies of several adverts

Preparation questions written on the blackboard

or transparency

Procedure: Learners work in pair and skim job adverts to find

answers to the following question:

Which job would be suitable for someone who:

- Enjoys traveling?

- Has business experience and wants responsibility?

- Can't work during the day?

- Has got telephone skills?

- Can't work in the evenings or at weekend?

In the feedback session learners justify their ideas by forming

statements such as:

Sales representative is a good job for someone who likes traveling

"Describing Something"

Make up a handout with pictures or names of famous people (around 20 is good) Give some hints, such as, "He's American," "He's black," "He's a sport player,"

"He plays golf." By this time the students will have guessed Tiger Woods They will then cross Tiger Woods off their list Turn it over to the students and they will take turns describing the people to each other

This game would also work for almost any topic (animals/food/clothes, etc)

Shootout at the ESL Corral

Divide the class into groups of two You can do this on 2 sides of the class, at their desks standing up or get the kids to make a line at the front of the class as well

Then, there are 2 variations The first one is that the first 2 students play rock/scissor/paper The loser has to answer a question about what you've been studying I used it a lot of math when I was studying that for a couple days with the kids I'd say what is 5x8 and give them 5 seconds to answer If they got it, they went to the back of their line, or remain standing If not, they sit down and the game is over for them The second variation is to just ask a question to both students and the loser sits down

It's a fun, high energy game with a lot of excitement to it The kids seemed like they couldn't get enough of it And you can use pretty much any topic you want And it's definitely heavy on the listening and speaking skills

Boggle

Make a grid on the board, maybe 6x6 Then fill in the squares with common letters Then the students make words, with at least 3 letters Each word can only

use each letter once and the letters must be touching You can go diagonal, up, down, whatever

The Alphabet

Put them in teams of 2 and have them write the alphabet on a piece of paper Then you can give them a topic

Example: "Words to describe a city."

B-Busy,

E-Exciting

Give them 3 or 4 minutes, collect the papers, check for the crazy answers, add up the points and you have a winner!

The Toilet Paper

This is the perfect way to start your first class, if there are less than 15 students Bring in a roll of toilet paper Tell students they can choose between 2 and 6 pieces It's up to them how many they take Tell them no other details When everyone has some paper, tell the students that they have to say one sentence about themselves for each piece that they have Example: name/favorite food/ hobby/ members

of their family

English as a Second Language Students

Write the vocab words on a flip chart of some sort Divide the class up into teams 5-8 people/team works well One student from the team comes and sits at the front of the class facing his or her teammates Show one word at a time to the team but not the person sitting at the front The team has to give hints about the word, in English only, using no body language

An example: EYE Hints students give: 2, on face, I can see

2 or 3 rounds of 1 minute each and the goal is to get as many words as possible

in that 1 minute If the team uses body language or Spanish, discount that point

Comic Strip Challenge

There are lots of simple comic strips that you can find on the internet to use for this activity Post it up

on your powerpoint and there are 2 different things you can do:

1 Blank out the dialogue and have students make up their own Put them in groups of 2-4, depending on the size of the class Award a small prize for the most interesting one

2 Leave the dialogue, and give the students a few minutes to read and try to understand what is happening Then, take the comic off the screen and ask a few understanding questions

Steal the Eraser

Divide the students into 2 teams Have 2 desks at the front of the class, facing each other, with an eraser in the middle of the 2 desks One student from each team comes and sits in the hot seat Rotate through so that all the students get a chance to play You then ask a question of some sort The first person that grabs the eraser can try to answer the question The rule is that you can take the eraser whenever you want, but I"ll only say the question once Count 10 seconds down on my fingers Their team can help them with the answer, but only

in English If correct, they get 1 point If not, the other team gets a chance to answer the question

This week in class, we're studying "When I _, I / I when I

So, I would say something like, "When I feel happy, I _." Or "I'm late for school when "

To make it even more exciting or if one team is behind by a lot of points, have a

"Bonus Round," where the teams pick their best 3 players and each question is worth 2 or 3 points

Famous People

Put the students in groups of 2-3-4 Have them pick 4 famous people, dead or alive that they'd like to invite to a party they are having Then, they have to say the reason why they're inviting

Person: Michael Jackson Reason? He can play some dance music for us Also, I want to know why he got so much plastic surgery

Give them a few minutes, depending on the level Then, I get the student to pick 1

or 2 of the people, depending on the size of the class and tell the rest of the class

S-O-S

If you get three "S" in a row or three "O" in a row you draw a line through it and

Draw a grid on the board, usually 6x6 Give them numbers and letters to make it easier for the students to pick what box they want Then, divide the students up into teams of 4 or 5 and give them each a symbol (triangle, square, star, heart, etc) Then, ask review questions, going from team to team Simple, easy questions with a definite right or wrong answer are best to keep this game moving quickly A correct answer gets them a square on the board Do 6 or 7 rounds, and

by this time the good teams will have 2 or 3 points The top team gets a prize, this game gets boring after 20 minutes or so, so don't plan on playing this for an entire class It works best as a warm-up review kind of game

The World Cup

First, write up some questions "What time did you wake up this morning?" or "How long did it take you

to come to school this morning?"

Then, in class count up your students and make up

a "draw." You know, the round of 16, quarter-finals, semis and the final If you have an odd number and it doesn't quite work, make up some "last-chance spots." So all the people who lost their game in the section of the draw can compete against each other for the last spot Write up student's names in the draw, randomly To add some more fun, and for smaller classes you can get students to pick a country For bigger classes, wait until the semi-finals before you allow country picking

Anyway, ask the students a question from your list and the person to answer the fastest gets to move onto the next round That's it!