Using 5 minute activities to warm up the language classroom

After that, I desire to show out a littlebit of my knowledge to suggest some short activities as teachingmaterials for language teachers to help them motivate pupils sothat the learners

Many of my teachers, friends as well as my parents have been of invaluable assistance and encouragement in the completion of this graduation thesis

First of all, my greatest debt and special thanks is to my supervisor:

Mr Phan V¨n TiÕn who graciously helped me so much in finishing this thesis Also, I want to express my deep gratitude to Mr Ng« §×nh Ph¬ng (MA) , the dean of FLD, and many other teachers in FLD for their useful and valuable advice

for my work

I’m especially indebted to Ms Jody Gilbert whose materials are so useful for

my study

Besides I could not have finished this thesis without the breadth and depth of

expertise from my friends, especially the great help of NguyÖt and Hoµ They are

always by my side during the process of doing my thesis Thanks a lot, my friends!

To my parents, their encouragement and care helped me a lot in perfecting my thesis Thank you so much, Dad and Mum!

To everyone, thanks indeed!

NguyÔn thÞ H¶i L©m  

Part II: investigation

Chapter I: Theoretical preliminaries

1 The communicative language teaching approach

10101112131313

14141516

Chapter II: * 5 – minute activities *

The procedures for applying them into warming up

the language classroom

2.3 Different teaching aims when using 5 – minute

activities to warm up the language classroom

191920

22222324

25

4040414242434446474849

2.3.3 Warming up to lead pupils into the new lesson………

3 List of 5 – minute activities suggested and their procedures to apply……….

Chapter III : Survey design Presentation the factual role of warm – up activities in the high school and the need for short activities Survey questionnaires………

Result ………

Findings………

Suggestion of some typical 5 – minute activities using in teaching English for pupils of the 10th form What should be considered before applying an activity into the classtime………

… The teaching style………

Class composition and class learning level………

Integrating activities into the syllabus………

Some typical samples ………

Lesson 25………

Lesson 23………

Lesson 26 ………

Lesson 22 ………

50

52 53 54

1 the reasons for choosing the subject

English nowadays is increasingly being used as a tool forinteraction among nonnative speakers Well over one half of theone billion English speakers of the world learned English as asecond or foreign language English is not frequently learned as atool for understanding and teaching the native English countriescultural values Instead, English has become a tool for internationalcommunication in transportation, commerce, banking, tourism,technology, diplomacy and scientific research And as Crystal, 1997

said: “ today, we are concerned with global ecology and

global economy And English has been described as a global language” (quoted from the Reference Book N09).

Facing with the increasing demand for learning English, EFLteaching is, of course, required to develop more and more thanever before in the lesson content, especially in the method ofteaching, to meet that need

Methodology matter is always a prerequisite and difficultcondition for all teachers They toss in their sleep about how toteach children well and get them really actively involved in all theclasstime

The present time left no room for an old teacher with his 10 –year - never - changed syllabus, especially nowadays when thecommunicative approach is being applied into EFL class, soteachers are necessary to wake their pupils up all the time by theirteaching methods Learning English needs a noisy atmosphere.Both teacher and pupils are required to be active And the mostsuccessful English learners are those who are the most active inthe classtime So language learners need to be motivated rightfrom the beginning of the lesson

In the success of language learning, the motivation plays a

very important role H Douglas Brown (Teaching by principles,

page: 72) said that: “ Motivation is the difference between

success and failure If they’re motivated they’ll learn, and

if not, they won’t”” Especially, the language learners in the

high school are still children, so they’ll be more motivated to learnwith various kinds of games or short activities

Almost in the 5 minutes at the beginning of eachlesson, teachers feel

embarrassed and confused in organizing the class and gettingpupils into the mood for speaking English Those 5 minutes seemwasteful because they do not either contribute anything to the newlesson or motivate the language learners And as a result, pupils

still don’t want to participate in learning language because oflacking motivation.

The high school teachers, especially the less experiencedteachers, if they know how to make use of the 5 minutes at thebeginning of the lesson, their teaching result would be morebeneficial But in fact teachers still do not highly appreciate theimportance of warm- up activities, in addition, they are lacking oneeffective way to motivate the language classroom

Taking that fact into account, I decided to choose this matterfor my thesis with the hope that I can make teachers more aware

of the value of warm- up activities to make use of the first 5minutes in their lesson time After that, I desire to show out a littlebit of my knowledge to suggest some short activities as teachingmaterials for language teachers to help them motivate pupils sothat the learners can get success in mastering English as theforeign language All of these above are the reasons why I chosethis thesis to deal with

2 The aims of the subject

The thesis has been done with a wish that it can contribute alittle to the improvement of teaching English in the high school,especially to the that can motivate pupils in learning English fromthe first 5 minutes in each lesson Therefore, when deciding to dothis thesis, I aim at:

_ Helping all teachers and pupils more aware of the greatlearning value of warming up the class to motivate pupils andmake use of the short minutes at the start of the lesson

_ Presenting the factual role of the warming up activities inthe high school and the attitude from teachers towards thisproblem, and also, it gives the need for short activities in thelesson time

_ Providing a list of 5 - minute activities and procedures to helpteachers, especially young teachers make it useful the first 5

minutes in each lesson in order to achieve a totally successfulteaching and learning result.

_ Helping pupils become more active and motivated withvarious kinds of short activities then they’ll be involved in solvinglanguage learning problems to get success

And finally the thesis that I carried out has a great role inwidening my knowledge and the others’ as well about Englishlanguage, especially English teaching methodology

3.The scope of the subject

The thesis is written about the using of short activities whichonly takes 5 minutes to warm up the language classroom in order

to achieve a more effective result in teaching and learning EFL forthe pupils of the 10th form in the high school The topic is aboutthe language classroom but in this thesis we only mention thelanguage classroom of the 10 th form in the high school

And it’s also about a small survey to find out the factual role

of warm- up activities and the real need for short activities of theteachers in motivating their pupils in learning English

4 The methods of studying the subject

Developing and improving the teaching methods can alwaysdraw much attention from many teachers Therefore, this thesisshows out one way of teaching, that is using 5- minute activities towarm up the language class before teaching the new lesson Inorder to complete this thesis I have used different methods asfollow:

 Collecting information and useful materials for the thesis

 Going to the high school to get opinions from the teachers aboutthe necessity of warm- up activities in teaching and learningEnglish and presenting the need for short games

 Observing some classes to know the factual learning of thepupils and their motivation for learning foreign languages.

 Selecting and classifying the results of the survey and othermaterials to make them logical and suitable for the thesis

the design of the subject

The thesis consists of 3 main parts:

Part I is the introduction of the thesis

Part II is the investigation with 3 main chapters:

Chapter I : Theoretical preliminaries

Chapter II : * 5 – minute activities *

The procedures for applying them into warming up the

language classroom

Chapter III : Survey design

Part III is the conclusion of the thesis

Besides the 3 main parts, the thesis also includes theacknowledgements, the table of content and the references

Some abbreviations:

EFL : English as a Foreign Language.

LAD : Language Acquisition Device

L1 & L2 : The 1st language & the 2nd language

TLC : Target Language Community

ELT : English Language Teaching

Part II: investigation

Chapter I: theoretical preliminaries

1 The Communicative Language Teaching Approach (CLT) Within the last quarter of 20Th century, communicativelanguage teaching has been put forth around the world as the

“new”, or “innovative”, way to teach English as a second orforeign language Teaching materials, course descriptions, andcurriculum guidelines proclaim a goal of communicativecompetence

The course of study for Senior High School, published by theJapanese Ministry of Education, Science, and culture(Mombusho) state the objectives of ELT: “To develop students’positive attitude towards communicating in a foreign language,and to heighten their interest in language and culture, thusdeepening international understanding” (Wada 1994, Page 1)

(quoted from the reference Book N 0 10 ).

That is the objective, the goal of CTL approach Today weare exploring pedagogical means for “real- life” communication

in the classroom We are trying to get our learners to developlinguistic fluency, not just the accuracy that so consumed ourhistorical journey We are concerned with how to facilitatelifelong language learning among our students, not just with theimmediate classroom task

Studying about the definition of CLT, H Douglas Brown, San

Francisco State University (Teaching by Principles: 43)

offered some following interconnected characteristics as adescription of CLT:

 The classroom goals are focused on all of the components ofcommunicative competence (for example: grammatical,discourse, functional…)

 Students in a communicative class ultimately have to use thelanguage, productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contextsoutside the classroom

 Students are given opportunities to focus on their own learningprocess through an understanding of their own styles of learningand through the development of appropriate strategies forautonomous learning

2 Success in language learning

Why are some students successful at language learning whilstothers are not? If we knew the answer to that question the job ofteaching and learning a language would be easy There’s no exactanswer to it, but we can point to a number of factors which seem

to have a strong effect on a student’s success or failure

Jeremy Harmer works on this matter and he points out thesefactors :

Motivation is some kind of internal drives that encourages

somebody to pursue a course of action If we perceive a goal (that

is, something we wish to achieve) and if that goal is sufficientlyattractive, we will be strongly motivated to do whatever isnecessary to reach that goal Goals can be of different types, forexample, if we are determined to own a new compact disc player,

a bike or a horse we may work overtime in order to earn thenecessary money If we want to win a TV general knowledge quiz

we may put in incredibly long hours of fact - learning activity

Language learners who are motivated perceive goals of

various kinds We can make a useful distinction between term goals and long- term goals.

Long - term goals might have something to do with a wish

to get a better job at some future date, or a desire to be able tocommunicate with members of a target language community(TLC)

Short - term goals might include such things as wanting to

pass an end- of- semester test or wanting to finish a unit in a book

In general, strongly motivated students with long - termgoals are probably easier to teach than those who have no suchgoals (and therefore no real drive) For such students short- termgoals will often provide the only motivation they feel

What kind of motivation do students have? Is it always thesame? We will separate it into two main categories: extrinsicmotivation, which is concerned with factors outside the classroom,and intrinsic motivation, which is concerned with what takes placeinside the classroom

2.1.1 Extrinsic motivation

According to Jeremy Harmer (The Practice of EnglishLanguage Teaching), some students study a language becausethey have an idea of something, which they wish to achieve It hasbeen suggested that there are two main types of such motivation,integrative motivation and instrumental motivation

(a) Integrative motivation

For this kind of motivation students need to be attracted bythe culture of the TLC and in the strong form of integrativemotivation they wish to integrate themselves into that culture Aweaker form of such motivation would be the desire to know asmuch as possible about the culture of the TLC

(b) Instrumental motivation

This term describes a situation in which students believethat

mastery of the target language will be instrumental in getting them

a better job, position or status The language is an instrument intheir attainment of such a goal

Another factor affecting the attitude of students is theirprevious experiences as language learners If they were successfulthen they may be pre - disposed to success now Failure then maymean that they expect failure now

What can teachers do about extrinsic motivation and studentattitude? It is clear that we cannot create it since it comes into theclassroom from outside It is clear, too, that students have to beprepared to take some responsibility for their own learning Butwith that in mind we can still do our best to ensure that studentsview the language and the learning experience in a positive light

We can do this by creating a positive attitude to the language andits speakers, and encouraging to our students rather than criticaland destructive

2.1.2 Intrinsic motivation

While it is reasonable to suppose that many adult learnershave some degrees of extrinsic motivation, and while it is clearthat the attitude of students can be affected by members of theircommunities, there can be no doubt that intrinsic motivation plays

a vital part in most students’ success or failure as languagelearners Many students bring no intrinsic motivation to the

classroom They may even have negative feelings about languagelearning For them what happens in the classroom will be of vitalimportance in determining their attitude to the language, and insupplying motivation, which we have suggested is a vitalcomponent in successful language learning As we have alsosuggested above, what happens in the classroom will have animportant effect on students who are already in some wayextrinsically motivated Let’s consider Edward Deci’s definition ofintrinsic motivation (1975: 23) (quoted from the Reference Book

2.2 Motivational differences

To know exactly how or why your students are motivated willmean finding out how they feel about learning English at thebeginning of a course (this would anyway be a good idea since itwould give the teacher valuable information about the students) It

is unlikely that everyone in the class will have the samemotivation, and we have already said that motivation is a mixture

of different factors Nevertheless it is possible to make somegeneral statements about motivational factors for different agegroups and different levels We will look at children andadolescents only

2.2.1 Children

More than anything else, children are curious, and this ismotivating in itself At the same time their span of attention orconcentration is less than of an adult Children will often seek

teacher approval: the fact that the teacher notices them and showsappreciation for what they are doing is of vital importance.

Children need frequent changes of activity: they needactivities, which are exciting and stimulate their curiosity: theyneed to be involved in something active (they will usually not sitand listen!), and they need to be appreciated by the teacher, animportant figure for them It is unlikely that they will have anymotivation outside these considerations, and so almost everythingfor them will depend on the attitude and behavior of the teacher

2.2.2 Adolescents

Adolescents are perhaps the most interesting students toteach, but they can also present, the teacher with more problemsthan any other age groups

We can certainly not expect any extrinsic motivation from themajority of our students - particularly the younger ones We mayhope, however, that those have positively influenced the students’attitude around them We have to remember that adolescents areoften brittle! They will probably not be inspired by mere curiosity,and teacher approval is no longer of vital importance Indeed, theadolescents may not be the leader, but rather the potential enemy.Peer approval will, however, be important

The teacher should never, then, forget that adolescentsneed to be seen in a good light by their peers and that with thechanges taking place at that age they are easily prone tohumiliation if the teacher is careless with criticism But adolescentsalso can be highly intelligent if stimulated, and dedicated ifinvolved At this age, getting the level of challenge right “switchoff”: where it is too high they may become discouraged and de-motivated It is the teacher’s task, too, to put language teachinginto an interesting context for the students More than anythingelse they have to be involved in the task and eager to accomplishit

3 The concept of activities.

3.1 What is an activity?

When working on the lesson planning, Jeremy Harmer(Teaching by Principles) gave his opinion about activity which issaid that:

“Activities” is a loose term used to give a general description

of what will happen in a class It is important to realize that here

we are not talking about what, generally and physically, thestudents are going to do

A game is an activity; so is a simulation Warming up theclass is an activity The introduction of new language is also anactivity; so is a parallel writing or story reconstruction Listening is

an activity, so is an oral composition

An activity is what teachers think of when they are asked “

What are you going to do in class today? ” Rather than give detailsthey will often say, “ Oh, I’ve got a nice group-writing task andthen we’re going to do a song”

When teachers think of what to do in their classes it is vital toconsider the students and what they have been doing recently If,for example, they have been doing largely controlled work (e.g.presentation and controlled practice) then the teacher may welltake a preliminary decision to plan a freer activity Onlysubsequently will he or she decide what skill or skills this mightinvolve If recent work has been very tiring, challenging, and over-serious the teacher may make an immediate decision to include anactivity whose main purpose is to give the students an enjoyabletime If, on the other hand, the last two classes have largelyconsisted of communicative activities the teacher may decide toinclude language input or controlled work

The decision about what activities are to be included in aplan is a vital first stage in the planning process The teacher isforced to consider, above all, what would be most beneficial andmotivating for the students

3.2 The classification of activities

A classification of activity types along such a continuumprovides the options from which the teacher can select givensequence within a lesson Valcarcel et al (1985) have developed atentative list of activity types Marianne Celce-Murcia andcolleagues have grouped this list according to four phases of

instructional sequencing in class (quoted from “Teaching English

as a Second or Foreign Language , Marianne Celce-Murcia,

Thomson learning, 1999: 33”)

 Information and Motivation (in which learners’ interest,

experience, and relevant language knowledge are aroused)

 Input/ Control (in which learners are involved in deepening

their understanding by close attention to detail)

 Focus/ Working (in which individual linguistic and thematic

difficulties can be isolated and examined in depth)

 Transfer/ Application (in which new knowledge and the

learner’s refined communicative abilities can be put to activeuse)

3.2.1 Information and Motivation phase

Warm-up: mime, dance, song, jokes, play, etc.; the purpose is

to get the students stimulated, relaxed, motivated, attentive, orotherwise engaged and ready for the classroom lesson; not

necessarily related to the target language

Brainstorming: free undirected contributions by the studentsand teacher

on a given topic to generate multiple associations without linkingthem; no explicit analysis or interpretation is given by the teacher

3.2.2 Input/ Control Phase

Role-play demonstration: use of selected students or teacher to

illustrate the procedures to be applied in the following lesson

segment; it includes brief illustration of language or other content

to be incorporated

Question-answer display: controlled activity involving promoting

of students responses by means of display questions (teacher orquestioner already knows the response or has a very limited set ofexpectations for the appropriate response); these are distinguishedfrom referential questions by means of the likelihood of thequestioner knowing the response and the speaker being aware ofthe questioner knowing the response

3.2.3 Focus/ Working Phase

Dictation: students write down orally presented text.

Game: organized language activity that has a particular task

or objective and a set of rules which involve an element ofcompetition between players (e.g., board games, hangman, bingo,etc.,); it usually implies entertainment and relaxation

Checking: teacher guides the correction of students’ previousactivity or homework, providing feedback as an activity rather thanwithin another activity

3.2.4 Transfer/ Application phase

Role play: students act out specified roles and functions in a

relatively free way; distinguished from cued dialogues by thecueing being provided only minimally at the beginning, not during,the activity

Discussion: debate or other form of group discussion of specifictopic, with or without specific sides/ position prearranged

3.3 What is a balanced activities approach in teaching and learning EFL

Most language teaching is designed to teach students

to communicate,

however, learning is organized Rather than worry about theseapparent contradictions, it is perhaps better to see themethodology in terms of activities, which we involve students in,and to assemble a balanced program of such activities JeremyHarmer defined that:

A balanced activities approach sees the job of the

teacher as that of ensuring that students get a variety of activitieswhich foster acquisition and which foster learning

A balanced activities approach has a more human

aspect, however, which is bound up with the concerns of intrinsicmotivation By presenting students with a variety of activities wecan ensure their continuing interest and involvement in thelanguage program Classes, which continually have the sameactivities, are not likely sustain interest, particularly wherestudents have no extrinsic motivation and do not perceive anylong-term goals A program that presents a variety of activities, onthe other hand, is far more likely to continually engage students’interest

The balanced activities approach, then, sees the

methodology as being a balance between the components we wish

to include in that approach, and it is an approach that sees thestudents’ continuing interest and involvement in the learningprocess as being the necessary dominant factor in languageteaching

hapter II: * 5 - minute activities *

the procedures for applying them into warming up

the language classroom

1 The 5-minute activities

1.1.What is a 5 - minute activity?

One kind of short activities, which only takes 5 minutes at thebeginning of each lesson time, is a 5- minute activity.

For example : if in our pre - planning of a lesson we want to

review vocabulary but we don’t want to waste so much time, weonly have 5 minutes to do that Here is a good 5 - minute activity:

_ Name : “Draw a word”.

_ Aim : Vocabulary review

_ Procedure : Whisper to one student, or write down on a slip

of paper, a word or phrase that the class has recently learnt Thestudent draws a representation of it on the board: this can be adrawing, a symbol, or a hint clarified through miming The rest ofthe class has to guess the item

1.2 The need for short activities

When preparing one lesson, we start by planning the mainitems we want to include: the teaching of a new grammar point, forexample, or a grammar exercise, or the reading of the text Butonce we have prepared the main components of the lesson, and

t r a v e l

make sure it is (hopefully!) learning-rich, varied and interesting, wemay find we still need some extra ingredients to make it into asmooth, integrated unit We may need, for example:

 A quick warm-up for the beginning to get the students into theright mood for learning;

 An idea for a brief vocabulary review before starting a newtext;

 A light filler to provide relief after a period of intense effort andconcentration

 A brief orientation activity to prepare a change of mood or topic;

 A game or amusing items to round off the lesson with a smile,i.e., to consolidate the lesson satisfactorily

Besides contributing to routine lesson planning, we may findshort activities can be of use in non- routine situations as well:when, for example, we have to fill in for another teacher and needsome quick, easily- prepared ideas for instant use; or for supplyingextra content for an English club evening or English party; forhelping a group of new students to get to know one another; or forkeeping students profitably busy when you unexpectedly haveextra time on our hands

2 Warm- up activities: one subsection in the rhythm of alesson

2.1 Introduction

Covering all the year round are four seasons: spring,summer, autumn, then winter One day begins with the morning,noon in the middle and the end is a beautiful night A songbecomes beautiful because of having the melody Everything runsalong with its own rhythm, with its own melody, like a lesson, italso has its own rhythm consisting of three sections: warming up,introducing the new language and consolidating

At the first several minutes, it’s necessary to warm thelanguage classroom up

to motivate pupils In the rhythm of each lesson, the start is alwaysvery important, it plays a vital role to make the teaching andlearning successful under whatever circumstances.

When the ice broken, all students are warm enough to beready for the new lesson, that is the time for the packed syllabus to

be carried out Maintaining the class during the time of introducingand teaching the new language is the second section of a lesson Before the bell rings we need to give students time toreflect on what they’ve done and what they’ve learnt during thelesson Don’t let the lesson end so abruptly with the teacherrealizing that there isn’t time for everything on the lesson plan,breaking off an activity as hearing the bell and hurriedly settinghomework The last few minutes at the end of each lesson toconsolidate everything is the last section of the lesson

All of the above are the rhythm of a lesson with the firstsection containing warm-up activities for the first few minutes, thefinal section devoted to rounding off activities to consolidate thelesson and the middle part is the time of the new languageteaching and learning

2.2 The role of warming up activities in teaching languages

It is hard to overestimate the importance of a “warm- up”.

It makes no difference if we have a packed syllabus waiting to betaught Time and again we have finished a lesson and felt that weshould have done a lot more warm-up activities on the first fewminutes With hindsight, we can see just how much time wouldhave been saved by warming the students up better at the start ofthe lesson

Musicians tune their instruments up, athletes never sprintuntil their bodies are prepared, and people in a choir do vocalexercises before singing Our students, too, need to warm into boththe target language and being in their group

When working on the matter of the role of warming upactivities, I do really like this poem:

Go and open the door,

Maybe outside there’s

a tree, or a wood,

a garden,

Or a magic city.

Go and open the door.

Maybe a dog’s rummaging.

Maybe you’ll see a face,

Or an eye,

Or the picture

of a picture.

Go and open the door

Even if there’s only

the darkness ticking,

even if there’s only

the hollow wind,

It is obviously important to begin to establish a good groupatmosphere right

from the start of the lesson in order to motivate all the students When students come into their first period in the morningtheir energy level will be low They may be half- awake, their mindsmay be full of last night’s problems or a row they had at breakfast,they may not have spoken English since we last saw them It isimportant to begin the morning by warming them up with a short,not- too- demanding activity, which will energize pupils and putthem in the mood for learning and also allow time incidentally forlatecomers to arrive before starting the lesson Warm-up activitiesare not only important in getting the motivation from the studentsfor their learning but also help them be ready and familiar withsome vocabularies dealing with the checking up of the old lesson

or some new words existing in the new language

2.3 Different teaching aims when using 5-minute activities to warm up the language classroom

What do we do when entering the classroom and start ourlesson? Usually, the first five minutes are wasteful in organizing theclass and drawing the attention from students Why don’t wesurprise the students and broaden the range of what we do whenwalking into the room? Why don’t we make use of the first fiveminutes for our teaching aims? If this period that the students aresettling down both physically and mentally is carefully handled, wecan facilitate a lot of learning without even realizing it

There are many different teaching aims when using the minute activities to warm up the class, such as: asking usualquestions to get students talking, playing a short game to check upthe old lesson, taking something from outside into the class toprepare for what we are going to teach in the lesson today, telling

5-a story which rel5-ated to the new l5-angu5-age, doing something th5-atwill surprise the students or even not say anything at all, etc… All

of them are to draw attention of the students, to motivate themand to lead them into the main aim of our lesson today.

Here are some ways to get the class started for the new lesson:

2.3.1 Warming up the language class to get started

 Greet the students individually, ask them how they are feelingand coax a little small talk from them

 Ask if students can remember what we did in the last lesson

 Check if the students can remember a specific teaching pointfrom a previous lesson

 Set a riddle

 Do something completely unexpected

 Say something provocative and controversial

 Comment on some aspect of the students’ appearance

 Tease somebody about something

 Get the students to report back on their homework

 Ask each student for an example of something positive andsomething not so positive from their life

 Tell some good news and some bad news from our life andask students to do the same

 Take up some conversation points we recently discussed inclass

 Question the students on what they think about some topicalissues

 Ask the students to describe an aspect of their culture

 Get the students to explain something to us

 Request advice about something

 Get the students to each ask us a question or two

 Start the lesson with a short silence, a meditation or a prayer

 Praise individual students or the whole class on their progress

 Just stand or sit silently in front of the class and wait for aresponse

2.3.2 Warming up to get pupils talking

By asking these questions teacher can warm up the class andget pupils talking.

 What were you talking about when I came into the room?

 What did you do in your previous lesson?

 What did you do last night?

 What are your plans for this evening/ the coming weekend/the holidays?

 What have been reading recently?

 What’s in the news today?

 Has anyone read their horoscope this week?

 Why is it so quite/ busy in town today?

 What’s new at home/ school/ work or in general?

 When did you last use your English?

 Has anyone seen/heard the weather forecast?

 I think my watch is wrong What is the exact time?

 What did you have for breakfast this morning?

 I’ve just bought a new… (shirt) What was the last thing youbought?

 At the last lesson you predicted the lottery result Did youhave any number correct?

 Last week we each guessed the score in the Cup Final Didanyone get it right?

 I read/ saw/ heard yesterday that… what do you think?

 Did anyone see that program about… on TV last night? Whatdid you think of it?

 Is anyone missing? When was the last time he/she was here?

 What would you like to do today?

2.3.3 Warming up to lead pupils into the new lesson

By doing one of the following things, you can both warm theclass up and lead them into the main aim of your new lesson:

 Bring in a picture

 Tell a joke

 Tell an anecdote or story

 Play or sing a song.

 Read or ask a student to read out, or short text on a relatedtopic

 Begin with a quotation or proverb

 Ask a rhetorical question

 Draw something unclearly on the board and get the students

to guess what it is

 Mime the topic or some details connected with it

 Brainstorm associated words and concepts

 Make the topic the subject of a quick ‘20 Questions’ section

 Revise structures and vocabulary you expect to come up

 Get the students to guess what the topic is from a list of key

 Expressions associated with it

 Tell the students what you plan to do today, and tell themwhy

 Give each student a card with a word related to the topicwritten on it

 Tell the students that they have two minutes to think abouttheir words in

silence They then have to share their ideas and associationswith the

class As a simple guessing game, demonstrate what you aregoing to do

today, without actually saying what it is

3. List of 5-minute activities suggested and theirprocedures to apply into teaching EFL

3.1. Activity 1:

_ Name : Ambiguous picture

_ Aim : Describing and vocabulary practice

_ Procedure : Draw a small part of a picture Ask the studentswhat it is going to be Encourage different opinions Do not confirm

or reject their ideas Add a little more to the drawing and ask thequestion again Build your picture up in about four stages

_ Name : Blackboard Bingo

_ Aim : Listening, reading, and vocabulary revision

_ Procedure : Write on the board 10 or 15 words which youwould like to review Tell the students to choose any five of themand write them down Read out the words, one by one and in anyorder If the students have written down one of the words you callout they cross it off When they have crossed off all their five words

they tell you by shouting “ Bingo” Keep a record of what you say

in order to be able to check that the students really have heard alltheir words

3.3.Activity 3:

_ Name : Brainstorm round a word.

_ Aim : Vocabulary review and enrichment

_ Procedure : Take a word the class has recently learnt, and askthe students to suggest all the words they associate with it Writeeach suggestion on the board with a line joining to the original

word, in a circle, so that you get a “ sunray” effect If the originalword was “ weather ”, for example, you might get:

_ Aim : Listening comprehension of isolated words

_ Procedure : Ask the students to draw two or three columns on paper and givethem a category heading for each For example, food and drink, or animal, vegetable,mineral Then dictate a series of words, which can fit into one of the categories Theyhave to write a cross or tick in the appropriate column for each word you dictate Forexample, the headings “ Food” and “ Drink”, and the items “ tea, apple, bread,coffee, cake, water, egg, meat” might result in:

_ Name : Changing sentences.

_ Aim : Practice of sentence patterns

_ Procedure : Choose a simple sentence pattern, which can bebased on a

grammatical structure you have recently learnt For example, ifyou have been

studying indirect object, take a sentence like:

She wrote a letter to her sister.

Then students invent variations, either by changing one element

at a time:

She wrote a letter to her husband.

Or by changing as much as they like, provided they maintain theoriginal pattern:

The pilot sent a signal to the airport.

3.6. Activity 6:

_ Name : Correcting mistakes

_ Aim : Identifying and correcting mistakes in English,encouraging students

to monitor their own mistakes

_ Procedure: write up a few sentences on the boards that havedeliberate mistakes in them If you wish, tell the students inadvance how many mistakes there are in each sentence With theirhelp, correct them There are some possible sentences in the Box,

in order of difficulty, together with the corrected versions Or,better, use (anonymous!) examples taken from their own writtenwork

Note: It is important to stress the fact that the sentences

initially presented are unacceptable, and to make corrections onthe board so that the students are left with the image of thecorrect sentences at the end of the activity