I suppose a lot of you are already enjoying your well-deserved summer break...some of you, however, might be getting ready to start working on summer camps....I belong to the latter group of teachers...I'll put my feet up in August, but in the meantime I'm going to have heaps of fun working with a group of wonderful teens from all over the world.
Summer schools are usually dreaded by most students who'd rather stay home and do anything but study. That's why it's essential to begin your course with an activity that will simply wow your students and will make them look forward to your next class. What better way to make a great first impression on your students than starting with an exciting icebreaker on the first day of class!
Looking for new ways of getting to know my students, I have asked other fellow teachers for recommendations of some icebreakers that have worked for them in the past. I've received a lot of friendly messages with some great ideas and links to websites with even more great ideas.
Since I believe in Karma, I have no other choice but to share my findings with you. Here are some of my favourite icebreaker ideas:
Two Truths One Lie
Divide your students into pairs. Each person has to tell their partner three unlikely facts about themselves ('I once finished 6th in a regional tennis competition, I was born on an aeroplane, my siblings all have the same initials'). Two facts should be true and the other invented. They each then introduce and present the 3 facts about their partner to the class. The other students are allowed to ask for details and then have a class vote on which is false. You can limit the number of questions or put a time limit on asking questions or simple have them ask questions until they think they know the lie.
Paper Fight
Think of three or more questions and write the questions on the board. Students must then write their answers on the pieces of paper. Students then crumple the paper up into a ball and throw it at each other. Let the fight continue as people pick up paper balls off the floor and throw them. Yell stop and students must pick up a piece of paper and open it up. Students then ask each other questions trying to find the owner of the paper. Once they give the person their paper back, they can sit down.
Stringing Conversation together
Cut string or yarn into pieces of different lengths. Each piece should have a matching piece of the same length. There should be enough pieces so that each student will have one. Then give each student one piece of string, and challenge each student to find the other student who has a string of the same length. After students find their matches, they can take turns introducing themselves to one another. You can provide a list of questions to help students "break the ice," or students can come up with their own. You might extend the activity by having each student introduce his or her partner to the class. Conversation starters and icebreaker questions:
Conversation Starters
Classmate Scavenger Hunt
Provide each student with two index cards. Ask each student to write a brief description of his or her personality and interests on one index card and his or her name on the other. Put all the personality and interest description index cards in a shoe box, mix them up, and distribute one card to each student, making sure that no student gets his or her own card. Give students ten minutes to interview one another and search for the person who fits the description on the card they hold. At the end of the activity, tell students to write on the card the name of the student who best matches the description. Then have students share their results. How many students guessed correctly?
Silhouette Collage
Stock up on old magazines. Invite students to search through the magazines for pictures, words, or anything else that might be used to describe them. Then use an overhead projector or another source of bright light to create a silhouette of each student's profile; have each student sit in front of the light source as you or another student traces the outline of the silhouette on a sheet of 11- by 17-inch paper taped to the wall. Have students cut out their silhouettes, then fill them with a collage of pictures and words that express their identity. Then give each student an opportunity to share his or her silhouette with the group and talk about why he or she chose some of the elements in the collage. Post the silhouettes to create a sense of "our homeroom."
People Poems Have each child use the letters in his or her name to create an acrostic poem. For example, Aleks could write
Amiable
Laughing
Easy-going
Kind
Shy
Tell students they must include words that tell something about themselves -- for example, something they like to do or a personality or physical trait. Invite students to share their poems with the class. This activity is a fun one that enables you to learn how your students view themselves. Allow older students to use a dictionary or thesaurus. You might also vary the number of words for each letter, according to the students' grade levels.
Poetic Introduction
Ask students to use the form below to create poems that describe them.
Name ______________________
Title (of poem)_______________
I will never _______________,
I will never ________________,
and I will never ______________.
I will always ______________.
This activity lends itself to being done at the beginning of the school year and again at the end of the year. You and your students will have fun comparing their responses and seeing how the students and the responses have changed.
I Am NOT!
Here's a challenging activity that might help high school teachers learn about students' abilities to think critically. Send students into the school hallways or schoolyard, and ask each to find something that "is completely the opposite of yourself." Option: To widen the area to be explored, provide this activity as homework on the first night of school. When students bring their items back to class, ask each to describe why the item is not like him or her. You'll get a lot of flowers, of course, and students will describe how those flowers are fragrant or soft or otherwise unlike themselves. But you might also get some clever responses, such as the one from a young man who brought in the flip-top from a discarded can; he talked about its decaying outward appearance and its inability to serve a purpose without being manipulated by some other force (and how he was able to serve a purpose on his own).
Extremes: Where do you stand?
In the front of the room, create an imaginary line. All the way on the left side is one extreme, and all the way on the right side is the other extreme. Make sure there is enough space for people to stand anywhere along this imaginary line.
To play this game, you will ask everyone several questions. Everyone will then respond by standing somewhere along the imaginary line according to how strong of an opinion they have on that item. For example, if you ask people “coffee? or tea?” people will stand far along the left hand side if they strongly prefer coffee, and they will stand on the far end of the right hand side if they strongly prefer tea. If they are neutral, they will stand in the middle.
· You can ask many kinds of questions. For example,
· winter or summer?
· sweet or salty?
· Hawaii or New York City?
· rock music or classical?
· chocolate or strawberry?
· Morning person or Night person?
· Would you rather be rich or beautiful?
Many of these questions can be very funny. You can also ask many deep questions as well — use your imagination and have fun!
Four Corners
Distribute a pen and sheet of paper for each player. Each person divides the sheet into four boxes/squares either by folding the paper in half twice (vertically and horizontally) or simply by drawing a horizontal and vertical line that crosses in the middle. For each square, each person will describe themselves in the form of drawings. Choose these four topics in advance. For example, in the top left square, everyone could draw “favourite hobbies,” while in the top right, people could illustrate “favourite place on earth for vacation,” the bottom left could be something like “if you were an animal, which one would you be?” and the bottom right could be something like “what are the most important things in your life?” Feel free to be as creative, hypothetical, or deep as you like.
Allow five to ten minutes to draw. When everyone is finished, gather them together and share the drawings as a group. This icebreaker is an excellent way for students to show-and-tell what makes them unique!
Never Have I Ever
Instruct everyone to sit in a circle. If you have an extremely large group, tell people to form smaller circles of about ten to fifteen people. To start each round, each player holds out all ten fingers and places them on the floor. Go around the circle and one at a time, each person announces something that they have never done, beginning the sentence with the phrase “Never have I ever…” For example, a person could say, “Never have I ever been to Europe." For each statement that is said, all the other players drop a finger if they have done that statement. So, if three other people have been to Europe before, those three people must put down a finger, leaving them with nine fingers. The goal is to stay in the game the longest (to be the last person with fingers remaining). To win, it’s a good strategy to say statements that most people have done, but you haven’t.
Playing this game, along with the benefit of getting to know each other’s experiences better, can be very humorous (e.g. saying silly statements such as, “Never have I ever skipped a class in school" or “Never have I ever soiled my pants.")
This is me (young learners)
This is a very simple activity for very young learners who may not be able to write. They draw a picture of themselves and several of their favourite things. After they’ve completed their worksheets ask them to stand up and show their pictures to the class. If possible, you may ask them to describe or name some of the things in English.
Introduce me
This activity is a great way to start a class of adult learners who are not complete beginners. Split them up into pairs and have them take turns asking each other questions. You should have some prompts written down on the board or on a handout, and they should be suitable to their level. For example, beginner-intermediate students should have a list of questions, like
Where are you from?
What are your interests?
What's your favourite food?
More advanced students, may be simply given areas to investigate, like education, family, work, leisure activities and hobbies.
They should be encouraged to take notes, and try to remember as much as they can about their partner. Once they’re done interviewing each other, each student has to introduce his or her partner and tell the class what they've learned about that person.
Very young learners or beginners can simply be taught to ask simple questions like, “What’s your name?” and “How old are you?”, then introduce their new friend to the class: “This is Sandra. She’s 7 years old.”
Here are some links with more icebreakers and team-building activities:
Education world
Icebreakers
ESL Conversation Questions
ESL cafe
Busy Teacher
Feel free to comment with more ideas. The more the merrier!
