Icebreakers/Introduction Activities Activity 1 : Match the person to the information Rationale: This activity has students work on sentence
writing and helps them getting to know each other. Materials: Index cards, Markers/pens, and possibly candy for prizes Procedure: 1. Give students two index cards a piece. Ask them to write their names on one card and a sentence about themselves on the other. For example: a. Card 1: RANDY b. Card 2: I like bike riding around Flagstaff. The name should be written in block capitals, so that the handwriting on the two cards cannot be easily matched. For this reason it might also be helpful to have students use a different pen/marker for each card. 2. Put students into groups and have them take turns introducing themselves to the group and reading out their sentences. 3. Tell the students to shuffle the groups cards together, then lay them out face down on the table. 4. The students take turns to try to find matching pairs of cards. To do this, they turn two cards face up. If they think they have found a pair, they point to the relevant person and say, for example, This is Randy. He likes riding his bike around Flagstaff. If they are correct they get to keep the cards. If they are wrong, they turn them back on the table face down. 5. Award a piece of candy to the student with the most cards in the end. Activity 2: Questions & Questionnaires Rationale: This activity gives students practice with interviewing each other and writing down survey questions. It allows students to generate the interview questions they would find interesting. Procedure: 1. Explain to the students that they are going to create interview questions in order to better know their classmates. 2. Help the students brainstorm on the board questions they might ask a person whom they would like to know. For example: a. Whats your name? b. Where do you live? c. Do you have children? d. Whats your favorite hobby? e. Whats your favorite food/music,etc?
Examples of more personal and demanding questions: a. Are you married? b. What is your greatest fear? c. What is your favorite holiday? d. Where would you like to travel to if you could travel anywhere in the world? 3. Have students write down at least 5 questions on a piece of paper. They can use questions from the board or create their own (but they should be approved from the teacher). 4. Tell students to leave their seats, mill about, and put questions to at least three other people. a. As an alternative, divide the class into two. Make an inner circle of students facing outwards and an outer circle of students facing inwards. The students put their questions to the student opposite. After about three minutes, tell the outer circle to move one place to the left, thus creating new pairs and allowing learners to repeat the same questions with a new interviewee. 5. Finally, invite the class to sit in a circle, and ask each student to describe a classmate using all the information gathered while leaving out the names of the students they interviewed. The rest of the class should try to guess the person referred to.
Activity 3: A long and growing list Rationale: Can be used to work on areas of vocabulary and grammar. Preparation: Select several sentence patterns suitable for using with vocabulary items that are to be revised. You could also use sentence patterns that are similar to what learners will encounter in their textbooks. Procedure: 1. Play in groups of four to six players or as a class, with the students sitting in a circle. 2. Tell students that, in this game, a given word patterI went shopping and I bought.must be completed by adding any words that make sense, each player adding one word to the list when it is their turn. Each player must repeat verbatim whatever has been said by the previous player before making an addition to the list. For example: Student 1: I went shopping and I bought a shirt. Student 2: I went shopping and I bought a shirt and a skirt. Student 3: I went shopping and I bought a shirt, a skirt, and a sausage. Student 4: I went shopping and I bought a shirt, a skirt, a sausage, and an apple. Student 5: I went shopping and I bought a shirt, a skirt, a sausage, an apple, and a car.
3. Also explain that each player must act out a mime, however best they can, each of the items referred to, while speaking. The rest of the class or group might also mime at the same time. Encourage creative and humorous ideas. Other possible sentence patterns: The teachers cat is very old, rather fat, bald with a long beard (any adjectives and adjective phrases). This mourning I bought a brown bag(noun + adjective with the same initial letter) Kim has got an elephant, Tom has got a monkey, and Ive got an armadillo.(has got/Ive got plus animals and a/an) This morning, before six oclock, I swam across the lake, and I read a book, and I argued with my neighbor .(simple past tense) Yesterday, while I was brushing my teeth, I heard a dog singing, and I saw the bus driver arguing with a policeman and I thought about my family.(past continuous interrupted by the simple past)
