[puakina]

I am still student elt deparment. We have been making presentations so much and I am a little bit confused about how a warm up activity should be. Is it just a connect to the subject or does it requires us to work on the subject during warm-up?

[HUE]

Hi Paulina,

I wrote an article on warm-up activities, which you can find here. I also posted some information on warm ups in my weekly newsletter, which I've cut and pasted below.

The Importance of Warming Up Students | Heads Up English | ESL Lessons

In short, activities at the start of the lesson are very important for the following reasons.

1. They set the tone for the lesson.
2. They get students to begin thinking in and focusing on English.
3. They provide a transition into the topic.
4. They allow you important opportunities to assess ability and character.

The article, though, doesn't offer any ideas for effective warm ups. So here are a few tips to get you started with more activities at the start of your lessons.

Idea #1: Questions and Answers. Write two or three questions on the board, preferably related to the topic. However, for classes that meet regularly, you may also use this as an opportunity to include target language from the previous lesson. Read the questions aloud and check comprehension. Students then find a partner to discuss these questions for the length of the warm up. As no pair of students should finish talking early, this means that everyone will need to ask follow-up questions to generate a conversation.

Idea#2: How Many People Can You Talk To? Write two questions on the board. Students then find a partner to ask and answer each question. After both questions have been covered by both students, each finds a new partner. They then repeat the process. By talking to many people many times on the same topics, answers will show improved accuracy and fluency.

Idea #3: Speculation. This idea can be used with just about any grammar point. Although you may use a picture from a magazine or a website for students to talk about, I prefer to have students speculate about me or other teachers. For example, if the grammar point for the lesson were on the past tense, students could discuss and write ideas to answer the following question: "What did your teacher do this weekend?" Students can generate realistic ideas for your weekend, or even completely off the wall ones. This activity works well with many different grammar points.

Idea #4: Find Someone Who... Write five questions on the board, all of which are yes/no questions. Even better, if time allows, create three sets of handouts with five different yes/no questions on each handout. Students find a partner, ask/answer one question, and then find another partner. They want to find people who will answer "yes" to the questions, as the activity is called "Find Someone Who..." A "yes" means they can check off that question, and then ask other questions on the handout.

Idea #5: Charades. Write actions on slips of paper before the class. Place students in small groups and give each student one slip of paper. They must act out the action on the paper without speaking, and their group must guess the answer. You can focus on just vocabulary, so students will answer: "play soccer" or "eat" or "watch TV." You can plug the verb into a sentence, such as: "You (verb) last weekend, didn't you?" Continue for five or ten minutes so that everyone in the group has had a chance to act out the action.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

[puakina]

I am very happy that you give so much useful information about my question..thank you so much.. I am just student so I have very little to give you back but I can at least see topics from the shoes of students..

[bugsy81]

Hi
Here are some more activities that usually work well. I have just uploaded a website (Welcome to our collection of warm-up activities for ESL and EFL classes), with a collection of tried and tested esl warm-up activities. I hope they're useful.


1. If I had a million dollars:

This gives students a chance to practice large numbers and the second conditional.

Write these sentences on the board and read them aloud:

• If I had 1000 dollars I would (buy a new computer.)
• If I had 100,000 dollars I would (buy a sports car.)
• If I had 1,000,000 dollars I would (buy a luxury apartment in Paris.)

Put the students into pairs and have them take turns, explaining what they would do with their money.

2. Tongue Twisters

Write a few tongue twisters on the board and chorus them until everyone understands how they should be performed. Give students a few minutes to practice with them, and then have a competition, giving points for speed and accuracy.

Tongue twister ideas:

• Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry.
• Six thick thistle sticks. Six thick thistles stick.
• How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
• We surely shall see the sun shine soon.
• She sells sea shells by the sea shore.

3. Correct the Questions

Write five simple warm-up questions on the board, each with one grammatical error. E.g.

1. How was you weekend?
2. Did you go to anywhere?
3. What did you did?
4. Who do you see?
5. What are you are going to do next weekend?

Have students work in pairs to find and correct the mistakes. Elicit the errors and correct them on the board (or have students do this themselves) and then reassign pairs, having students ask and answer the corrected questions.

[puakina]

thank you