How many first lessons have started this way? How boring and irrelevant is this if your students already know each other and the only new person in the room is you?
A new academic year means new students for me, so I decided to share my favourite first lesson activities to help me get to know my students. Please let me know yours too!!!
Flower labels
Pre-intermediate and above. Mingle activity.
Cut out a flower shape with five or six petals. Write your name in the centre and brief facts about yourself in each of the petals. Make a roll of sticky tape and stick it ont he other side so you can attach it to your clothes like a badge. Prepare a flower shape for each student in the class.
Students should write facts about themselves on the petals, but should not use sentences, ie. 'angelic teenagers', not 'I have angelic teenagers', so that discussion is possible.
Students mingle and read each others' flowers. They do not have to talk about every petal, but when they see a fact that interests them, they should ask questions about it, eg. 'Oh, angelic teenagers! Do you have angelic teenagers or do you dream of having them?' ' Geography? Do you like it? Why do you like it so much?' etc.
As with many get-to-know-you activities, I think the teacher should join in with this one.
Speed friending
Best suited for Intermediate and above. 6 students minimum, maximium - as many as you like! An even number is required unless the teacher takes part. The resultant language is similar to Speaking Part 1 in Cambridge KET, PET, FCE or CAE exams.Ask students to put their chairs in two rows facing one another, so that everyone is opposite a partner. Specify a time limit (you could use an egg timer, or stop-watch etc.)
Students have 3-5 minutes depending on your assessment of their abilities to get to know each other. When the time is up, ask one line to all move down one chair, thus giving everyone a new partner, and start over again.
The teacher can move up and down the line making notes of errors and strong points. This means that over 15-20 minutes the teacher will hear everyone speak and will be able to ascertain strengths and weaknesses in grammar and vocabulary as well as hopefully find out some interesting facts about their new students.
This activity doesn't have to be done on the first lesson. Often students, especially adults, can study for a long time in a group without ever really getting to know one another, so this could be used at any point in the course to give them a blast of intensive speaking. It also enables you to drill Speaking Part 1 for the Cambridge Main Suite exams, which is often considered to be the easiest part and therefore somewhat neglected. If you have an imaginative group, you can give them a few minutes to create a fake personality and then they can do this task at any point in the course, practising functions as well as the exam task without getting bored or having to ask questions to which they already know the answer.
Fact Spidergrams
Draw a circle ont he board and write your name in it, then add five or six facts around it like a spidergram. Keep the facts as short as possible. At least one of the facts should be a number. I usually use the following: cheese, spiders, 45, ice hockey, 5.Tell the students that these facts are connected to you and they should ask you questions which will make you say these words. Their goal is to make you say exactly the words you wrote on the board. For example, they cannot ask, 'Do you like cheese?' They have to ask, 'What's your favourite food?' and if you answer, 'Pizza', they have to think of another question to make you say, 'cheese'/ This allows you to see how well they can form both types of question.
My questions would ultimately be:
What's your favourite food? (Cheese)
What are you afraid of? (Spiders)
What's your shoe size? (5)
What's your favourite sport? (Ice-hockey)
What's your house number? (45)
As they ask the right question, cross it off on the board and give them a few extra facts about yourself. They usually ask me if I play ice-hockey, and I say, 'Do I have all my teeth? Do you think I play or watch?' They almost always ask if I'm 45 years old, at which I pretend to be massively offended. This makes them giggle and breaks down the barrier of first-class nerves.
You don't have to go through all your facts. When they have the idea and have learned at least a little bit about you, ask them to do the same thing for themselves, with at least one number (to make it more of a challenge). Tell them they should not write obvious things like where they live or how old they are. You might need to give suggestions - 'What is your mother's favourite food?' 'How old is your grandfather?...'
Then students should show their page to a partner, who should ask the questions to get these answers. As they are practising their questions, you can circulate and make notes on their success with question forms as well as find out facts about your students.
Finally ask each student to share the most interesting fact about their partner with the class.
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