Warm Up Activities For

English Clubs
20 Questions
One person thinks of an object (person, place, or thing). Everyone
takes turns asking yes/no questions until someone can guess correctly
(or until 20 questions are asked). The difficult part is that you cannot
ask "wh" questions!
Example: PINEAPPLE. Does it talk? No. Does it make life easier? No.
Do you eat it? Yes. Is it something you would eat for dinner? No. Etc...
If someone makes a mistake in forming the question, other club
members can help turn it into a proper question.
Can't Say Yes or No
In this game everyone is given a certain number of coins or squares of
paper (about 10). Everyone moves around the room starting
conversations and asking each other questions. The only rule is that
you cannot say the words YES or NO. If you accidentally say one of
these words, you have to give a coin or square to the person who you
said it to. Try to trick each other by asking questions that you would
almost always answer with a yes or no. Think of other ways to trick
your friends. Sometimes asking two quick questions in a row works
well. (Especially tag questions: Are you new here? This is your first
time in America, isn't it?). This game is a great way to practise using
small talk and to add variety to your vocabulary. It also makes
everyone laugh.
Fact or Fiction
In this game, one person tells a short story about themselves or
someone they know or heard about. Usually it is something funny or
crazy. It can be a true story, or something made up.
Example: Josh tells a story about his Uncle Leo who sleeps in the
nude. One day Uncle Leo was sleepwalking and he went outside and
took his dog for a walk. The next door neighbour was coming home
late from work and saw him! She called the police and he got arrested
for being naked in public.
Everyone around the room has to say whether they think Josh's story
is fact (true) or fiction (made up). Josh reveals the truth when
everyone has guessed. Members can take turns telling a story.
Chain Fairytale
This is a fun writing warm-up. Everyone has a piece of paper and
writes the first sentence or two to start a fairytale (not one that

already exists).
Example: Once upon a time there was a frog that had no legs. He
wanted to get married, but there were no female legless frogs in the
land.
After one minute the leader will say "SWITCH". At this time the writers
have to put down their pens and pass the papers. They cannot finish
their sentences. Then, the next writers will continue the story. After
about ten minutes you will have as many silly stories to read as you
have club members. The leader should warn the writers that they will
soon have to wrap-up the story during the last two minutes so that
each story has a conclusion. Read all of the stories out loud for a good
laugh. You can extend this activity by trying to edit each other's
writing and spelling errors.
Draw the Picture
In this activity members split up into pairs or small groups. One
person looks at a scene from a magazine or book (the leader should
cut out enough pictures, or bring in enough magazines for the club).
The other person has a pencil and a blank piece of paper. The person
with the picture will try to describe everything he sees to the drawer.
This is good practice for using prepositions of place. When the
describer is finished, compare the drawings to the real thing! Whose is
the closest to the original?
Categories
For this game, one person thinks of a category, such as MOVIES. In a
circle, everyone must take a turn thinking of a Movie title (in English of
course). If someone takes too long to give an answer (the leader
should count to five) then that person is out and a new category
begins. If someone gives an answer that doesn't make sense or is
incorrect, he is also out of the game. For example, if the category is
VEGETABLES and someone says "banana" that person is out. The
game continues until only one person is left!
Who am I?
In this game, the leader prepares cards with famous people's names
on them. The leader tapes one card on the back of each member. Then
everyone pretends they are at a party and asks each other questions
to find out their own identities. When someone guesses their own
name correctly, the name-tag gets taped to their front and they
continue to chat with the party guests until everyone is wearing the
nametag on the front.
Jeopardy
In this game, which is based on the famous gameshow Jeopardy,
everyone writes down ten answers to questions about themselves.

After writing down the answers, people have to form pairs or small
groups and try to find out what the questions are.
Example: (answer = purple) "What is your favorite colour?" "Blue."
"What colour do you hate?" "Green." "What colour is your underwear?"
"Purple!" You can stop at three guesses if you want, or keep going
until someone in the club can guess the question.

Vocabulary Cards
I have a class activity that works quite well and I would like to share
it.
I prepare index cards with sample sentences using the vocabulary of
the course. Then I prepare (on the computer) envelopes with the
individual vocabulary word on the front where the address would go.
I insert the card into the envelope.
Students are dealt envelopes like a deck of cards, at random, two or
three at a time.
They have to write their own sentences using the vocabulary word on
the outside of the envelope. They are only allowed to look inside after
their own sentence is written, to check if they did it correctly.
The index card could also have the grammar rules, punctuation rules,
spelling rules for irregular verbs, etc. Whatever was required by the
lesson.
The nice thing about this method is that students all do not have to
write sentences using the same words as the other students. When
you have 40 students in a class, it is tedious to listen to all the same
sentences. This breaks the vocabulary list up for everyone to learn.
I have done this with many variations, including just giving the
students an index card with the word and they must use their
dictionary to look up the word, write the part of speech and a
sentence.
The variations are really limited by time and imagination.
Sometimes, when the students are all seated, I will fan out the cards
like a regular playing deck, and they can choose their own from the
pack!

As the work is completed, students return the cards, and envelopes, to

me and I give out another set, so by the end of the class, the words
have rotated around the room.
This also would work for math problems.
It is especially good for team work, where students have to solve real
life problems and write paragraphs.

Secret Code
This activity is useful at the beginning of the year after a long term
holiday, such as those in Argentina (3 months in all). This will break
the ice in new groups as they will introduce each other and talk about
themselves.
Stage I: Welcome your students to the class and invite them to pick a
lollipop or sweet. They will find a rolled piece of paper wrapped around
their sweet or lollipop. It will contained a hidden message that they
will have to solve individually first.
Stage II: Tell them the aim of the game, but make it clear that they
will need to remember the letters of the alphabet to work out their
hidden message. So make a quick revision by brainstorming the letters
and writing them on the board. Next, tell students that each letter
contained in their coded message uses the next letter in the alphabet.
That is to say that if they have for example: 'TBZ ZPVS OBNF' this will
mean ' Say your name'. Pick up one sweet for you and demonstrate
the activity by writing the solution of your code on the board. Solve
one or two clues as a demonstration, and once they know what they
have to do, give them five minutes to solve the rest of the message.
Stage III: In turns then they carry out the instructions found in their
hidden messages.
Duration: The whole activity takes up to 15 minutes. Not only can it
be used as a socializing activity but a warmer activity as well whenever
you need to revise structures or vocabulary previously taught.
Optional: If you have advanced levels you may adapt this activity in
order to make them talk for about a minute on any topic they are
familiar with, such as, 'favourite pop music, videogames pros and cons
etc'. So this activity may be adapted to be used throughout the year.

Verbs And Tenses

1. Illustrate known tenses with tense clue words, for example:
- Habit/truth = present simple
- Now = present continuous
- Experience = present perfect
- Plan = going to
- Yesterday = past simple
2. Select a range of verbs.
3. Divide the class into teams.
4. Give the same verb and tense clue word to each team.
5. The idea is for each team to make the longest and hopefully
perfectly contructed sentence. Count up the words from each
team's sentence and score on the board. Students of all ages like
healthy competition, and the cleverer ones will realise that by
adding lists to their sentences they will score more points! eg.
Yesterday I swam quickly across the deep blue river with my
brother, my sister, my sister's boyfriend, my fat black dog etc.

How?
Practises: speaking, the imperative
Students give mini presentations on "how to do something".
Some sample topics:
how to start a car
how to use a photocopier
how to make a cup of tea
how to make an omelette
how to change a tyre
how to change baby's nappy

 how to make a telephone call

how to play golf
This can be more or less complicated, as the teacher wishes. It can,
for example, be a 2-minute delivery with no visual aids, or a 15minute expos with OHPTs and handouts followed by questions.

Lion Tamer
Practises: yes/no questions
Teacher prepares stickers with a profession on each one. The stickers
are affixed to students' foreheads. Students try to discover their own
profession by asking yes/noquestions (do I work at night? am I rich?
do I wear a uniform?) in turn. Works best in smallish groups.
Students should be encouraged to think of the usual question words
(where do I work? when do I work? why? who? how? how much? etc)
and to formulate appropriate yes/no questions to obtain the required
information.
Some suggested "professions":
lion-tamer
top model
brain surgeon
president
hypnotist
lavatory attendant
astronaut
X-film actor/actress
bodyguard
trapeze artist
prostitute

 monk
strip-tease artist
professional killer
table tennis player
drug dealer
funeral director
magician
clown
English teacher

The Alphabet Game

81

5
rated by 43 teachers

by Margarita Sindu
Teaching Ideas Warmers and Fillers | Views: 33804 | Level: Elementary | 3 out of 5, rated by 43 teachers

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Hey, how do I download it?
This is a warmer, and there is nothing to download. It's just an idea for your lesson, not a worksheet.

I have recently given this activity to my students who are in my conversation

class. They work in pairs with a set of cut out alphabets folded where student A will have to pick an alphabet followed by student
B finding a word which starts with the alphabet picked by student A. The third step is completed by student A by making a sentence
that uses at least five words including the word which has been selected by student B.

Example:
Student A has picked the alphabet G
Student B uses the G alphabet in the word GLOBAL.
Student A completes the round by making the sentence: The global warming has
been raising many serious environmental discussions lately.
Have fun learning with this activity J