Ice Breakers   (Exit)


From International School, Havana: Speaking

I have been teaching FCE for three years and last week I started teaching a new FCE group. I will be preparing them for the May/June administration.

I have always found the first lesson one of the most difficult as you don´t know the students, what their exact level is, they themselves may not know one another. I always feel a bit nervous in my first class the same as the students. So ice breaker activities are very useful even before introducing the exam.

I usually start with a "party". I ask them to pretend that we are having a party, that we are a little bit bored because we don´t know anybody there so we have to introduce ourselves and make questions about the other person and find out as much as we can in order to make conversation (name, age, profession, children, etc. - I sometimes write these prompts on the board with their help). Once the presentations are over, each student introduces another one to the rest of the class.

I also do the name game to learn and practice the names of the students in the group. We sit in a circle and one starts "My name is X and his name is Y" then Y says "My name is Y and her name is Z" Then Z and so on. After this round we start again, this time indicating our favourite sports, or book, etc. inmediately after saying the name, etc. There may be as many rounds as the teachers want, and you can indicate for example what you hate most, or what you like most, etc. The students tend to enjoy this activity very much and it has a quick "tempo". This activity can be repeated in the second and even third encounters, at any moment during the class as warm up or change of activity until we know everybody´s names.

Maite


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