Many of us will meet with a new batch of learners. Many of our language learners will be timid during the first few weeks of school. Icebreakers are an awesome way to encourage your language learners to talk in English and get to know their peers. The more comfortable your language learners are with their peers, the more they will participate. Below is a list of websites with hundreds of icebreakers perfect for the first month of classes. For more ideas, check out our webinar recording, Teaching English with Icebreakers.
To learn more about integrating technology to support English language learners, attend our free Friday webinars.
Recommended Websites
- First Day of School Activities for Big Kids– Find some great icebreakers, such as the Skittles or M&Ms icebreaker where the color of the candy determines what information they share, such as red for sharing something the student did yesterday or yellow for sharing something from childhood.
- Back to School Fun with Sticky Notes– Find several activities, which are easy to do with sticky notes. Students write down their answers to questions you ask them and anonymously post their sticky notes on the board for peers to read.
- 10 Awesome Ideas to Kick off Your School Year– Find fun icebreakers, including Picture Story-Telling where students draw an event that recently happened to them and their peers guess what happened.
- Icebreakers and Getting-to-Know-You Activities– Find over 20 icebreakers and a slide presentation with classroom icebreakers and digital icebreakers like sharing a photo on your cell phone and sharing the story behind the photo.
- First Week of School Activities Blog Carnival– Find several blog posts from English language teachers worldwide with suggested first week of class activities.
- 50 ideas for meeting your new class– You have to register for a free TES account to download this booklet. Find activities, such as “I am happy/ sad/ excited/ scared/ nervous when …” On the board, write down numbers 1 to 6 along with the beginning of feeling statements. Students sit in a circle, roll a dice and complete the statement of the number they roll on.
- Fun Classroom Introductions for the First Day of School– Find a template for people bingo and many other popular icebreakers.
- Back to School Activity Pack– This is a free Teachers Pay Teachers packet with templates for Get to Know You Bingo and Name Boggle.
- Lesson ideas for day one– Find icebreakers mostly for getting to know the teacher, such as breaking students into groups of 3 with the challenge to come up with 3 questions to ask the teacher.
- Classroom Activities: First Day of School Icebreakers– Find a few icebreakers, such as giving each student a lunch bag to fill with 3 personal items.
- Icebreakers – Ideas for the New School Year– Find a few icebreakers, such as a numbers association activity where students list numbers associated with facts about them like their shoe size or height and their peers guess what the numbers mean.
- ESLFlow has icebreakers and questions made especially for English language learners.
- Find several more icebreakers on these sites:
Check out the Teaching with Technology Certification course we offer online.
Live TESOL webinars are presented every Friday at 4 PM EST or New York time with Shelly Terrell. TESOL Lectures are open to the public, so feel free to invite a friend. To enter a TESOL Webinar, click here https://americantesol.adobeconnect.com/terrell/. Next, click Enter as a Guest, type your name, and click Enter Room.
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