Back to School: 5 Ice Breakers for your EFL Lessons
With the new academic year just around the corner, you’ll probably be thinking about lesson plans and how you get your class engaged. A new academic year often brings new students which means new faces, new names and a few awkward moments! Ice breakers are a great way for new students to break the ice (duh), as well as get the class warmed up ready to kickstart the new term motivated and engaged. We’ll talk you through some of our favourites in this blog.
5 things in common - getting to know each other
This is a great ice breaker for students with some proficiency in English. Put students into small groups and have them find 5 things they all have in common. This could be places they’ve visited, movies they’ve seen, subjects they’ve studied etc. You can make the game longer by then having them draw a picture of the 5 things, and having other groups guess their answers. This also allows for more student interaction with the other groups.
Blobs and lines - getting to know each other
Another great icebreaker for allowing students to get to know each other. Push all the tables and chairs to the side of the room. Have a list of prompts ready. Get students into a line or blobs depending on the prompt. Prompts might include: get in a line in order of birthday, get in line in order height, get into a blob with people who have the same hair colour, get into a blob with people who share the same number of siblings as you, or line up in alphabetical order of your last name.
Name game - warm your brain up
The name game is an activity to help students learn each other's names. You’ll need a ball for this game. Have students stand in a circle. You can begin the game, or have a student begin. They say their own name, and then before they pass the ball to their right they must say the name of the person on the right. Do this until the ball has done a full round of the circle. You can make this game harder by then having students throw the ball randomly between each other, saying their name and then the name of the person they’re throwing the ball to.
Alphaball - time to warm up
Alphaball is a great ice breaker for when you want to get students up and moving. You’ll need a ball of some sort (something soft might work best, such as an inflatable or foam ball). Have students stand in a circle. Hold the ball and begin the game. You can start (or have a student start) by saying an English word that begins with the letter A. You can start off without a category if you want to keep it easy. Pass the ball to the person on your right who will say aloud a word beginning with B. Go around the circle until you reach the end of the alphabet. Up the difficulty level by choosing themes - such as animals, things you did over the summer etc. You can also make it harder by having students throw the ball to each other randomly.This makes it harder as the game becomes more spontaneous and students have less time to think.
The memory game - get your thinking caps on
Memory games are great to get students’ brains warmed up and ready to learn. In this memory game, you need to gather a variety of items - a pen, pencil, ruler, marble, small ball, button, and a paperclip would all work well. Make sure all students are familiar with the English word and give them time to study each item before you begin. Place all items on a small tray on your desk or on a separate table. Put students into small groups. For the first round, remove one item from the tray and ask one person from each group to come over and look at the tray. They need to remember which item has been removed and feedback to their group what the missing item is. They should make a note of each missing item. Each round follows the same structure until each person from each group has been up. Go through the answers in order of which item has been removed first - groups who get all the items in the right order win.
It’s always a good idea to have an ice breaker at the beginning of your sessions to get students engaged, but make sure you have a couple up your sleeve if you feel your students’ energy drop, or you have some spare time at the end of the lesson. You can find more ice breakers and back to school tips in our Ultimate Back to School Guide.
