Submitted by Rachael Roberts on 15 September, 2014 -
09:47
When I first
learnt French at school, aged about 9 or 10, the teacher insisted on giving us
all French names. I was annoyed because mine was Renee (not Rachel). Who was
this Renee, and what did she have to do with me? I think the idea came from the
method of Suggestopaedia, and was intended to give us new French identities in
which we would not feel awkward about speaking French. Can’t say it worked!
However, there
is some truth in the idea that many students find it difficult to take the risk
of expressing themselves in a foreign language. They can feel shy, or
embarrassed. For this reason, activities at the start of a new course, often
called ice breakers, are much more than just a way to have some fun and create
a nice atmosphere. They can really help you to promote a level of trust and
openness in the class which will encourage students to take more risks with
language and with what they are willing to contribute.
GETTING TO KNOW THE TEACHER
Showing a
willingness to reveal something of yourself will often encourage students to
feel more at ease with you, and to be more open themselves.
A simple
activity is to tell the students you are going to tell them some facts about
yourself..but one of the facts will be false. They then have to discuss
together which fact is false, and say why. After you have heard their guesses,
you can tell them the truth. They can then repeat the activity in pairs or
small groups.
Alternatively
you could show students three personal items you carry about with you, and ask
them to make guesses about you, based on these items. Again, the activity can
then be repeated by the students. Another version is to ask the students to
guess what items you carry in your bag (probably works better for handbags).
This will encourage them to speculate on what kind of person you are, if you
have a family and so on. Then you show them the contents of your handbag and
explain why you are carrying these old tickets, or where you first bought this
perfume etc. I love this version, because handbags are so personal that students
are quite excited at the thought of getting to see what’s in there (though I
have to say I do look first to make sure there’s nothing embarrassing!).
GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER
For this kind
of ice breaker, you can have activities where students mingle and walk about,
which can be great for getting up energy and breaking the awkward silence at
the beginning, or, if your students are in fixed seats, there are plenty of
activities for pairs and small groups.
Probably the
most famous mingle activity is ‘Find someone who’, which dates back to
at least 1983 (Frederike Klippel, Keep Talking). Students have a list of
sentences such as ‘Find someone who has six cats’ and they have to mingle
around asking questions until they find the right person for each statement.
These can be pre-prepared by the teacher if s/he knows enough about the
students, or the questions can be more random. Another way of doing this is to
get the students to write the sentences, using ‘I’d like to find someone who…’.
In this way they can search for people with common interests. When the activity
is finished, students can feed back to the whole class, saying who they met and
what they learnt about them.
Another classic
activity, which I think originates from Gertrude Moskowitch’s Caring and
Sharing in the Language Classroom, is Identity Cards. Students write on a large
sticker their basic information (such as their name) and also some other
information about themselves, for example, three words to describe themselves,
or something they do well. They then mingle and read and discuss each other’s
identity cards.
Or you could
try activities where students go to different corners of the room, depending on
their answers to a question. For example, ‘Are you a morning person or an
evening person?’ The students go right or left and then briefly discuss with
the people next to them the reasons for their choice. Another version gets
students to stand on a cline. This can work well with adjectives- e.g. how
confident are you? (far left very confident, and far right very unconfident).
You could then get them to do it again and stand where they would like to be.
If you want or
need students to remain seated, a very simple activity is to ask them to find
three things they have in common with their neighbour that they can’t tell just
by looking (and/or three things which are different).
Or, if you
have more time, or want to go into more depth, you could ask students to write
down a number of questions that they would like to be asked about their life
and interests. They then swap the questions with a neighbour and carry out an
interview with each other. This has the great advantage that students can avoid
touchy subjects and that they will probably talk at some length about what they
do want to talk about.
Giving
students some time to prepare before discussion usually pays off. A useful
technique is to get them to draw a PIE CHART about
themselves. This could represent how much of their day they spend on different
activities, or what things they are interested in, with bigger slices of pie
for those that interest them the most. They then show each other the charts and
explain and answer questions.
Or you could
ask students to draw a simple map of their life, with symbols along the way to
represent milestones. This will work better if you do it yourself first, and,
of course, has the advantage of introducing you to them as well.
The
possibilities are endless, and, of course, you don’t have to do these
activities at the beginning of a new year. They can work any time as a way of
deepening the interaction between you and the students and between the students
themselves.
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