Ice-breakers ctd.

Today we continue with get-to-know-you activities.

I found a lot of interesting ones on the internet, and this one seems pretty great. It is a game in which there is a mystery factor because students try to find out more about each other by asking questions and giving clues. They work in pairs (make sure they mingle to prevent them from talking to the same people all the time) and I think that the best thing about this game is that they also get to know you – which will probably be the most interesting thing for them. Due to that, this activity is also great to use if you are a new teacher in a class where students already know each other well. 



Another possibility is to play a snowball fight. This one is extremely popular with boys, but make sure no one gets hurt. These are the steps:

  1. Write 3 very simple sentence prompts on the board. They could look like this:
1. My favorite sport is ______________________________.
2. In my free time I ________________________________.
3. My favorite song is ______________________________.

  1. Now give each student a piece of paper and tell them to write down the sentences and finish them according to their own lives.
  2. When they are done, they should crumple up their paper and start a snowball fight. Let them fight for a minute.
  3. Each student should have one snowball in their hands when they finish fighting. They should unravel it and read the sentences to the rest of the class. The rest of the class should guess who the author is. 


There is also one activity I like to call – TRUE OR FALSE. Each person should tell two sentences to the rest of the class. They should both be interesting and strange in content and should be about something that happened to them, except that one is true and one is made up. The rest of the class should guess which one is true and the person speaking should then tell the whole story behind it. This activity would be best for advanced learners and if there are a lot of them in class, it would be advisable to do it in groups or pairs.

What do you think about these ice-breakers? Do you find them possible to do in your classes?

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