Free Conversation--First Day Ice Breaker Activity

(TESOL Ideas--Icebreakers)

            In the past, I used to make a big deal of introducing myself to the students on the first day of class.

            Over the years, however, I’ve come to think that on the first day of class the students are often more interested in getting to know each other than they are in getting to know the teacher.

            With higher level students, I put them into small groups, tell them to introduce themselves in English, set an alarm timer for 4 minutes, and just give them 4 minutes to talk to each other.  (They are encouraged to keep the conversation going for the whole 4 minutes.)  Once the timer goes off, I then rearrange the groups again, and give them another 4 minutes to talk to their new groups.

Often I'll do this activity without any handouts, but sometimes I find it useful to give the students the directions in a more concrete form.  In that case, I'll use this document.  (Google: drive, docs, pub)

Get to Know Your Group

The Rules

1.  You must talk only in English.  (Your group will lost a point for each time someone talks in Khmer, Chinese, French, et cetera.)

2.  You must talk for the whole 4 minutes.  (If your group stops talking early, you will lose one point for each second that your group is quiet.)

3.  Everyone in your group must participate in the conversation.  (If someone in your group does not speak at all during the whole 4 minutes, you will lose one point per person.)

Before Speaking In order for the conversation, to go smoothly, try to plan out some things that you can say beforehand.  Write a list of questions that you can ask the other people in your group, and make a list of things about yourself that you can share with your group.

Questions I Want to Ask My Group ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________

Interesting Things About Me ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________

For lower-level students, I start the class out by showing them this picture.  (Picture is not mine, but found on the Internet).

           I then ask the class what the men are doing, and usually the class will tell me they are meeting for the first time.   I ask them what kind of questions the men will ask each other, and then I give them a worksheet and have them brainstorm all the questions they can think of.
Then, I ask the class what questions they thought of, and I write these questions up on the board (sometimes correcting the grammar.)  I try to get the blackboard filled with questions.  If the students need help, I’ll give them prompts like, “What questions can you ask them about their family?”, “What questions can you ask about favorite foods?” et cetera.  Then once the board is filled with questions, I go around the classroom and have each student ask me one of the questions on the board, and I answer it.  After this, I put them into groups and have them practice these questions on each other.  (Depending on what type of questions are on the board, I might first ask the class if there are any questions which are not so good for their situation, and we adjust or erase these questions.  For example in a class of young learners we get ride of all questions related to jobs.)

Below is the worksheet I used for lower-level classes.  Google: drive, docs, pub.

Imagine two people are meeting each other for the first time.  What kind of questions would they want to ask each other?

Example:  What is your name?  Where are you from?  What do you like to do?

How many other questions can you think of?

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[Update: A colleague of mine created a great first day of class discussion activity.  Students are divided into groups, are given a list of discussion questions, and try to find out what they have in common, and what are different.  I've found this works out great for higher level classes.  The worksheet is not my own creation, but in an effort to save worksheets that have been successful for me, I've put it own Google: drive, docs, pub.]