You wouldn’t start a workout without a warm-up, so why start a lesson without one? These top warm-ups for your English lesson are great for grabbing the attention of a classroom full of learners and getting them ready for the work that you have planned for your TEFL lesson – especially after getting your TEFL certification. These quick tasks, games, and warm-ups are great for helping with attention span, advising, and guiding your class. So, the i-to-i TEFL team has put together their favourite warm-ups for your English lessons that will keep your class interested in the lesson and help with their English learning.
1. Tongue Twisters
Throw in a few ‘start of lesson’ tongue twisters to encourage the improvement of your English classes’ speech. They help by strengthening and stretching the muscles involved leading to clearer pronunciations and speech patterns. This is perfect for starting and ending, a vocabulary lesson.
Here are a few fun classics to start with:
- She sells seashells on the seashore
- Good blood, bad blood
- Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
Looking for some more tongue twisters? Visit Here.
2. Hangman
A little gruesome, however, this old but gold English game has many educational benefits when it comes to improving English. It is a great way to engage the mind before an intense English lesson without complete mindlessness. Playing this word game can help increase the student’s English vocabulary, recognise word patterns, and spelling quirks.
Check out this virtual hangman game for your online English lessons.
3. Simon Says
Simon says is great for warming up young learners for their English lesson. It encourages their development in listening comprehension and their vocabulary; particularly the use of past tense verbs if you plan to discuss the actions after each round. This may sound something like “first, I tapped my head and then I touched my nose”. Simon says can also be useful in the development of sportsmanship, giving and following directions, and sequencing.
4. Buzz-in Quizzes
Jog your English classes’ memory with a quiz based on what the previous lesson was about. This will help you to identify any gaps or areas that you may need to cover again or in more depth. The quizzes also point out to the student what they think they may need more help or knowledge on when it comes to their English lessons resulting in them paying more attention.
Here are some English quiz examples you could use:
- Verb quiz questions and answers
- Odd one out
- Complete the sentence
Kahoot is a fun way to buzz in for online English lesson quizzes.
5. Word Jumbles
Everybody loves a little competition, no matter the age. Splitting your English class and giving them a cut-up sentence each to put back together in the correct order helps to work on grammar, word order, spelling, reading, and writing skills. Remember to adjust the difficulty level appropriate to your class level.
Doing this English lesson warm-up before, or after, a grammar lesson is a brilliant way for you to cover what you think the class needs to work on more and whom you may need to look at more closely to offer further support.
There are many more fun and educational ways in which you can keep your English students interested in your offline and online English lessons. Even using your imagination on how to keep your English lessons fun works out better as no one knows your class better than you.
Be open to ideas and be creative.
Having read these 5 fab fun warm-ups to include in a TEFL lesson, think being a TEFL teacher is for you? Take a look at our TEFL courses and TEFL diplomas or get in touch with us to discuss your options further.
