Warm Up Activities for Esl

In the ESL classroom, warm-up activities are very important.  Not only is it a  friendly, all-inclusive first step to ensure that each student gets a turn, but  also enables a cool down from a previous lesson, creates a segue to welcome the  students, interests them immediately yet also demands instant answers in an  unstressed environment.  It subtly says to the students, "Look, we are  having fun, but you can't sit back or sleep in this lesson, you have to  participate".

Warm up activities can consist of any kind of  activity, but the idea is to keep it short and fun.  Examples: a quick  game, a "round-robin" answering a given question by the teacher, a riddle or  abstract picture already displayed on the board to prompt a response, a  handing out of pictures and asking for some kind of opinion, answer or pair work  discussion, very short dialog role play on the board (abstract dialogs are good for high level students), a singular prop/visual object for discussion.  This will also be interesting for you, the teacher.

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