This is Maria, she would like to travel to this destination because she has a stressful job and would like to relax, She works as a customer service assistant. I learned this game during my TEFL course and instantly regretted not knowing it earlier. It is great in its simplicity, requires no preparation as such, allows students to learn something about each other and the teacher, and offers a lot or speaking practice. It has been especially useful with my Spanish-speaking students, who often struggle with question word order in English. It works with groups and individual students. The reason why I like this game is that it does not put anybody on the spot during this first day. As a student, I used to hate it when the teachers asked me to tell the group something about myself. This game allows students to learn some facts about each other without making anybody feel uncomfortable. I have also noticed how this game makes people more eager to share fun facts about themselves, and not just the basics (family, job, pets).
Put your name in the middle. In each of the smaller clouds (the best number is 4-6) write a word that somehow describes you: your favourite food, colour, the place where you are from etc. Don’t make it too easy for the students to figure out what each word stand for.
Now, it is time for your students to ask you questions in order to find out what each of the clouds means to you. All you can say is YES or NO.
Example: Is blue your favourite colour? YES!
Are you from Brazil? NO!
Have you ever been to Brazil? NO!
Would you like to travel to Brazil? YES!
In my case here is what each cloud stands for:
BLUE = my favourite colour
WRITER = I wanted to be a writer in the future when I was a kid
BLOG = I have a blog (in the past it used to stand for “I’d like to start a blog”)
BIKE = I love riding a bike
PEAS = I hate peas
BRAZIL = I’d love to travel there one day
Let students ask 3 questions about each cloud, if they can’t guess, move on to the next one. Once they have finished, ask them to tell you something they remember about you at this point.
Now, give your students a couple of minutes to draw similar graphs about themselves in their notebooks. They should work in pairs asking and answering questions about each other’s clouds. Ask them to try to remember as much about their partner as possible. After they had finished, elicit at least one piece of information about each student.
#4 Icebreaker: Find Someone Who (add a twist)
This game is an absolute ESL classic and I find it particularly useful as an icebreaker. It creates a reason for students to ask their classmates questions they probably would not have under different circumstances, it helps them learn each other’s names and maximizes student talking time. As every mingling activity, it is best for bigger groups (6+ students). I always play this game together with my students but at the same time I try to keep an ear out for grammar; once again question word order is crucial here. You might adapt the grammar to your students’ (expected) level. The game below has been prepared with intermediate students in mind.
Procedure:
Distribute one worksheet per student. They will need pens or pencils. Tell them they need to find other students who can answer YES to the questions. You might make questions together with your students or at least demonstrate how to make them using first two examples:
Find somene who was born in June = Were you born in June?
Find someone who has a pet = Do you have a pet? Have you got a pet?
After asking YES / NO questions, your students should try eliciting more information from those partners who answered YES, and write it down in the other column together with the person’s name:
Were you born in June? YES.
What day were you born on? June 12th.
At the end of the activity, ask students to provide information about each other:
All this icebreaker requires is some imagination, a pen, and some paper. As a teacher, you go first. On the board, write 3 sentences about yourself. Two of them should be true, one should be a lie. Once again, don’t make it too obvious.
Here is what my sentences usually look like:
I won several swimming competitions when I was a child.
I don’t know how to drive.
I have lived in 6 different countries.
They all look pretty plausible, don’t they? It is my students’ job to discover which one is not true. They should ask me questions trying to catch me lying.I usually make it a competition, with pairs or groups of students writing down 2 questions for each sentence and grilling me. It is then up to them to decide in which case I was lying. I usually try to maintain my poker face and give reasonable answers. After the quizzing, I give my students a minute to decide among themselves which sentence they think was a lie, and the winner gets some candy (yes, my adult students are absolutely over the moon with some candy on the first day, teenagers slightly harder to please when it comes to the choice of treats…).
Here are some examples of questions students could ask me in order to discover the truth:
How many competitions did you win? How old were you? What style did you use to swim? What distance did you use to swim? Where did you learn to swim?
Why don’t you know how to drive? Have you ever taken a driver’s course? Have you ever failed a driving exam? How do you travel to work? How do you travel on holidays? Do you have a car?
Where have you lived? Where did you work in X? Why did you go to Z? How long did you stay in Y? Which country did you like best? Why?
Once the students expose your lie, it is time for them to play the same game among themselves. They might play in the same pairs/groups, but a better idea is for them to change partners to get to know some other classmates.
