Warm up Activity for English Lessons

Hello dear teachers!

Everyone knows the famous English proverb “A good beginning makes a good ending”. The good start is a very important part of any activity.
So, today let’s talk about the beginning of the lesson and doing warm up exercises.

Is warming up activity so important?
It certainly is. Teachers must create a specific atmosphere at the lesson from the first minute. Well-chosen activity helps students to feel more confident during the lesson, encourage them to focus on English.


There are a lot of different types of activity you are able to use .They depends on the age of students , the level of the group and the tasks you have put for the lesson.
Here I'd like to share and recommend you the types of activity I use at my lessons .

Warm up  phonetic exercises.

This is a very important type of activity. I use some minutes at the beginning of the lesson to correct the students' pronunciation. Different authentic poems, proverbs and tongue twisters can be used for these exercises. I also like jazz- chanting. It gives an awesome result! Poems always help student to memorize the correct pronunciation and what is more, they are full of a useful vocabulary and grammar.
So, to my mind, chanting is one of the best way to start a lesson. Here is the example of a jazz chant:

 

Another kind of phonetic exercises is singing. I use it as warm up activity only for my youngest students: their songs are short and don't take much time.  Kids  like it very much. A merry tune welcomes kids to start a lesson,  revise the vocabulary and pronunciation without boring repetition. The good idea for kids is to use songs and rhymes with movements. Songs are also useful as a warm up exercise if you are going to teach grammar. There are a lot of grammar songs for kids! This is one of them:

Vocabulary warm up exercises

 If you want to revise the vocabulary of the last lesson(s) , you can use different games:
Ask students to guess what you are drawing, adding line by line the pictures of new words(I use this for young pupils )
Ask student to guess the word and read the description of the  words (for well-prepared groups);
Write down the words with the missing letters on the blackboard     and ask them to guess the words;
Use crosswords;
Tell a story with the missing words or picture story (use new vocabulary) and ask students to complete the story;
Use flashcard, etc.

 Some of my colleagues state that a teacher should use active games as warm-up exercises. I don’t think so , it may lead us to the situation when we'll have to spend all the lesson to calm the pupils, especially the youngest of them.
I think, that active games can be used to finish the lesson or to change any monotonous activity. 

Here you can find interesting  games and icebreakers

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