Ice Breaking with EFL beginner Learners

Introduction 

For any EFL or ESL teacher, the first day of an English language course seems to be the most important day in the whole course. It is the day of evaluation, impression and judgement. So, how do you start your first day with beginner students? How do you help the students get rid of their shyness and start using English from the first day? 

Unfortunately, most EFL teachers start the first day by introducing themselves and teaching the first lesson of the coursebook. If you are doing that, please keep the following sentence in your mind. The first day needs a lot of active, communicative and fun activities. If you don't engage your students and involve the learning process, your class will be boring till the end of the course. However, icebreakers can make a good, productive and active way to start off your first day in ESL class. 

What is an icebreaker?? 

An icebreaker is a facilitator exercise that is used on the first day of class to help the students begin the process of forming themselves into a team. 

Why should we use ice-breakers? 

As ESL teachers, we use ice breakers to get our students comfortable with one another and to establish a relationship between them. Icebreakers are also a way to build confidence and trust and allow students to see the classroom as a safe space for practicing English, asking questions, and even making mistakes.

What makes a good icebreaker?? 

1. simple
2. Safe
3. Funny 
4. Engage everyone 
5. Build relationships 
6. Match the students’ proficiency, age and number 
7. Focus on oral participation

Examples of simple ice-breakers

However, here are some effective games that you can play with your students to break the ice on the first day.

1- Take a ball and stand up in a circle with the ss. Say your name and pass the ball to the next student. The first student repeats your name and then adds their own name, e.g. He's Tom, and I'm Kate. This continues until all the names have been said.

2- Stand in a circle with the ss. say the first Lester A and throw the ball to any s. The s should say the next letter and throw the ball to any one. If any s says a wrong letter or loses the ball, they should start again from the beginning. 

3- Stand in a circle with the ss. Say any letter randomly and throw the ball to any s. The s should say the next letter, then the previous letter. You can apply this with numbers, days and months. 

4- Put the ss in two groups A & B . One s from each group should stand in front of the board. Put two markers on the floor then say a letter. The first s who will pick up the marker and write the letter correctly gets one point. 

5- Put the Ss in groups of three or four. 

Give them some cards with different names. Then ask them to reorder the names alphabetically. 

Final point, remember to adapt your choice of ice breaker activity to the type of group you are addressing. You may have a room full of hipsters who love crazy creative ice breaker activities, or a group of techie introverts who may open up more when collaborating on a problem solving icebreaker activity.

I hope that you found these games useful and they have helped you in shaping the way you can start your first day effectively. If you need any help in teaching English language as a foreign language, please don't hesitate to contact me or leave a comment.