The First Step: Warming Up Your ESL Students



Posted: Saturday, April 09, 2011

by Chris Cotter
http://www.betterlanguageteaching.com

How much time and energy do you give warm ups? Do you place more importance on selecting the right grammar and vocabulary to teach? How about worksheet preparation? A lot of teachers give less emphasis on warm up activities, arriving in class with only the idea of a fun activity. Yet, the warm up is just as critical to a successful lesson as the right grammar, vocabulary, and types of activities for additional practice.

Because it's the first activity of the lesson, the warm up sets the tone. A fun activity raises energy levels. It also produces more relaxed students later in the lesson because fun goes against the notion of language learning as difficult work. Compare a difficult or confusing activity, which just signals and/or reinforces "English is difficult!" With the right warm up, you'll have created a positive atmosphere to practice and experiment with the language.

The warm up gets students into a frame of mind to learn English. For classes in a non-English speaking country, the lesson may be the only opportunity for students to use the language. They might not have spoken English for more than a week. But even in an ESL setting, the warm up prepares everyone for the ESL lesson.

It usually takes about ten minutes to get the wheels turning. Once in English mode, students make fewer mistakes during the early stages of the lesson when you're introducing and drilling the target material. They'll also have fewer slips of the tongue with already mastered language.

On the other hand, a long warm up that lasts for fifteen minutes steals time from other areas of the lesson. Students have less time to practice and apply the new material.

The warm up serves as a springboard into the topic or target language. If the lesson focuses on past vacations, then a few lower-intermediate questions on vacations will get everyone focusing on the topic. The warm up activates pre-existing knowedlge, in this case about vacations. There's also the chance that students may inadvertently produce some of the key language, which you can make note of and use to present the target material.

The warm up lets you observe and assess the students' abilities. With any class, you'll catch students on good and bad days. If everyone is a bit tired and unfocused, you may have to set a less ambitious lesson objective. Conversely, you may have to set a larger class objective if everyone uses the target language more or less correctly from the start. Assessment lets you adjust how what and how you'll present the material from the beginning.

Lastly, the warm up lets you also assess who will partner well together, and who won't. Strong students may not want to work with weaker students, or a young business professional may feel uncomfortable with an older businessperson. Although you won't be able to fully determine abilities or personalities for later pair and group work, the warm up will highlight any possible conflicts.

The warm up begins the class, setting the atmosphere and expectations of the lesson. It can be compared to meeting someone for the first time: You want to give the right first impression. But a warm up also allows you important assessment opportunities, which will later determine the type of activities, who will partner with whom, and the scope of the ESL lesson. You should always pay just as much attention to the warm up as to other steps of the class. The result will be a more focused and positive group of students performing to your expectations.

Follow these ESL warm up tips for a more focused and positive group of students performing to your expectations.

For more ideas and information please visit www.betterlangaugeteaching.com.
This Article has been viewed 394 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.