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[schminken]

Ok I have a class tonight with 20 or so adult learners. They are new to me but not to each other. Our university has a part-time study program for working adults and they enter a class and stay together throughout their entire 4 year study. English is not offered until the second semester so they all know each other pretty well by now.

Also, because of the scheduling this semester, this is our first class and it is already 5 weeks well into the semester. I won't see them again until May.

What kind of fun icebreaker could I do? They will probably be scared of talking and the class levels are usually very mixed. I usually have a range from lower intermediate to higher advanced! Plus, I've never had a night class this big before. Any ideas? They are engineers so usually silly little games aren't their thing but if it sets the tone of our next four years together, I will give it a try:)

[Beausie]

Not quite sure on the detail of how you could apply this, but here goes anyway.

Put them into teams, and find an excuse to blindfold them, one at a time. So, for example, the blindfolded student has to be talked through a maze by the other team member(s). "Take three paces forward", "Take three steps up, two steps down", etc. This takes their familiarity with each other to the next level - trust. In a previous life I did this many times as a team building exercise with managers. Interestingly, it was always those from an engineering type background that had the biggest problem with this exercise. They said that they hated the loss of control - I can't see, I can't judge for myself, I am not in control.

I have done this with my college students here, and the results have been quite entertaining. They typically display the same problems with letting go control of the situation and - literally - blindly trusting others to ensure their safety. When I ask them how it felt to be blind they had many of the same reactions as the engineers. In describing the exercise they, too, use the word scary a lot.

If you can take your students outside to even a simple maze they may find it frightening, but also an interesting study in human behaviour. Why do we point and say "This way!" to somebody who we KNOW can't see our actions? Why do we shout "No, No, not there!" at the 'blind' person when we know that they are simply following our instructions. Such questions make for an interesting discussion post-exercise.

I hope this helps.