Korean Job Discussion Forums

[gotJesus]

Any tips in ice breaker?

Thanks

[EzeWong]

I've had pretty good results with having students write 3-4 things about themself on a piece of paper. Collect them all (POKEMON!) and then read them out loud to the class and have them guess who it is.

This way you'll also find out some interesting stuff about the students.

I've even filed away some of the hilarious ones from my students:

"I'm a handsome boy"
"I like pretty girls"
"Pretty girls love me (lee hyori"

[gotJesus]

[EzeWong]

I teach middle school.

I've tried other ice breakers with them when I first started but it ended up being terrible much to my embarassment. Talk about losing face on your first day.

I had them do the "Snowball fight" which is pretty much the same idea. Write 3-4 things and have students go around, throw them and find out who the orignal belongs too. The flaws of that system are very obvious.

The one I mentioned is great. Because you'll see patterns in your kids

ie. girls love the bigbang (lmfao at first I thought wow, these chicks really dig science)

Boys love starcraft and video games

Which students will be your future student pets: "I LOVE ENGLISHEE"

And which will be problem students: "I will kill you" and "I hate you" (lol this came from 3 differnet girls)

etc.

[withnail]

How about the classic yes-no game. You ask rapid but simple questions to a student and he/she must answer without saying yes or no. I found many students love this one!!

[withnail]

larsson cartoons on an overhead are great...

[Fishead soup]

Write a bunch of key words about yourself like your date of birth your address. your Nationality, your place and date of birth. your favorite movie and rock band. Ask them to guess the questions that corralate with the questions. As they guess the correct questions erase the words. Do this until the board is blank.

Buy a Janga game and write random wh questions on the wooden blocks.
Have the students remove blocks and ask questions to their classmates until the Janga tower collapses.

Prepare lots of photo's of yourself. Also prepare some sample questions
model them and then let them look at the pictures. Either PPT or Color photocopied and laminated.

[icnelly]

Here's file from my Esnip's page: Warm ups and Ice Breakers

[Thiuda]

One icebreaker that has consistently worked well in university conversation classes (though I'm sure it would work well in a variety of contexts), has been to bring a roll of toilet paper to class and ask students to take as much, or as little of it, as they want. Once the roll has passed around and everyone has taken however many pieces of paper they want, tell them that for every piece they have to tell the class one piece of information about themselves. It's very funny to see a student who, trying to be funny, took 30 pieces of toilet paper and now realizes they have to give the class 30 pieces of information about themselves!

[ddeubel]

The best icebreaker I know of (can't remember how I came about it or if I invented it) is SNOWBALL.

Students on a blank A4 write in large, 3 things about themself. Scaffold on the board if needed,

I have _____
I don't like _____
I want to _________

for example. When the students are done, get them to crumple up the paper and set it infront of them. Ask them what will happen next? What it looks like? They will guess snowball usually....

Then say you will have a fight for 1 min. Go! Throw them around and at the bell/whistle, students take a paper, read and try to find the person. Either do this as a sit around (one student reads, everyone guesses) or a walkaround (each student wanders and asks questions -- Do you have / like/ want to .....? ) . Find your partner, sit down....

Works great and relaxes everyone.

DD
http://eflclassroom.ning.com