Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Enigma]

I teach really small adult classes (usually only 2 or 3 students.) Usually when a new student joins the class, you can tell they're a bit shy and uncomfortable being in a new class (understandably.)

I'd appreciate any suggestions you have for any 5 or 10 minute activities I could do to help them feel more at ease and maybe give them a chance to get to meet the other students, without putting too much pressure on them. Most of them are maybe low-intermediate(?)

I'm using the Smart Choice Level 2 book with them, for those of you who are familiar with it.

Thank you very much

[mt01ap]

maybe something like 2 truths and lie, you can start out by making 3 statements, with one being the lie and your students have to guess. Then have your students or current students try this.

[cdninkorea]

I teach large adult classes and do warmup exercises every semester. Some of my favourites:

1) Desert island role-play. Tell the students that they'll be living on a desert island for a month and are allowed to take five things with them. Have them write down what they'd bring (shouldn't take long. Typical answers are things like a hunting knife, tent, ramyeon, etc).
Once they write down their items, explain that they have to choose five items together and to figure it out. They have to talk to each other and argue a little, and in doing so they'll get comfortable.

2) Comfort survey. Have a fairly long list of situations for students A and another list for students B. Each question should start with "how comfortable are you..." and can finish with things like "... ordering food in a restaurant in English?" or "... doing banking in English?" They should tell each other how comfortable they are on a scale of 1-5 and, very importantly, elaborate on why they said the number they did.

3) Discussion questions. You could do this about any topic: a list of questions about Seoul such as their favourite neighbourhoods, where the best restaurants are located, where the dangerous areas are, etc. Or it could be about their daily routines: when they usually get up, how they get to work, what they do when they get home, etc.

My philosophy is to get them talking to each other so they get comfortable without the usual awkward questions like who they are and what they do for a living because my theory is that they'll share that stuff when they're comfortable anyway; better to get them to stop thinking about how they don't know each other by giving them something interesting to talk about and focus on. Hope this is of help.

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

I just ask them to introduce themselves then forget about it. ( I make a point of giving them some corrections the first 5-10 minutes and/or directing a couple of questions to them to bring them in/ let them forget they're "new" . You're paying, let's get you some value straight off the bat)
That's enough, I feel.

[some waygug-in]

You have a choice:

This -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV_Bjr76Dvs

or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM-4IY6Ef14&feature=fvst


I know, but someone had to.

[CentralCali]

I think this one is kind of fun. Instead of string and scissors, I just use dental floss for this. When I used it at a "friendship night" at church once, one teenage boy took a couple of meters. Oh, be sure to have everyone take their desired length of string before you tell them how to do this.

You could also try one of those fake pre-tests if your group is kind of stodgy. Those are the tests with the first instruction as "Read the quiz before answering any of the questions." Make sure you have enough questions for the quiz to go onto the other side of the page. After the first instruction, all the other items except for the last one are to do silly things such as "Do this twice: stand up and then sit down," "Open one window," "Shout 'Hooray!'" The last instruction is, "Do not do any of the actions in items 2 through (whatevewr). Just sign your name to the paper and hand it to the teacher."

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

[Easter Clark]

[scorpiocandy]

I know you're asking about introducing one new student to a class, but thought I'd throw this in too.

With new students or a mixed bag of old and new i do "Speed Meeting". So like speed dating where you only talk to someone for 3 minutes (though I usually extend this to 5 or 6 minutes, depending on the conversation happening.

Then to prevent the usual "What's your name?" and "What's your major?" being asked of everyone every time they go to someone new I give them these questions cut up into individual little squares to help them out.

http://iteslj.org/questions/getting.html

They soon forget the shyness and the questions are easy enough that the 3 minutes go by.

[djsmnc]

"What's your blood type?"

"What's your favorite type of alcohol?"

[chest rockwell]

http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=131046&highlight=

Made a thread some time ago with some activities for older students. Maybe you could glean a few ideas out of it.

[Easter Clark]

[scorpiocandy]

[ddeubel]

Here are the Icebreaker tagged recipes on Teaching Recipes.

In particular, the "Introduce Yourself" recipe is very simple but despite seeming to be easy - actually quite fun and not as easy as it seems.

DD
http://eflclassroom.com

[CentralCali]

Make a short assignment sheet, perhaps 10 assignments. One assignment could be "Get the name of someone in this class with the same number of siblings as you." Another could be "Who in this class has the same birth month as you."

This will require the students actually talking with all the other students, asking questions beyond "What's your name? How old are you? What's your job?"