3 Fun Icebreakers


It’s already spring here and the students started asking me to play more games in the class. As a matter of fact, I sometimes forget what I have in my toolbox but these are the ones we’ve been playing recently. I hope these three quick, no-prep icebreakers and games will help you too and please feel free to add your favourites.

Alibi

Target language: Time Clauses using Past Simple and Past continuous
Tell your students that a crime committed the night before and ask them to decide what the crime was. Then decide on the time it was committed. Once the scene was set, tell your students that the police will ask for their alibi. In turns they have to give their alibis but each student should give a different one.

Best Friends Forever

One student sits on a chair in front of the class, her/his back turned to the board. The other students in the class stand up and in turns they ask to find out what his/her preferences are. Such as, blue or black? Harry Potter or Dr Who? hamburgers or hot dog?
The student tells his/her preference and the ones who have the same taste with him/her keep standing up, the others sit. The ones who sit don’t stand up again but they ask questions when its their turn. The game continues until there is only one student who stands up and that one person is the best friend of the student sitting his/her back turned to class and s/he turns to the class to find out who his/her BFF is

Pick a side

Tell students that they will choose a side in a series of “or” questions.
Choose two corners in the class and name them as ‘Answer 1’ and ‘Answer 2’
Ask students to stand in the middle and read the questions and have students move to one side of the room based on their answers.
For example ‘Meat or Vegetables’ If their answer is ‘Meat’ they have to run to ‘Answer 1’ corner, if their answer is ‘vegetables’ they have to run to ‘Answer 2’ corner.
You can then have a few students explain why they made their choices. It’s important to make sure these are fun questions. Don’t use controversial topics.

Some suggestions:
Morning person or night person
Books or movies
James Bond or Sherlock Holmes
Tea or coffee
Watching series on TV or Internet
Instagram or Snapchat
Maths or English
Summer or winter
Summer holiday or winter holiday

More suggestions from my previous posts:

Cool Warm-Up Activities and Sites for #ELT Classes
Warmers, Fillers and 1st Week Activities
GAMES, FILLERS, WARM-UPS

This post has been shortlisted for the TeachingEnglish Blog Award.

 

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