Energizers, warmers, games, follow-ups to make us feel we are teaching face-to-face: Part 1

Energizers for online and hybrid classrooms can make a real difference to how a lesson feels. My main aim in this post is to find ways to make the online classroom feel more like our usual face-to-face classes. I’ll add some websites and apps, but I wanted to avoid the quiz-makers and game-makers you’ve probably already seen. Here is what I came up with. Feel free to add more in the comments.

1. Energizers and Check-In Questions

https://checkin.daresay.io

This app is actually designed for Daresay’s team meetings but it can also be used in a language classroom or the questions can inspire you to develop your own check-in questions. These kinds of questions can wake the kids up, give them a chance to speak their mind. The app can also be used as a follow-up activity for Conditionals or a warm-up activity after you teach Conditionals.

2. Energizers with Photos from our windows

Ask students to take a photo from their window and then upload it on a Padlet / Jamboard Classroom (without their names) Then put them in groups in breakout rooms and ask them

• to compare the views.
• choose 3 of the photos and describe what they see
• to find out whose photos they were by using modals of deduction.

3. Energizers with stories

Write the students’ names on a Random Name Picker tool. Create a Google Document, write the first sentence of your story on the document and share the link with your students. Tell them, you will spin the RNP and the person on it will add a sentence to continue the story. This can be done for the narrative tenses, linking words. You can also use the same idea to write chain stories.

4. Energizers with our similarities: Find 5 things in common

This ice-breaker will be useful at the beginning of a new term and will help students to get to know each other. Prepare a Jamboard with multiple pages (one page for each group). Team students in 4-5s depending on the class number. Share the Jamboard link and explain which group will write on which page. Tell them they will speak with each other and find 5-8 things in common and write them on different sticky notes.

If you are looking for more ways to keep your lessons interactive, have a look at Mingle All the Way and Games, Fillers and Warm-ups. These energizers work just as well in face-to-face classrooms, especially when you want to bring some of the collaborative, screen-based energy of online teaching into a physical room. A shared document, a Padlet board, or a simple random name picker can all add an extra layer of interaction, even when everyone is sitting in the same space.