Classroom warm-up activities are a great way to get the kids engaged in the lesson. Here are some great ESL warm up activities for your students. They also help the students to be more attentive and focused on what is being taught.
Related: 15+ Ridiculously Easy Printables to teach Sight Words for ESL Students
Warm-up activities are a great way for teachers to assess their students’ understanding of the content that they have been studying.
This is because these activities are often done in groups, which means that they can see how each student interacts with one another while completing the task.
ESL Games for Young Learners
Warm-up activities are a great way for teachers to assess their students’ understanding of the content that they have been studying.
This is because these activities are often done in groups, which means that they can see how each student interacts with one another while completing the task.
These activities can be played in small groups and there are games for beginners to advanced students.
English classes should be fun, incorporating simple game ideas to practice mundane and boring skills can truly become fun activities for ESL students; and they will certainly want to come back to these games over and over again!
Board game filler warm up activity
One classic game I love playing each and every year, are these sentence building activities for ESL learners. It’s one of my favourite ESL warmers, because it doubles as a sentence building activity and an excellent way to learn new words as a whole class.
These printable sentence building activities can be given as independent work or as a classroom activity. Kids will learn new vocabulary words.
Lower-level students will enjoy these activities, since they will match pictures to the sentences. All they need is a blank piece of paper and some glue with coloring crayons or pencils.
ESL activities can be so fun, check out these posts I have on the site to help you lesson plan:
- 5 Classic ESL Word Games Your Students Will Love
- 15+ Ridiculously Easy Printables to teach Sight Words for ESL Students
- Dot Marker Reading Sight Words for ESL Students – Fun FREE Dab a Dot Worksheet
- Interactive Online Games ESL Learners Will LOVE (Make Your Own with Baamboozle)
Adult learners will love the alphabet game and board games found on Super ESL Resources. This site only shares printables and ideas for adult students.
Some of these activities include tongue twisters which would help students practice pronunciation and letter sounds correctly.
We all know that different students react or enjoy various activities. This game is perfect for a mid beginner’s class.
“If you’re looking for ways to encourage your students to practice their oral skills in English while having fun, you want to use board games!
This board game is a great ESL speaking activity to teach, practice, and review content. This engaging board game provides ESL students with amazing opportunities to communicate with one another for more extended periods of time.” Find this FREE printable over at Suburban Teacher.
Language stuff has a perfect activity for preschool – second grade younger kids and perfect for beginning of class. Review the alphabet with this super fun letter activity.
Get your download from Language Stuff. Kids will pick a random letter on a new topic and play to find the correct answer.
Making small talk can be a bit difficult, I find these dice super creative and fun for ESL classes. They can also be used at the end of class.
The entire class can practice their oral language skills a little bit before they leave or when they come in. Grab these free dice from Language Stuff here. If you’re looking for an alphabet game for online classes, this one here made as an alphabet activity on PowerPoint is perfect.
Great ideas for conversation starters
Here are some warmer activities for upper grade kids.
I love these journal prompts or bell ringer activities that kids can do if they have finished their work and waiting for the bell to ring. Instead of asking you for what they should be doing next, they could do these growth mindset bell ringers. From the author:
“These free daily growth mindset activities are perfect for teachers who are looking for quick, easy to use, information-packed daily growth mindset instruction.
These 10 activities, which span across 2 weeks, are a sample from a larger product that lasts an entire year! It will give you everything you need to teach your 2nd or 3rd grade classroom about all things growth mindset!”
A good way to get students learning original words and having a fun ESL language activity, is to play this popcorn words game.
Younger students will also love this game at the start of class. It’s a good idea to practice them beforehand to show the students what you would like them to learn and practice.
I LOVE using this simple activity as a fun memory game. These penguin sight word cards are perfect for the end of class or a great activity for the beginning of each class.
A very fun way to learn new sight words, which I have SO many various activities for on this blog and more.
Other simple ideas for warm ups:
Warm up activities can help students to get into the right mindset for learning. They also help teachers to assess how students are feeling in the classroom and what they might need.
Some of the activities that teachers can use as a warm up activity are:
– Brainstorming ideas with a partner
– Writing a list of 10 things that you like
– Drawing an animal and writing its name
Overall, having the students ready for a lesson can be daunting I hope these ideas make your teaching life just a bit easier.
