These activities can be used as warmers, coolers, or fillers.

Some of them work well as ice breakers for the first

lesson too.

1. Raise Your Hand

Give (or read) a list of statements of varying experiences or values (you’ve gone skydiving, were a star athlete in high
school, prefer dogs over cats, etc…). If its true of them, participants will raise their hands or use the raise hand button
on your virtual platform. Then you ask them to share experiences (or send them into pairs/BoRs)
Hint: Make your list as varied, light-hearted, and fun as possible. You might discover some unusual facts, talents, and
preferences of your co-workers.

2. Pictionary

Use the whiteboard to draw something and ask Ss to guess what you are drawing. This gets students to use vocabulary
while they are trying to guess. They can do this themselves in BoRs – though make sure that they can.

3 – Tea or Coffee person

Set an example: I usually put a note on my hand when I need to remember something. Some people knot their
handkerchief, write in their diary or wear their watch on the other hand). Are you a diary person? Etc. I love reading,
my brother likes watching movies. I am a book person. And you? Clarify any vocab that needs clarifying. Put Ss into
pairs/BoRs to ask and answer the questions

Task: Are you a tea or coffee person?

Are you a morning or evening person?
Are you a straight line or a loops and curves person?
Are you earth or fire?
Are you a mountain or a valley person?
Are you a cat or a dog person?
Are you a sight or a sound person?
Are you a city or a rural person?
Are you an outdoor or an indoor person?

4. Recent Photo Story

Have students pull up the Photos app on their phone and look at (for example) the 3rd most recent photo they took.
Each person can share their photo, and briefly tell the story behind it. This is a great way to get participants to share
how they’ve been spending their time and in getting to know each other.
There are so many variations on this one, too. You can ask everyone to share their most recent picture on their camera
roll and tell what it is, have people share a photo that’s meaningful to them and say why, ask people to share a photo
of their desk or workspace, take a picture of something they saw outside their house, share an embarrassing photo, or
their favourite food they cooked.

5. Show and tell

This is a twist on the classic ‘show and tell’ activity from elementary school. Ask students to look around them and
choose an object to show to the class and share a story. For example, it could be a souvenir from a trip, an award they
won, their favourite pen, a plant, a photo, an ornament, etc. (Start off by showing something of your own). You may
leave it open or ask for
something specific e.g. something from a foreign country, something related to your goas, something you bought this
year, something green, something you use for work or study, etc.

6. Common ground

Put the Ss into small groups or pairs and ask them to list as many things as possible they have in common in a set
amount of time. The group with the longest list wins.

7. Guess the object

Choose an object and get students to ask you questions – they could be more than Yes/No but not too direct (e.g. they
cannot ask ‘what is it?’) but they can ask things like how big is it? What colour is it? What is it made of, etc. This can
be an opportunity to practice and correct questions forms (particularly use of auxiliar and word order as well as
intonation). Students can go on to do this is their groups.

8. The App fair

Have participants pull up the Give participants 30-60 seconds to determine the most interesting yet useful app on their
phone. Then, have each participant share their app with the rest of the group or in smaller groups for larger classes.
Alternatively, in place of apps, you can also do this activity with books, recipes, movies, and more!

9. Warmer questions

These are some ideas of questions which you can ask at the start of a class – to get students warmed up or while
waiting for late comers, or you can relate the questions to the topic as a way to lead in to the context. Of course, there
are unlimited variations, these are just some ideas.

• If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

• What’s your favourite season?

• Which historical figure would you want to meet? What would you ask? • What are the three
most useful things you bought this year?
• What has been the best day of your life so far?

• What do you want people to remember you for?

• What are your 5 favourite things?

• What’s your biggest accomplishment?

• What is your staple breakfast?

• What were you most afraid of as a kid?

• Have you ever left a one-star review online?

• Which website do you use often that you can recommend others read/follow? • What is your favourite
junk food or snack?
• What is something that made you laugh recently?

• If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do?

• If you were/are a famous person what would you be famous for/ are you famous for? • If you had your own

island/country, what would be the first rule you make? • If you had a robot that could help you with one task,
what would that task be?

You can generate random questions https://www.conversationstarters.com/generator.php . Some of the questions

may be personal so it’s best used when you are familiar with students or with private students. You can also find a
list of questions on this website.

This is another resource for conversation starters https://conversationstartersworld.com/250- conversation-starters/

10. two truths and a lie

This is a classic game. Share three things with your group and invite them to ask you
questions to guess which of them is a lie. Then students can do the same with the
whole group or in their own groups in BoRs.
11. Picture dictation

Ask students (or a student) to choose a picture from google and dictate it to you to draw on the whiteboard. This is fun
as your drawing is unlikely to be great since you are using a mouse! It challenges the students to use vocabulary to
describe the picture as accurately as possible. They can then do the same in their own pairs. (This is a useful activity
for 1-to-1 lessons)

12. Bucket list

Ask everyone to share their bucket list of things they want to do before they die. You can extend this by asking each S
to choose one of the items and create (or tell you about) an action plan.

13. What happened here?

Google ‘strange photos’ or ‘interesting photos’ and copy one to a slide. Ask some questions such as - Who? Where?
When? What happened? Why? Who are they? Students should prepare a story about the photo – you could ask them
to prepare a news item. You can give all students the same photo or put them into groups with different photos.

14/ Riddles or optical illusions

Find ‘riddles’ or ‘optical illusions’ and show the clip and get students to discuss/explain. You can then get students to
share their own riddles/optical illusions. (Remember to choose wisely, don’t make them too difficult as it will be
discouraging if students can’t guess anything)

15. Traditions

Choose a photo of a tradition from your country and get students to ask you questions. Then ask them to choose a
photo from their own traditions and share it. You and/or other students ask questions to learn about each other’s
culture.

16. Hobby Expert

Everyone is good at something. Tell students to think about something they are good at and give them some time to
think of 5 tips on how to become good at it. Put Ss in pairs to ‘teach’ each other. ( You can give an example – e.g. I am
good at baking. To become good at it you need to – learn about the ingredients you use, read and try recipes, ask
people to taste and give you feedback, buy good baking tins, use good flour)

17. Just a minute

Write a number of topics on the board and get students to choose one of the topics (or they can choose for each other)
and they need to speak about it for one minute. The aim is to speak fast and go on for a minute with no focus on
accuracy (this will help students build confidence in speaking fast)