2 Icebreaker Activities

Tomorrow I start the classes that I'll be teaching for the rest of the summer and into the fall semester.  They're students who are preparing for international internships, so they are reasonably high-level.  I want to spend the first couple hours in a relaxed kind of way, getting to know the students and letting them get to know me and each other.  Here's what I decided to do:

1. 2 truths and a lie.  We've all played this game before I'm sure.  The adaptation that I add to it is the question period time.  Depending on class size, you can give the students 2-5 minutes to "interrogate" each person about their statements to help determine which one is false.  It adds a fun element to it.  I get the students to vote on which one is false, and if they're correct, they get a point.  They keep track and we determine who in the best detective in the class.

2. The expert speed-dating.  Have the students think of 5 things that they know a lot about.  Then, choose 3 that they think will be most interesting to the other students in the class.  Then, they have to talk with a partner for 3-4 minutes about those topics in a speed-dating kind of way.  The timer goes off and they have to switch partners again.  It's a fun way for the students to get to know each other and they can actually talk about things that are more interesting than where they're from or what their major is.

Check out ESL Icebreaker Activities for some more ideas.

Free: 40 Tried and Tested ESL Games and Activities

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