Warm up Activity for English Lessons

Warm up Activity for English Lessons

Hello dear teachers!

Everyone knows the famous English proverb “A good beginning makes

 a good ending”. The good start is a very important part of any activity.
So, today let’s talk about the beginning of the lesson and doing warm up exercises.

Is warming up activity so important?
It certainly is. Teachers must create a specific atmosphere at the lesson from 

the first minute. Well-chosen activity helps students to feel more confident 

during the lesson, encourage them to focus on English.

There are a lot of different types of activity you are able to use .They depends 

on the age of students , the level of the group and the tasks you have put for the

 lesson.
Here I'd like to share and recommend you the types of activity I use at my lessons .

Warm up  phonetic exercises.

This is a very important type of activity. I use some minutes at the beginning 

of the lesson to correct the students' pronunciation. Different authentic poems, 

proverbs and tongue twisters can be used for these exercises. I also like jazz- chanting. 

It gives an awesome result! Poems always help student to memorize the correct 

pronunciation and what is more, they are full of a useful vocabulary and grammar.
So, to my mind, chanting is one of the best way to start a lesson. Here is the example 

of a jazz chant:

Another kind of phonetic exercises is singing. I use it as warm up activity only 

for my youngest students: their songs are short and don't take much time.  

Kids  like it very much. A merry tune welcomes kids to start a lesson,  revise

 the vocabulary and pronunciation without boring repetition. The good idea 

for kids is to use songs and rhymes with movements. Songs are also useful as

 a warm up exercise if you are going to teach grammar. There are a lot of grammar 

songs for kids! This is one of them:

Vocabulary warm up exercises

 If you want to revise the vocabulary of the last lesson(s) , you can use different

 games:
Ask students to guess what you are drawing, adding line by line the pictures of

 new words(I use this for young pupils )
Ask student to guess the word and read the description of the  words (for well-

prepared groups);
Write down the words with the missing letters on the blackboard     and ask 

them to guess the words;
Use crosswords;
Tell a story with the missing words or picture story (use new vocabulary) and

ask students to complete the story;

 Some of my colleagues state that a teacher should use active games as warm-up 

exercises. I don’t think so , it may lead us to the situation when we'll have to spend 

all the lesson to calm the pupils, especially the youngest of them.
I think, that active games can be used to finish the lesson or to change any 

monotonous activity.