While planning the
first lessons of the semester, I thought of sharing with you an icebreaker from
my activity book, the Activist...
If I were a
Dictionary Entry:
Level: Elementary
and above
Materials
Needed: Paper and pencil
Preparation: None
Interaction Patterns: Individual work,
whole-class activity
Time: 30 minutes
Procedure:
- Tell students that
they will introduce themselves, but not in a conventional way:
“Now we will get to
know each other, but I want to make this a bit different. Let’s write a
dictionary entry for our names and introduce ourselves in this way. But I want
everyone to be as creative as possible. At the end of the activity, I want you
to remember others’ names and something about those people. If we write dull
and ordinary entries, no one will remember us! So let’s write interesting
entries. I have written one for my name. If you want, let me read it for you:
“Hasanbasoglu,
Burcin: (proper
noun): A human being who became a multi-tasking machine after the birth of her
daughter”
- Students write their
own entries and then share them with the class.
- Collect the entries
at the end of the activity and prepare a class dictionary with hard cover using
those entries. You might want to make a copy of this for each student as well.
Because students are
free to express themselves in the way they want, they tend to come up with
quite interesting entries as a result. They write quite memorable entries,
which helps others remember their names and even the entries the next time they
meet.
