A brand new term, new students and an icebreaker...

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.