Coloured Candies

And here we are at the beginning of a brand new semester... Interested in colouring your 1st day with an icebreaker your students might enjoy?

Here is Coloured Candies, which I believe students at any age like playing on the 1st day:

Level: All
Materials Needed:  Lollipops in different coloured packs (it is a good idea to have as many colours as possible.)
Preparation: None
Interaction Patterns: Whole-class activity
Time: 30 minutes

Procedure:
- Ask students if they like candies and distribute the lollipops you have brought. Students take as many as they want; encourage them to choose different colours.
- Tell students that they will not eat the lollipops yet because they will be using them in the ice-breaker activity.
- Write on the board what each colour represents:
E.g.
Yellow: Favourite hobbies
Red: How they feel on the very first day of class
Blue: Favourite city
Green: Favourite movie
Pink: Anything you want to say about yourself

- Students, one by one, introduce themselves by giving their name first and then briefly talking about themselves according to the colour of the lollipops they have.

Variation:

·  Instead of candies, you may use M&Ms, strips of paper or any other type of candy in different colours.
·  You may prefer to do this activity in groups rather than a whole-class activity, depending on the size of your class.
·  You may change what each colour represents according to the level of your students. 

Personal Comment:
- Students generally enjoy this activity and the associated reward.

- As they select the candies themselves, they are more motivated while introducing themselves according to the colour of the candy.

For more icebreakers, you may read the chapter on first day activities in my activity book, The Activist.

A Writing Activity: Big Numbers

The following is an activity from my activity book, The Activist, again (in the future, I will be sharing with you some activities other than the ones in my book). This game-like activity aims to raise students' awareness of the mistakes they commonly make in writing. I have benefited a lot from this activity whenever I conducted it in my classes. I hope you'll enjoy it...


Level: Pre-intermediate and above
Materials Needed: None
Preparation:
a.    Find two sample student paragraphs, which have both strong and weak points.Make sure these points are relevant to your students’ writing; for example, the mistakes in these paragraphs must be similar to those your students keep on making.
b.    Give feedback on these paragraphs with numbers instead of words; each number will signify a different point (see the sample paragraph in the attached worksheet below).
c.    Photocopy these paragraphs for each group before class.
Interaction Patterns: Group work, whole-class activity, individual work
Time: 50 minutes

Procedure:
-    Students work in groups of four.
-    Give each group a copy of the paragraphs.
-    Students read the paragraphs and try to figure out what each number signifies in terms of feedback.
-    After the groups decipher the coded feedback, elicit what each number signifies from the groups.
-    Ask students to select one of the paragraphs and improve it in the light of the numbered feedback.  

Variation:
•    For weaker students, you may give the list in the answer key in a jumbled order and ask students to match the answers with the numbers.

Personal Comment:
- Numbered feedback was something I was introduced to when I first started teaching at Bilkent University, School of English Language. I then adapted this useful feedback style into such a classroom activity and noticed that students enjoy decoding such feedback and learn a lot from giving feedback to these sample student paragraphs.

A Pronunciation Activity: Missing Boxes

This activity is designed to raise students' awareness of the silent letters in English. If you believe your students tend to mispronounce words with these letters, why don't you try out this activity in your classes?

Level: All
Materials Needed:  None
Preparation: Photocopy the student cards below or prepare a 4×4 grid for student A’s and B’s similar to the ones below.
Interaction Patterns: Pair work, whole-class activity
Time: 20 minutes

Procedures:
-    Students work in pairs.
-    Hand student A’s the student A card and B’s the student B card.
-    This is an information gap activity. Student A’s card is different from that of Student B. Thus, they need to ask each other questions to fill in the missing boxes on their cards.
-    Students in turn ask each other “What is number …?” and fill in their tables.
-    Remind students not to show each other their cards but to say those words so that they practice pronunciation.
-    Closely monitor the pairs to check they pronounce the words correctly. Provide help when necessary.
-    At the end of the pair-work activity, elicit each word and provide the correct pronunciation if needed.
-    Then, attract students’ attention to the boxes at the top of their tables.
-    Ask pairs to label the columns A, B, C and D according to common characteristics of the words in that column.
-    If students cannot find that common characteristic, highlight the silent letters in the words in that column.
-    Students give a title to each column (KEY: Column A will be titled SILENT B; column B will be named SILENT H; column C will be titled SILENT C and column D will be labelled SILENT W).
-    After giving a title to each column, check the pronunciation of a couple of words from the box to make sure students have understood the concept of silent letters in English.  

Personal Comment: 
- Turkish students tend to have difficulty in the pronunciation of words with silent letters and this activity is a fun way of raising awareness of this important issue.

For more pronunciation activities, you may read the chapter on Pronunciation Activities in my activity book, The Activist.