Idea from: TESL-L

Mark Richards - Literacy Teacher
James Lyng Adult Ed. Centre - Canada

Re: First day activities

Here are two that I have had fun with in the past:
1. "Creative" autobiographies: [renamed] Students retell their life stories and approximately 50% is made up, exaggerated or straight-out lies. The other students in a small group have to decide what is true and what is false at the end of the story.

2. For returning students who know each other: Instead of "What did you do
over the summer?", tell them that this is a class reunion which is taking
place ten or twenty years from now. They have to make up a description of
what they have been doing for the last twenty years since they last saw each
other. This provides excellent practice for past tense and present perfect
(What have you been doing.....)

Idea from: TESL-L

Ron Martin
Dokkyo Saitama Junior/Senior High School
Temple University Japan doctoral candidate

Subject: Re: First day of class activities

Each person in the groups that you make will have something in common with their partners. One example could be, groups divided up among winter birthdays, summer birthday, fall birthdays and spring birthdays. The groups members have to figure out what common element they share. They may find more than one (which would be great), but you could make it more difficult by telling them that they have to find THE common element that you pre-chose. You could do this more than once. Groups with different numbers would really intrigue them.

If you do not have enough factual knowledge at hand, send each of them a list of questions (somehow disguised with a purpose so they won't connect it with your activity once you begin) to get some extra information that would help you.

Idea from: TESL-L

Rachel Ellis
Editor
http://www.selfaccess.com


I have used a clip from the film "Joy Luck Club" very successfully. It is the scene where she has taken her new boyfriend home to her American Chinese family and he proceeds to commit every possible faux pas at the dinner table while the voice over explains where he went wrong. Great for teaching "should have". I usually play it through a couple times with worksheets etc but the first time I play it with out sound as a prediction exercise. Who, where, why etc,

Idea from: TESL-L

Carol Lickenbrock Fujii
Assistant Professor
Fukuyama University
Fukuyama, Japan


Using Video Clips
At the beginning of the year we usually do, "Meeting People." While studying
introductions, I showed the scene from Ground Hog Day in which Bill Murray
introduces several people in a restaurant to Andie MacDowell using, "This is
--------." and saying something about each person. I used it to hit on
pronunciation, body language, cultural differences, as well as structure.

In the same unit, we studied the scene from Legally Blonde in which the
heroine and members of her group each introduce themselves at law school
orientation day and a job interview scene in which several
getting-to-know-you type questions were asked.