They can provide a mental break

ESL warm-up activities and icebreakers can also be used in the middle of the lesson if
your students need a break. If you notice that students are no longer paying attention,
are bored or tired, or just need a respite from difficult content, pull out a warm-up
activity in the middle of class to get things back on track!

They are engaging

Warm-ups are designed to grab students’ attention and motivate them to participate.
ESL warm-up activities for online classes are especially important because you need
to keep your students engaged in front of their computer monitor for quite some time.
Throwing in some quick and easy ESL games for teaching online every once in a while
does just the trick.

What makes a good warm-up

activity?
Effective warm-up activities for teaching English should be:

 Considerate towards your students’ emotional/physical state when they enter

the classroom (for example, if students are tired, use a warm-up with movement
to energize them)
 Simple to understand and execute
 Easy to carry out, i.e., require little to no preparation 
 Age- and level-appropriate
 Time-efficient (not take up too much time)
 Interesting and appealing
 Leading towards the lesson content or target language
 Using mostly known vocabulary to increase students’ participation and
confidence
ESL warm-up activities for teens and
adults
As mentioned before, teenagers and adults have an equal need for a fun warm-up
activity as young learners. Here are some slightly more complex warm-ups that will
engage your older students and prepare them for the lesson.

1. Sentence scramble
For this activity, you can divide the students into small groups or pairs or they can work
on their own. Come up with a few sentences before class, and write the sentence’s
words on your physical or virtual whiteboard in a random order. The first group or
individual student to unscramble the words and read the sentence aloud correctly wins
that round.

When creating the sentences, you can use motivating mottos, the target language of
the day, or review a grammar point from a previous lesson.

2. Storytelling
This is a great ESL warm-up activity for encouraging teamwork and practicing
vocabulary and grammar. It can be used in the online classroom as long as you have a
whiteboard behind you that is visible to the students.

Ask each student to give you one word they know. This can be a noun, an adjective, a
preposition, anything they want to include in the story. Collect the words by writing
them on the whiteboard. When you have all the words from your students written on
the board, let them collaborate to tell a story with them. If they need help, you can ask
questions like “How shall we start?” “Which word shall we use first?” or “What comes
next?”

Check off the words as the class tells the story, and make sure everyone gets a
chance to contribute!
3. Speed interview
This activity revolves around improving fluency and asking questions. Students will
have a chance to learn about each other and to use English freely. It’s a good activity
for intermediate to advanced learners.

Write a topic on the board or tell your students the topic of the day. This can be as
simple as “Food” or more complex, such as “Your favorite memory.” Put students into
pairs and have them interview their partner by creating questions related to the topic.
They can ask as many questions as they can within one minute, and then their partner
has one minute to ask them questions. After the time is up, put students into new pairs
and repeat as time allows.

 Pro Tip: Instead of putting students into pairs, you can also let them take turns
speaking to the whole class at once and asking their classmates the questions
they created

4. Guide me
For this warm-up activity for English teaching, show students a map of a town, and
choose a starting point and a destination on the map. Then, in either pairs or as a
whole class, have students provide the directions to the destination to guide you
through the map. You can use this primarily as a speaking activity or even get in extra
writing practice by having students write the directions down.

Alternatively, you can give students maps (either digitally or physically), a starting
point, and a set of directions they have to follow to find out where their destination is.
Have students race to see who can follow the directions the fastest and figure out the
secret destination first!

5. Art appreciation
Print out some inkblots or images of abstract paintings ahead of the lesson. Hold up
one of the pictures and ask the class, “What do you see in this picture?” Give your
students some time to think, then call on them or let them raise their hands. Let them
express the impressions, feelings, or words they associate with the picture, without
correcting them or interrupting them. It is very important that the students feel
comfortable expressing their thoughts for this warm-up activity.

The results are very rewarding, and you can learn a lot about your students’
personalities, which you can reflect on later to tailor your lessons to your students.

Using good quality and different ESL warmers for each class has
many useful advantages for your English class and for language
learners. Teens and adults arguably benefit even more from a
warmer as in introduction to ESL classes, as they may not
have spoken English whatsoever for weeks or even months,
and would benefit from a non-stress intro into your English
class. This page contains some fun ESL warmers for teens and
adults to help break the ice of the class; quality TEFL warmers for
teens and adults. We’ll try to add more warmers for older students
over the coming months. If you have any good ESL warmers for
teens and adults, then please do feel free to message us your
idea. We’ll publish your warmer for adults and will credit you for it!

The Toilet Roll

Each student takes either one, two or three sheets of toilet paper
from your toilet roll (but they don’t know why yet!) They then
must say one thing about themselves for each piece they’ve
taken. An unusual EFL warmer to get your class off to a fantastic
start!

I have never...
This warmer is great for teens and adults, as it gets everyone
speaking and moving around the classroom out of their chairs.
Your students must say things they have never done before and
the students which have done, must switch seats and move
around the class.

'I have never ' is one of my favourite ESL warmers for older
students. 

The String Game

All you need for this warmer for teens and adults is a ball of
string! This TEFL warmer is perfect for the first day back to class
after a break and will provide lots of laughs in the classroom and
among your older ESL students.

The String Game is a simple and effective warmer for your English
class.

Safe Cracker
Many students studying English are very confident saying number
up to 100, or even 1000. However, if you throw 2,563,209 at them,
then they will really struggle to say this as fluently as a native
speaker. Safe Cracker is a TEFL warmer / class activity helps ESL
students to be able to say large numbers with more confidence.
This is a clever teens and adults warmer which you and your class
will enjoy.
Last Man Standing
In our ESL warmer 'Last Man Standing ', your students will need to
think fast and give a word associated with the topic to remain in
the game.

This is a great warmer to practice vocabulary skills and will get

everyone involved.

As students are knocked out of the game, the topic changes,

keeping it fresh and fast-paced. Your older students will love this
warmer!

Using Logic Puzzles as a TEFL Speaking

Activity for Adults
Using logic puzzles and logic problems is a very effective TEFL
warmer or speaking activity for adults and teens, as everyone
loves logic puzzles and it gets students speaking, thinking in
English and interacting with you and each other right from the
get go.

Best of all, logic puzzles are easy to set up in your classroom,

need very little preparation and lots of language will be produced.
Stop the Bus
A perfect TEFL warmer for teenagers and adults (but you can
always use this classroom warmer with older children, if have a
bigger vocabulary and better writing skills. This warmer for
English classes is just great to bring a tired group of ESL
students back in the game!

‘Stop the Bus’ is a classic ESL game which is useful for reading
through the text book, quick thinking and and will give you
good distance in the classroom (excuse the pun!)

Word Chain
This is a super simple ESL game or warmer for teen and adult
students, which can be used as a warmer at the start of the class
of a filler between activities in class. Divide your students into
two or three teams and have them form lines facing the board.

There should be at least 2m space between the first student of

each team and the board. Give the first student of each team a
board marker.