February 14th is Valentine's Day, or, as it is known here in Ecuador, "El día del amor y la amistad" (Love and Friendship Day). As the name in Spanish suggests, this is a day when we celebrate all the different relationships in our lives. In honor of this holiday, why not incorporate more get-to-know-you activities in your classes? Helping students build up their relationships with classmates will not only motivate them in the classroom, but will give them good, authentic practice with the language as well!
Here are three activites you can try in your classes:
"Speed Dating"
In this activity, arrange the students' desks so that they are in pairs, facing one another. Give them a topic in which they have to find five things they have in common. Then give them two minutes to speak and find the five things they have in common, within the topic given. For example, "food" - students might discuss favorite foods, or least favorite foods, or foods they had for breakfast, or the most exotic food they've ever tried, etc. After two minutes, have one of the students in each pair switch desks and do the activity with a new partner. You can change topics each time to keep it interesting, based on the level. Some possible topics are: television, hobbies, food & drink, vacation, pop culture, music.
"Onion Ring"
An onion ring activity is similar to the activity above, but this time students will be standing in two circles: an inner circle and an outer circle. Students in the outer circle face towards the inner circle, and students in the inner circle face towards the outer circle. Students are given a question to ask each other, or a topic to discuss, and talk to the person standing in front of them for a given amount of time. Every so often the teacher tells the students in the outer circle to move to their right, and the discussion begins again. This activity is nice as students get to talk about the same topic a number of different times, but to different partners.
"Find someone who"
In this mingling activity instudents are given a set of phrases that complete the sentence Find someone who... Students are instructed to ask questions to find someone who can answer in the affirmative, then ask one follow up question. For example, students might have to find someone who had a croissant for breakfast. They ask each other, "Did you have a croissant for breakfast?" until someone answers, "Yes, I did." They then put that person's name down and can ask a follow up question, such as, "Do you eat croissants for breakfast often?".