5 warmers every TEFL teacher should know

A brilliant warmer gets your TEFL lesson off to a great start, involving every student and putting them in the right frame of mind to learn English.

Here are five fantastic warmers that every TEFL teacher should know. Best of all, you can use these activities with all levels and ages – all you need to do is adapt the language to fit to your class.

1. Change places if…

This is a great warmer which uses a fun, fast-moving game to recap on vocabulary.

• Set out seats in a circle, with one seat per student. Stand in the middle with no seat.
• Make a statement starting “Change places if…” and complete it with something relevant to the class. For example “Change places if you’re wearing something blue” or “Change places if you ate lunch in the canteen”.
• Everyone for whom the statement is true needs to stand up and try to find another chair. In the meantime, you sit down in one of the empty seats – meaning one student will end up standing in the middle.
• It’s now the turn of the student without a chair to say “Change places if…”

Pro tip: Customise the warmer to the TEFL class, by telling students to focus on a particular topic (e.g. colours or what they did last week).

Perfect for: A TEFL class scheduled straight after lunch, when you need to shake students out of that post-eating slump.

2. Line up

This is a really simple warmer that helps TEFL students to start talking to each other.

• Ask your students to gather in a space in the classroom – by a wall, if possible.
• Tell them they need to line up in the correct order, based on the task you give.
• Set a task, such as “Line up in order of your birthdays, starting from 1 January” or “Line up in order of how tall you are”.
• Students need to talk to each other in English to work out the correct order to line up.
• Once they are all in a line, check they have got the order correct.

Pro tip: Adapt the task to the age and level of the students by choosing a suitable task. For example, you could give a class of five-year-olds a fairly visual task, such as lining up in height order but give an intermediate class a task that requires them to discuss their answers – such as lining up in order of how many countries each has visited.

Perfect for: Revising a topic you looked at in the last lesson in a fun and interactive way.

3. TEFL teacher says…

This warmer is a great way to wake up a sluggish class and to recap on vocabulary from a previous lesson. It’s based on the children’s game ‘Simon says…’ but you can adapt the challenges to the age and level of the class.

• Ask all the students to stand up facing you.
• Tell them that you are going to give them a series of quick actions. However, they should only perform an action if you first say, “<teacher’s name> says…” If you just state the action by itself, students should not move.
• Give your students a series of actions (e.g. ‘touch your nose’, ‘stretch your arms above your head’). Start some with “<teacher’s name> says…” and others without.
• Anyone who does an action at the wrong time is out. The last person left in the game is the winner.

Pro tip: Give the warmer an extra layer of excitement by increasing the difficulty or language of each task – or by saying the last person to do each action is out. Students who are already out will enjoy watching their classmates trying to carry out the task and spotting who should be out next!

Perfect for: A TEFL class at the start of the day or straight after lunch where you want to get students moving.

4. What’s your name?

This is a fantastic warmer for practising adjectives – and has the added bonus of giving you a refresher on your students’ names. If you’ve got a large TEFL class, split it up into smaller groups working beside each other to make sure the activity quickly engages everyone.

• Ask students to stand in a circle and think of an adjective that starts with the same letter as their name (e.g. Happy Harry / Daring Daniella). It doesn’t have to be true – and other students can help out with suggestions if someone can’t think of a suitable word.
• Hold a beanbag in your hand and say, “Hello, my name is…” followed by the adjective and your name – e.g. “Hello, my name is Stunning Stephanie”. You then pass the beanbag to the person beside you, who says: “Hello Stunning Stephanie” to you. “My name is…” and so on.
• Once the beanbag gets back to you, say the name of any student (including the relevant adjective) and throw the beanbag to them. That student then does the same, and so on.

Pro tip: If you’re short on space, you can do this warmer with students sitting at their desks. Trying to catch a beanbag while swivelling round in a chair can add an extra sense of fun!

Perfect for: Your first or second TEFL lesson with a group of students, when you’re trying to get the hang of everyone’s names – and want them to relax and speak out loud.

5. Would I lie to you?

This is a great warmer for students to let loose their creative side. If you’ve got a small class (less than eight TEFL students) you can do this altogether. Otherwise, split the class into pairs or groups of three to four students.

• Ask students to think of three ‘facts’ about themselves. Two of these should be true and one made up.
• Tell the first student to say their three facts out loud to the rest of the group.
• Once they have given all three, everyone else needs to decide which of the facts is the false one. More advanced classes can ask questions about the statements to help them decide.
• Once the false fact has been identified correctly, move onto the next student.

Pro tip: Get students to vote on each of the facts. It means everyone is involved – and will get even more laughter if the statement everyone has voted to be the lie turns out to be true!

Perfect for: TEFL classes where you want to encourage students to talk and get to know each other better.

Make up your own TEFL warmers

Once you’ve got the hang of tried and tested warmers, why not make up some of your own? As long as you follow these simple rules, you can be as creative as you want!

A brilliant warmer…

• Is short
• Is fun
• Only uses vocabulary your students already know
• Gets everyone talking
• Involves every student
• Lets latecomers join in as they arrive.

We’d love to hear about your best warmers – and if you’ve ever had any unexpected outcomes!

If you’ve enjoyed this article, read our 10 Top tips for new TEFL teachers and Fun activities to get your TEFL students talking for more ideas of how to get the most out of your TEFL classes.