Icebreakers improve motivation in learning English

Nowadays teachers’ main task is to educate competitive and diversified students and
teaching of English language plays not the last role in this task.
At the first stage of learning English, students feel shyness and fear of making mistake; some
students stay with this feeling forever and try to stand aside at the lessons. If they are self-
conscious, fearful, or stressed, their minds block receptively to new information. Research
shows that people learn more when they are relaxed and are in a non-threatening environment.
If teacher uses icebreakers’ activities at the beginning of the lessons, students will feel their
selves more confident and more relaxed all lesson.
What is an Icebreaker? An icebreaker is an activity or game designed to welcome attendees
and warm up the conversation among students in class. Icebreakers are used to help students
and teachers get to know each other better; thus building classroom community. Icebreakers
are not fluently activities because they are limited to 5 to 10 minutes at the beginning of the
lesson.
Icebreakers play a significant role at the lessons in which communication and students’
comfort level are important factors. They help to ensure that all students are equal. These
activities break down the barriers that exist between teacher and students, students and
students. It’s very important that teacher also participates at this activity.
Icebreakers are helpful especially when teacher and students don't know each other.
However, they can also work very well for warming up the room even for children who are
already familiar with each other. An icebreaker can get people talking, generate laughter, and
help students start with an initial level of comfort.
An effective icebreaker will warm up the conversation in your teaching class, and ensure that
children enjoy their interaction and are engaged in the activity. A well-selected icebreaker
makes students comfortable enough to speak up.
When we have a newcomer, we can help him or her with icebreaker activity. It warms up the
conversation and students will have more comfortable atmosphere at the lesson.
For example, one classic icebreaker is called “Ball Toss”. Have a ball or some subject that can
be thrown. Put students in a circle. The person who has the ball says, “My name is …”. He
then passes it to someone else. That person says his/her name. After the names have been
repeated several times, have the students say his/her name and the name of the person to
whom he passed the ball. The name must be said before the ball is passed.
There are several sorts of icebreakers you can use for these purposes.
Some types of icebreaker is just for fun. When students know each other, the laughter and
conversation generated by the icebreaker will warm up the group. If the students are strangers,
they learn something about each other and feel more ready to engage in conversation.
In such situations icebreaker “Two Truths and a Lie” will be very effective. To play this
game, ask each student to give three statements about themselves. Two of them must be true,
and one must be a lie. The other students must then guess which statement of the three is the
lie. This icebreaker helps break tension among the group by helping classmates learn facts
about each other and form deeper bonds.
Another effective icebreaker for conversation is “I have known that…” Teacher prepares
and mounts on the walls of the classroom cards with phrases that can be interesting for
students. For example: Likes pizza, speaks more than three languages, has flown on the
airplane, can fix broken computers, has been at the concert of “Ninety one”, knowns someone
famous, etc. Students go in a circle twice: first, they read the phrases and write their names
under the phrase if it is true about them and at the second circle, they read information about
their classmates and try to remember it. At the end of this activity, each student should say
what he/she has known new about his/her classmates. They begin their words with f.e “I have
known that Alinur speaks more than three languages and ...”
Icebreakers can also be used that to introduce or segue into the topic of the lesson. It might
also generate laughter and conversation, but its clear purpose is to open up the theme of the
lesson. You may ask the group to identify the characteristics of their best team experience.
Here you can use for segue icebreakers such activities as: Answer unusual questions, Identify
10 favorites, Take a (literal) stand, Select one word, Ask team-building questions…
Key Takeaways:
- Icebreakers warm up the conversation among the students in a class;
- Icebreakers can help improve the efficiency of teaching by strengthening bonds
between classmates and reducing tension;
- Icebreakers may stand alone, or they may serve as a segue into the theme.