6 Fillers and Warmers for Any Lessons

Your students get bored while the class. Use fillers and warmers! They add extra excitement and fun to the classroom atmosphere. 

1. Entry/Exit Tickets

Before each lesson, stick some mini tasks on the door. When students enter, they need to take a task and perform it. The tasks may include some target vocabulary, for example, to define a word, give a synonym or antonym, pronounce a set of words, complete the sentence, etc. As for exit tickets, students choose it at the end of the lesson and in order to leave the classroom they need to do the task there. Exit ticket tasks may include telling 2-3 new words from the lesson, stating two things they like and two things they dislike about the lesson, correcting a mistake, etc.

2.  The A to Z game

Give students a theme, such as Jobs, Things you take on holiday, Food. Write the letters from A to Z on the board. Teams of students must race to the board to write an appropriate word starting from each letter of the alphabet.

3. Pass the Word 

The teacher chooses any lexical or grammatical field of revision for practice and gives a ball to students. The teacher or one student takes a ball (tennis ball for example), says the first  word/phrase (for example irregular verbs), throws the ball to another student who says a word on the topic and passes the ball around. The ball can’t be in the same hands for more than 15 seconds. 

4. Guessing Pictures

Ask students to take a pencil and divide a page in their notebooks into four squares. Then students (keeping their work in secret and showing nobody) choose a square and draw a picture or a symbol on a grammatical topic (future plans, yesterday activities, etc).Other grids may represent the last lesson vocabulary, topic-based vocabulary, etc. After drawing in all grids students work in pairs and try to guess what the picture means. When they have discussed all the pictures, both partners explain their picture. How excited the students get when they listen to the real answers! 

5. Secret Box

The teacher brings a box full of different objects. Each student chooses one object (eyes closed) and tells how that object is associated with him or her (for example, if you choose glue you can say that you like this object to connect people, organize different events, etc). This activity can be used while revising target vocabulary, any grammar tense. In the case of vocabulary revision, students may choose a word, define it, make up a sentence with it, associate the word with them. With grammatical structures, they can make up a sentence, ask a question, etc, 

6. Circle, Square, Triangle or Z

This warmer can be excessively used throughout the whole course. For the first time, students draw geometric figures on their name tags and the teacher, later on, announces the following: “Those who have marked their name tags with a circle are the most generous ones in the class. Those who have marked their name tags with a square are the most ambitious ones in the class. Those who have marked their name tags with a triangle are the most friendly ones in the class. Those who have marked their name tags with a Z are the most talkative ones in the class.” Students will be quite excited about the news connected with their personal qualities and would like to agree or disagree with the teacher’s description. They have to prove their answers. This activity can be used while revising some important vocabulary items, irregular verbs, etc. In each case, students choose a symbol which describes them the best and get the relevant word connected with the given symbol. For example, each shape means a set of irregular verbs and students need to make up short stories with those verbs. If they revise some topic-based vocabulary (travelling), each shape can represent a set of vocabulary items (sightseeing, camping, seaside leisure activities, airport vocabulary). Students need to make up stories about happy or sad travelling experience.

You can read more fillers and warmers here.