Lesson breakers to use with adult students

It is often considered that adult students are motivated and responsible enough to sit through a lesson of any length. However, they usually come to classes after work or in the middle of a hectic day, get stressed or tired, and lose concentration like students of any other age group. To make our lessons even more efficient and provide an opportunity for a bit of rest, it’s a great idea to use some lesson breakers.

Lesson breakers or brain breaks are short activities that involve using the body and/or the mind. They mainly give students a chance to move around but can expose them to some bits and pieces of the language as well. They are aimed at changing the pace of the lesson and refocusing the learners’ attention. Basic rules of using these activities are the following:

• Use brain breaks with adult students if you notice that they have become unproductive or seem to have lost concentration. 
• Explain why you are using such activities. Some adult students might say that it’s not actually learning the language and see no point in it, so it’s better to explain why brain break activities are beneficial to the learning process.
• Don’t take too long. A 5-minute activity will work just fine to refresh your students.
• Lots of adults like things planned. It might be a good idea to schedule a break in the middle of each class so that they were ready for that.
• Variety is the spice — pick different activities each time according to the students’ needs, lesson pace, topic or the general mood of the classroom. 

Find below 5 ideas of using lesson breakers with your adult students.

Move it

The importance of movement breaks is well-known. As a lot of adults lead a sedentary life, they need more of physical activity increasing oxygen to the brain, which is critical for attention and learning. Invite your students to follow these instructions and see who’ll get it faster:

Move your right hand

to hold your left ear,

then your left hand to

hold your nose.

Now swap and repeat

again and again.

Stretch arms up high.

Wiggle fingers.

Let arms drop.

Rub your stomach,

pat your head.

Change hands.

If you just need a bit of walking around, try out this simple activity taken from the book The Principled Communicative Approach by Jane Arnold, Zoltán Dörnyei, Chaz Pugliese:

“Ask the students to stand and form a circle. Explain that their task is to line up according to their birthdays from January 1 to December 31. Give them 3 minutes max. Explain that they are not allowed to speak”.

This little puzzle can be solved in a dozen creative ways, so it will also improve students’ creative thinking skills.  You will be surprised by the amount of gestures, mimics, drawings, documents taken out of bags and other ingenious strategies.

Memory game

Tell students that they are going to take a little rest. Invite them to sit as comfortably as they can, lean back and close their eyes. You can play a short piece of relaxing music to make it easier for them to relax. After a minute or so tell them that you are going to ask some questions, but remind to keep their eyes closed. Then ask questions about the classroom setting or their groupmate clothes or appearance — something they might have taken for granted and not paid much attention to. The questions can be the following:

→ What colour are the walls in the classroom?

→ What was written on the board?

→ What is there on the window sill?

→ How many chairs are there?

→ What is Max wearing?

→ What colour is Kate’s dress?

This activity will help learners to relax first and then to get focused again. There is only one disadvantage to that: next time you use this activity they will be much more attentive to details before closing their eyes!

Music break

Tell students that you are going to listen to a song. It’s better to opt for an instrumental piece, but the choice will depend on your particular group. Then you can have several options and ask learners to:

• listen and doodle. It is beneficial to give students time to allow their minds to wander. Doodling has an impact on problem-solving skills and can boost creative thinking abilities. What’s more, such a break can be easily incorporated into a digital lesson. You might just stop at doodling or let students show their pictures or take a super short test on doodle meaning, or read more on the subject afterwards — if your lesson is focused on character traits, for instance. 
• listen and write associations. They can come up with random words coming to their mind while the song is on. Then you can create a group association word cloud or encourage students to comment on their associations in pairs. 

Settle the feelings

It might be a good idea to let students concentrate on their own feelings and emotions for a while. To let them do so, try to run a mini dictation — an emotional or a multisensory one. For an emotional dictation dictate 5-6 feelings and emotions:

happiness

hunger

fear

boredom

tiredness

excitement

After that, ask students to write the first association that springs to their mind next to each word. When the lists are ready, invite them to talk in pairs and find out more details about their partner’s words. 

For a multisensory dictation dictate some words and ask students to divide them into 5 categories: see, hear, feel, smell or taste. The words might be the following: rain, coffee, English, church, pavement, lemon, money, home etc. The less straightforward, the better. My dictation would look like that, in the end:

A word list can vary according to students’ level. It’s always exciting to compare the results after the dictation has been done and discuss the reasons for placing a word into this or that column.

Do nothing

Sometimes each of us just needs to do nothing for a while. Set a timer and invite students to enjoy idleness for 2 minutes. You can put on some music or use the donothingfor2minutes website which will do the job for you. It will reset their nervous system and help them concentrate better. 

Short breaks are beneficial for adult students in any possible way. Chosen properly, they can help them pay attention, concentrate using non-verbal skills, unwind, bond with each other or get some movement. 

What is your favourite break activity to use with adult students? Feel free to share!