How would you define a warmer? Here are some definitions given by teachers. 'A warmer is….' "…a short activity", "…something that doesn't need a lot of preparation", "…often fun", "…a chance to practise a topic / structure".

There are many reasons for using warmers in the EFL classroom. They are versatile activities which can serve several purposes:
- to introduce / revise a topic
- to focus students' minds for the lessons
- to 'tune students in' to English
- to encourage group dynamics
- to allow time for latecomers to arrive
- to help students relax

Although warmers are valuable activities, we must as teachers remember that they are not all suitable for all classes - if your students have been at work all day, they may want to do something quietly such as fill in a worksheet rather than something energetic involving lots of moving around. The teacher needs to be sensitive to their students' needs when using these activities. It is also important that the students have the necessary English for the activity, so it may be appropriate to elicit, pre-teach or drill the language beforehand.

Using a variety of warmers will help maintain your students' interest. Here are some suggestions for warmers which were collected at an ideas sharing workshop at the British Council, Lisbon. Most can be adapted and used with any level. Those which require certain knowledge or are only suitable for certain levels have been marked accordingly.

Mastermind
Ss have to guess the right word by eliminating the wrong letters.

= right letter, right place
= right letter, wrong place

E.g., trying to guess 'pack', students suggest first word as 'luck':

L	U	C	K		-	-
S	O	C	K		-	-
B	A	N	K		-		-
P	A	C	K

Let students choose the word and work at the board.

Different hangman
Divide the class into two groups; each group is a different colour. As a team guesses a letter correctly, it is written on the board in that team's colour. Students cannot guess the word, but must continue guessing letters. Count the number of letters per team at the end.

Phonemic hangman
(requires knowledge of phonemic script)
Divide the students into teams. The teams take it in turns to guess sounds not letters. All teams try to guess the same word but each team has its own 'hangman'. (There are a lot more sounds than there are letters!)

Alphabets
Each team writes alphabetical lists of:
- professions
- adjectives
- etc

Before / After
The teacher thinks of a word, and writes the number of letters on the board in dashes as for hangman. Students in turn suggest words that fit the number of letters and the teacher indicates whether they come before or after her word alphabetically. The teacher writes the students' guesses either above (before) or below (after) the dashes.

For example, if the word is 'ghost', and the students guess 'bread' then 'heart', the teacher writes:

bread
- - - - -
heart

If the students guess 'dread', The teacher will write:

dread
- - - - -
heart

The teacher continues to change words above or below the line until the students have guessed correctly.

Writing storms
The teacher tells the students they have 5 minutes to write about something, and sets a subject that will encourage personal rather than general responses e.g. 'the best thing to happen to me today'
The teacher tells the students they are looking for ideas and are not going to correct language.
(For more themes see Five-minute Activities, Ur,P. and Wright, A., CUP, p.28)

Anagram / Sentence writing
Students solve an anagram and make the longest grammatically correct sentence using that word.

Unpacking a sentence
(not for very low levels)
Take a long sentence with lots of clauses. (The first paragraph of a newspaper story is a good source for this.) The students work in teams and can eliminate between 1 and 3 words, under the following restrictions:

• the words must be next to each other
• they can change punctuation in order to maintain sense
• they can change the meaning of the sentence, but it must remain grammatically correct
• they cannot alter words, only remove them

Sentence construction
The teacher thinks of a sentence and writes the number of words on the board:

1 2 3 4 5 6

Students must guess the words and complete the sentence. If someone guesses 'am':

1 am 3 4 5 6

Students then guess 'I'.

I am 3 4 5 6

And so on.

Disco / Library
Students must transmit a message to one another.
'Disco' - Teacher plays loud music and students must shout to each other
'Library' - Students must mouth words to each other.

Storytelling
The students sit in a circle and tell a story one word at a time. If they hesitate, they are eliminated.

Balloon storytelling
As above, but the students have to keep a balloon in the air. The teacher starts the story by throwing a balloon in the air. Students have to say a word as they knock the balloon upwards. If they cannot think of a word to say, they must say 'er' 'um' etc. If they let the balloon touch the floor or a piece of furniture, they are out.

Proxy interview
One student becomes one of the others in the class. The rest of the class then interviews him. The 'real' student then compares the answers given by the 'fake' student.

Dice interviews
Write numbers 2 - 12 on the board and get students to suggest topics they like to talk about. Write one topic next to each number. Put students into small groups and give each group two dice. Students take it in turns to roll the dice, and talk for a pre-agreed time limit on the subject that corresponds to the number rolled. (see following page)

This can be good for students doing exams where they will have to talk for a set amount of time (e.g. Cambridge FCE - talking about a picture for 1 min.), as it will get students used to their time limits.

Three things in common
Students work in pairs to find out three things they have in common with each other - but not things like 'We both live in Portugal', as these things are too obvious.

Pronunciation grids
Put students into teams. Draw a 4 x 4 grid on the board, get one St from each team to copy the grid, and stay at the board. Give the other students in each team a grid completed with minimal pairs (each team has a different grid, or they'll cheat!), and check they know the pronunciation of the words. The teams stand at the back of the classroom and must shout their words to their team-mate who writes the words in the grid on the board. The following restrictions apply:

• Students cannot use L1
• Students cannot spell the word
• Students cannot mime the word or point to it
• The students cannot move any closer to each other - they must stay at the board and the back of the class respectively.

An example grid:

	1	2	3	4
A	seat	shop	shine	shy
B	sign	sue	so	shirt
C	sheet	sin	sheep	show
D	shoe	skirt	shin	sigh

One good thing
Ss think of one good thing that has happened to them today and tell the
group. Give students the opportunity to 'pass' if they can't think of anything - don't harass them too much!

What do you think of that?
A variation on the above. Tell the students a fable, and give them time to think about the moral or their interpretation of it. Then ask individuals what they think of the story. They are allowed to 'pass' if they are going to repeat something that has been said before, or if they have no ideas.

Gaynor Evans