First day of school is just around the corner! The very first class is always a challenge for me. I am on a never-ending quest to find the perfect introduction lesson activity. Since introducing ourselves can be a bit awkward, why doesn’t someone else do it for us?
I am yet to prepare a standard introductory class that is memorable, fun and not awkward. I have made a lesson plan for adult A2-B1 level students in which for a change your students have to introduce others to the rest of the group.
The class is sweet, simple and short, and it allows you to assess students’ speaking, writing and listening skills. It is made of only two files: a lesson plan and a worksheet that you can download for free at the end of the blog post!
The class starts in a completely different manner. It’s not your students’ first rodeo and they expect to say something about themselves. However, it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve done that before, it’s always stressful and at times they may feel as if they have nothing to say, or there’s nothing interesting enough about them that they can share with the rest of the group. That’s why give everyone an Introduce yourself worksheet. Students are asked questions ranging from personal to discussion provoking ones. Oops! You haven’t introduced yourself neither so feel free to join the task.
Once everyone has completed the task, collect the worksheets and write the answers on the board. Make sure to mix the worksheets and write the answers in a random order. Okay, so you’ve got all the answers, it’s time to do the writing task. I would say that it is optional and you can jump in directly into speaking, but let’s keep the stress level at its lowest. Ask your students to write a short introduction of the person to their left – including you! Once everyone is done preparing their answers (based on complete assumptions), you can start by reading your example. This should make everyone feel a bit more confident about their answers.
When you finish reading your assumptions the person that was being described has to now confirm how many pieces of information you got right. Then they correct you by actually introducing themselves (this time no writing, only speaking). If you want to make this activity even more challenging ask students to report on their classmates just to see if they were paying attention. As some of the questions are a bit more ‘philosophical’ you may want to ask your students to elaborate on them.
I’ve got still one more month until I go back to classroom and I will definitely use this plan to test it out and see how it goes!
What introductory activities do you normally use in the class?
JoannaESL 
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