New College?  New Course?  Yikes!

Whether new students are adult learners or fresh from the success of their GCSEs, starting a new college or course can be a very daunting prospect. The role of an ice breaker or induction exercise is essential to the welcoming of new students and key to encouraging communication and helping them to settle into their courses. Some ideas…

The 60 Second Speed Date

1. Organise the room with a ring of chairs facing outwards, surrounded by a circle of chairs facing inwards.
2. Split the class into 2 groups – the inner circle and outer circle.
3. Give the students an A4 piece of paper with a grid (number of squares matching the number of people in the circle)
4. Explain to the group that they have 60 seconds to introduce themselves and to find out and note down 3 things about their partner.
5. After 60 seconds, ask the group to move around one and repeat the process.
6. Once the group have moved around, ask the students to introduce themselves and then identify someone they have met who they have discovered they have something in common with and to share with the rest of the group.

This is a great introductory activity that establishes contacts with peers and is successful with all levels of students.

When I went shopping I bought a…..

Slight adaptation of this game
1. Ask students to think of one thing they will need to be successful on their new course or at college.
2. Explain that you are going to go around the room and they need to say their name and then say “To be successful at college I will need a…..(say the thing they were thinking of)”.....
3. The next person says their name, starts with “To be successful at college I will need a.. repeats what the person said sitting next to them and then adds their own, continue around the room, adding to the list.
4. Nobody can repeat the same thing and by the time you reach the end of the class there should be some interesting additions to the list!

Useful for learning names

There are some cracking kinaesthetic team activities. Some old classics include The Tower and Armchair Capers.

Tower Building
1. Split the students into teams
2. Give each team 20 pieces of paper (raid the paper recycling bin) and a metre length of sellotape.
3. Explain to the students that they need to build a tower, out of paper and sellotape.
4. At the end of the session, the towers will be judged on strength (can it withstand the flick of a finger) height and it’s aesthetic qualities.
5. As the challenge progresses, they can have the option to ask to swap a piece of paper with the same length of sellotape or vica versa.
6. The winning team will be the one with the highest overall score from the 3 categories.

Armchair Capers
1. Split the students into teams
2. Give each team 20 balloons and a roll of sellotape
3. Using the balloons and the sellotape the students need to build an armchair that will support the weight of a team member for 30 seconds.
4. The chair will be judged on strength and design.

If you have a favourite icebreaker or induction activity you use with your students and would like to share it, please email me at michelle@tutor2u.net and we can put together a list of ideas to put on the blog.