Don’t forget to Warm Up or you’ll injure yourself.

You are always told with exercise, that you have to warm up. This could be to prime the muscles before an exercise, or stretch out a little so you don’t put too much strain on your body all of a sudden, leading to injury.

Well, the same is true of teaching. 

If you are doing a lesson on the present continuous, you don’t just jump into an explanation of the grammar rules. Before you get there, I usually have a couple of steps taken from the S.M.A.R.T. teaching approach.

MOTIVATE: I want to play a game or activity that will get the students thinking in English and activate some of their prior language through review.

ACTIVATE: I then activate the target language through natural use cases, gestures, TPR, or using other visuals that allow me to introduce the language in context.

An effective Warm-Up can help bridge both of these.

Think about the vocabulary you will use to help you review the target language later on. For example, with the present continuous, you will need verbs and activities. Your review might be charades, or a memory game, when you introduce vocabulary and have students come up with their own ideas. From here, you can keep this language on the board and use it to Activate and Drill your target language.

A great tip for Warm-Ups is to rotate in various activities to keep the interest high. Also, have a mix of high-energy Warm-Ups and more low-key activities. This will help you maintain a level of control and discipline in your class.

Check out some of the ideas below to think about what you can do to get your classes starting off on the right foot.

Smart ELT

Ian Daniels.