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GTKY – вопросы и ответы на первые два часа общения
June 15th, 2009 · No Comments · Speaking, Uncategorized
GTKY (Getting To Know You) – это известное всем преподавателям английского, кто работает без перевода, сокращение, что встречается в плане одного из первых, чаще самого первого урока в начале учебного года.
Если нужны идеи для урока-знакомства, то гуглить как раз такое слово нужно в комбинации с questions и ещё несколькими ключевыми.
Иногда ролевая игра-знакомство проводится и в середине или конце курса в форме зачётного урока или серии зачётных бесед, когда учеников разбивают на пары, даётся пара-тройка тем, и нужно в течение 10-15 минут поддерживать беседу в русле темы.
На уровнях, что повыше, можно играть в small talk практически бесконечно. Игра называется the hot buttons game (что-то вроде «нажми нужную кнопку». Суть игры в том, что
2. 1-2 полуторачасовых урока посвящают сочинению вопросов, чтобы по каждой теме у каждого было штук 5-10
Сочинять вопросы можно индивидуально или в маленьких группах, можно на дом задать – суть в том, чтобы не учитель выдал всё, а ученики сами проявили инициативу и собрали общими силами водну кучу вопросы, которые им по данным темам реально может придётся задавать или отвечать, т.е. практическую ценность должны вопросы представлять, а не чисто для галочки в безличной форме. В этом смысле бывает полезно привлечь и родной язык, так как могут встречаться вопросы, которые человек на английском сформулировать не может, а потому даже и не заикается о них, так как уровень не позволяет или словарный запас спросить, а ошибку сделать боиться, и в итоге в закромах все идеи пыляться дальше.
3. когда банк вопросов создан, начинается серия практических занятий.
3.1 на карточках пишутся темы, можно сделать два комплекта, чтобы каждая тема повторялась дважды
3.2 затем каждый ученик берёт себе энное количество карточек, обычно штуки 3-4. Эти темы становятся его hot buttons – темами, на которые он готов говорить часами. Все остальные темы его «не интересуют»
3.3 а далее практика – ученики делятся на пары-тройки и приступают к small talk.
Если язык не подвешен, то можно сделать из карточек с темами ещё несколько колод карт, которые кладутся на стол или аго аналог посередине каждой группы. Берут первую карточку и приступают к обсуждению темы, что на ней написана. Каждые 4-7 минут тема меняется. Либо учитель следит за часами, либо песочные часы задействуют – как песок вытечет – тему меняют.
3.4 в ходе беседы общее правило такое, что на темы, что у вас hot buttons Вы даёте длинные, развёрнутые ответы, а на все остальные в ответах обходитесь малой кровью, коротенькими ответами, но не скатываетесь при этом до откровенного грубиянства в виде однословных ответов.
3.5 целью официально является угадать, у кого какие hot buttons, а неофициально – просто попрактиковаться в устной речи
3.6 так как тем много, то можно так играть десятки уроков напролёт. Вам каждый раз будут попадаться другие hot buttons, и если в группе человек 8-10, то удастся поговорить о разном с разными людьми, меняя каждый урок собеседников и доминантные темы. Вопросы по мере взросления игры будут появляться новые, и банк вопросов будет постоянно расти.
3.7 роль учителя сведётся при этом к мониторингу – подслушиванию того, что говорят, конспектированию ошибок и предоставлению обратной связи по наиболее значимым пунктам. Также учитель рекомендует всевозможные клише для разных речевых ситуаций, например, что сказать, когда нет идей, надо подумать, не очень понятно, нужно, чтобы повторили или перефразировали, как привести пример и т.п. Конечно, естественности стопроцентной при таком общении быть не может, как и вообще в учебной обстановке, когда хотят feedback, но для практики с целью закрепить то, что много лет из пустого в порожнее поодиночке – самое то.
Такую игру в small talk проводила со своей очной advanced группой по бизнес-английскому – была она одна из любимых. Особенно нравилось ученикам самостоятельно дополнять копилку с темами и вопросами, добавляя каждый урок что-то новое, из пришедшего в голову с конца предыдущего урока на работе или дома. Не секрет, что в ряде случаев проблемой является не столько то, как ответить на вопрос, а то, как задать свой, а также вообще с тем, что сказать или спросить по теме, и вот эта threaded activity с задачей справляется на все 100%.
First Lessons: Ten GTKY Ideas
You are probably wondering what on earth “GTKY” means. Well, put simply, it means “Get To Know You”. You usually teach your first lessons with similar activities so that you can get to know your students. Nevertheless, every teacher, whether they are young learner teachers or adult teachers, have to deal with the fact that they are going to be meeting some new students on a regular occasion. I don’t know about you, but for me I feel slightly nervous when meeting a new class of students and I usually have several thoughts running through my head during this time: “Will these students like my lessons?”, “I wonder what the students are going to be like.”, “What lessons will my students respond to?”, etc. This post looks at ten lesson ideas to instantly develop rapport, learn more about your students as well as help you relax in first lessons.
1. True or False?
This is one of my favourite activities that I like to start with my first lessons. I write up three sentences up on the whiteboard about myself and usually in this order:
I get students to discuss in pairs/small groups which sentences they think are true and which is false. I mention that there is only one false sentence whilst there are two true sentences about myself. I almost always write the false sentence about my age as I like to hear how young, but mostly, how old the students believe I am. It is always nice to hear that students believe that I am 30 years old but I try to forget those thoughts that some students think that I am much older.
This is a wonderful little activity you can do first to the students and generates great rapport with all in the classroom. After demonstrating the activity, you could get students to create their own true or false sentences about themselves. Students love for you to learn a bit more about them as well.
2. Student Posters (Young Learners)
If you are teaching young learners, then you could get students to create a poster about themselves. I usually demonstrate about myself with the learners and bring in a prepared poster with my name on the top on the A4 piece of paper and then other pieces of information. I show this to all the students and ask students to create their own posters about themselves. This art activity is really not suitable for adult learners so I would recommend that you don’t do this with them. Additional information you may wish for students to add could be written on the board so that students have a good what they would like write. For example, you could include the following:
Students could also include images with their posters but you could also get students to create a digital version of their poster. If your school has a class set of iPads or a dedicated Computer Room, then you could get students to create their own posters with access to their Facebook, etc. Tablets and laptops will help with the creation of a digitised version of the student posters.
3. Five Fingers
On the whiteboard, draw round your hand. For each finger write down information about interests or alike. For example, you could include the following information for each finger:
Once you have demonstrated the activity on the whiteboard, get students to do the same activity on a spare piece of paper. Get students to trace round their hand and then include information about themselves. Get students to share information about themselves and get them to ask and answer questions. When you are monitoring, you will be able to assess ability, possible language problems to remedy in a future lesson as well as provide some error correction at the end of the lesson.
4. Adjective Names
For this first lesson icebreaker, you will need a small sponge football and obviously some students. It is a wonderful lesson to remember names. Get students to stand in a circle and then pass the ball to a student and say their name but precede it with an adjective that starts with the same letter of the name. For example, with my name “Martin”, you could think of “Magical Martin”. If it is “Julio”, then it could be “Jealous Julio”. It is probably best to explain this via the whiteboard initially. If students have a problem thinking of a suitable adjective, then they have to sit down. The person that remains standing at the end of the activity is the winner. This GTKY activity is a wonderful chance for you to remember names, get the students to think of suitable adjectives as well as have a bit of fun for the first lesson. It is possibly best suited for a strong Pre-Intermediate group of learners.
5. Creative Name Cards
One of the most important things to consider when you are teaching a new class for the week, month or term is learning the names of students. One way is to get students to make their own name cards which could be displayed from their desks and then brought to future classes. If you are anyway as bad as I am with names and faces, it always does help if you have student name cards to hand which you could glance to when you have a sudden moment of uncertainty. To make them a bit more creative, you could ask students to draw things which are important to them (ideas could include numbers of importance, hobbies, family, etc). It is all a good conversational starter and it will prompt learners to share experiences with each other (hopefully in English).
6. Find Somebody Who …
This is possibly the most common get to know you (GTKY) activity which has been used by language teachers the world over. It was used in my university when I started my undergraduate degree. It is simple really and you can create your own worksheet for this. You get students to find out about each other and is best used when learners don’t really know about the other students in the classroom. You can get students to find someone in the class who:
It is very simple and you can collect the worksheets after the activity that could be analysed afterwards so that you can then learn a bit more about your students. A template of this simple activity is attached to this blog post so feel free to download it and incorporate it into future lessons.
7. Who Am I?
This is an interesting activity does require a little preparation but nothing too time consuming. Cut up strips of paper and say to students that they need to write an interesting sentence about themselves: “I have a younger brother and an older sister” and students should not write their name on their strip of paper. It is probably best to tell students to write at least no more than four sentences (with each sentence on a strip of paper). You mix up all the student contributions and then pick one up and read it to the class and students have to guess who wrote the sentence. It is an interesting activity and at the end of it, you could get students to recall anything that they can remember about their peers.
8. The Questions
Have a think about some common questions you usually ask when you meet a person for the first time (What’s your name?, Where are you from?, etc), but before you write anything on the whiteboard try to think of personal information about yourself and write this on the board. This could include the following as an example:
Students then have to guess the questions (correct questions above in brackets) for the answers above and go through the first answer as a demonstration with the whole class together so students are aware what they have to do. Get students to work together in small groups and so that they can check their answers, then work as a whole class and get some suggested questions for the answers and board these up. You could then get students to find out about their partners/small groups with the boarded questions which could prompt them.
9. Classroom Rules
It is always a good opportunity to set the scene for students with rules, particularly for younger learners who are aged between 12 to 16 years of age. This activity is suitable however could be used with any students no matter the age. First you ask students to think of what they “Can” and “Cannot (Can’t)” do in the classroom and split up the board in half. Learners walk up to the board and then write up their own ideas for each section. Common ideas suggested include; “Only speak English”, “No mobile phones”, etc. Once you have a lot of ideas boarded up, you could give the whole class a piece of A3 paper and ask students to create a Classroom Rule Poster which could be stuck up in the classroom and referred to in the future. For example, if students are chatting in their L1, I remind them that they suggested that they should only speak in English and point to the poster. It is a reminder and less authoritarian in its application as all ideas come from the students in the first lesson.
10. Guess Who We Were?
The final GTKY lesson idea is probably one of the best if you are able to organise it effectively. This first lesson idea has been done in our school before with our young learner classes. It does require a little preparation and you do need some access to photos which could be scanned but with most teachers being on Facebook, you have access to half the material required (hopefully). First ask all teachers/staff to bring in a really old photo of themselves as a baby or young child and a recent photo. Scan these photos and create a worksheet where students have to match the corresponding photo of the baby/child to the more recent photograph. Students work in groups and coordinate together. It is a fun activity which is aimed at relaxing students in the classroom and you could extend it by getting students to create a similar worksheet or presentation and getting the teacher to guess which photo is connected to the student in the classroom.
What are your favourite get to know you activities? Do you have a different first lesson warmer/icebreaker? Have you tried any of the lesson ideas suggested and how was it?
85 GTKY activities 😮
September is here. Very soon, you’ll be teaching online, face to face or a combination of both, the so-called hybrid classes.
20 ideas shared by Futurelearn course participants!
I’ve recently joined a British Council online course on Teaching Young learners online. It’s been more helpful than I thought. This is the link to join the course. Week one focuses on meaningful interaction, week two on content and differentiation, and week three on assessment.
The best thing about these asynchronous courses is that you read a lot of interesting responses in the forum and bookmark tons of useful sites!
One of the forum tasks was to share ideas for GKTY games. I came across so many fun activities that I’d like to share with you! Here’s the top 20!
1. Elizaveta Likhodey – Instagram Icebreaker
Give the group time to go through their Instagram, or chosen social media account, to choose one photo that they feel best represents themselves and share it with the group or a smaller group.
2. Regina Pretto – An Important Number
Each student says/shows, in written form, an important number to them. The others try to guess why those numbers are important to their classmates.
3. Mareme Sarr – Two minutes talk
I model the task in the main session to ensure students have a clear understanding of the task and then put them in breakout-rooms to share personal information.Then I join rooms to check flow of task.
When they finish we all come back to the main session and each student will share what they found out about their partner.
4. Flora Porto – Raise your hand if…
I ask a series of yes/no questions. Students answer by raising their hand or making a funny sound (if they’re YL) and then they go to breakout rooms so they can expand the conversation and talk about the things they have in common. It’s super simple, engaging and requires no further preparation. The questions should vary according to your students’ level. Be creative and you’ll be sure to have fun!
Support: It’s a good idea to model the “expansion moment” so they know what to do when in the breakout room. For example:
The command is: Raise your hand if you have a pet.
You could ask one of the students who raised their hand ” Oh, so you have a pet! Is it a dog? What’s your dog’s name? Did you choose the name?…” And that should be enough.
5. Hollie Moore – Show and tell
A really good, ”get to know you” activity which I use many times in class for young learners is: ”Show and tell”, it can be about anything but usually this is about their favorite toy and they show me the toy and describe it to me. Then I show them my toy (a bear or puppet) and our toys talk to each other. This really helps them to feel comfortable in class and they like to talk about themselves and their toys. Also they like to learn about me too!
Rachel Tsateri – 2 ideas!
6) Pizza slices
I like using this with my young learners! Here’s how:
I draw a circle and tell them this is my life pizza. Then I draw uneven slices. In each slice I draw myself doing something, e.g. reading a book, or travelling. The size of the slice depends on how much time I spend on the activity. I ask them to do the same about themselves and then they talk about their “pizzas”. Sometimes I call it my “summer pizza” and I ask them to draw how they spent their summer. I’m no artist as you can see! The funnier the better! Young learners really like it!
If you like my pizza, feel free to download it!
7) Me as a..
Write the following phrases on the whiteboard. Students choose one or more of these prompts and describe themselves with adjectives or sentences, depending on their level.
Me as sister/ brother
Me as a husband/wife
Me as a daughter/ son
Me as a boss/colleague
Me as a boyfriend/girlfriend
8. Hajer Elkawafi -Would you rather …
Before I even see my Ss I am always given a list of their names at work. So, I make a table with their names in one column and Would You Rather questions in one row.
When Ss join the lesson I greet them, tell them my name and a fun fact about me and I ask them to do the same. Afterwards, I show them the table and we play Would You Rather and Ss write A or B according to their answer. That way Ss can spot others who share the same interests and I get to know them too!
Maria Elena Ortega – 2 ideas!
9) My life in pictures : I choose 5 pictures showing different moments of my life that I would like to share with my students: (my family, my dog, a picture cooking, my flight to Chile, a classroom), and I ask them to choose 5 pictures from the web or personal pictures from one of their social media accounts that tells us about their life and then ask them to talk about them.
I usually help them with pronunciation using the past tense for regular verbs or do a quick review on the pronunciation.
Rachel’s tip: Why not create a collage on Canva?
10) My timeline up to now marking 4 important dates/years/achievements. Students work in pairs. They take turns asking their partner questions to find out what happened.
Rachel’s tip: Why not use the padlet timeline template and upload your pictures or add google images?
11) Saima Abed – quadrant
Part A: Introduce yourself by following the instructions.
Draw four images (rough sketches) that symbolize your achievements; your values; your leisure-hour activities or anything that you want to share with your peers.
Variation: You may write one word (ONLY) or add clip art images instead of drawing pictures.
Paste the quadrant by replying to this post.
Part B: Respond to your peers.
Comment on TWO peers’ quadrant to guess what each image or word describes.
12) Martha Estela Anaya – spin the wheel
As an icebreaker, I prepare a digital spinning wheel with personal questions that Ss have to answer. I explain how to spin the wheel and model 1-2 questions. Then I share the link to the spinning wheel in the chat so that every student can use it. If the question was already answered, the Ss will spin it again.
13) Elizabeth Sanes – Sharing my talent
I asked my students to share something they can do well, make a video and tell us how long, why, where they do that activity; for example, nobody knew that some students could play different instruments, practise different sports, draw, cook, have different pets, make jewellery, etc. Then, we watched all the videos. Now they know each other more.
Rachel’s tip: Why not do this on Flipgrid ?
14) Margarita Baldenegro – Awesome vacations!
The teacher will first model what they’ll have to do by sharing his/her own vacation picture/s, describing: Where did you go? With whom? What did you do? What was your favorite thing about it?
Students are taught vocabulary and grammar structures for it, then they’re asked to make their own presentation.
In groups, they share their pictures and talk about their vacations. Then, they do the same in open class.
15) Erick Agira – padlet
I create a padlet with “add column” feature and add columns for myself and every student. Then, I aks them to write about themselves in their columns, followed by reading and commenting on everyone’s post. I write about myself first, to give them an idea of what’s expected but I allow them to write whatever they want us to know about them.
Who am I? What are my dis/likes? What are my hobbies? Do I like group work, videos, research, worksheets, reading documents?
Do I like leading a group or just being a member? What are my expectations?
During the lesson, we read and comment on each student’s post.
16) Joe P – souvenirs
I did one with souvenirs you’ve bought on holiday. They had to ask where they bought them and why and then that led to a discussion of the places they visited.
A similar show and tell involved showing an item that you use in a festival your family celebrates.
17) Christian Lutsch – a picture of something
I found this activity online: I would like to try it as a warm up with my 12-to-13-year-olds when we start school next autumn:
1. Ask participants to take a picture of something.
Typically, you choose a specific theme. For example, ask participants to take a picture of their shoes, or a picture of something that is on their workstation or the view outside their window.
Remember to ask participants to take the picture and upload it before the training session starts, as otherwise it might take too much time out of the training session if they were to do it in real time.
2. Ask participants to share the picture on a virtual board.
3. Start a discussion. For example, you could ask why they chose that particular item on their desk, or what they like the most about the view they can see from the window etc.
18) Leury Mella – Acrostics
For learners 6-9 I asked them to write their names down vertically, brainstorm words or phrases that describe them using the first letter of each line. They can also write a short story using the vocabulary or just a few sentences and present it to the whole class.
Rachel’s example:
Reliable
Admires multilingual people!
Creative
Helpful
Eats a lot!
Loves travelling
19) Joshua James – for Business English
I have been teaching business, so what students could do as a way of introduction would be to identify a business person who they most identify with or admire and to explain why. Other students could then think of questions they would want to ask that business person and the student would have to try to guess what the business person’s answer might be.
20) Erica Mejicano – ‘Same and Different’
1. Split students into groups of 3 or more and send them to breakout rooms.
2. Ask each group to make a list of all the interesting things that they have in common (ask them to avoid obvious things, such as all being men or women) and something unique about each participant. They can write on the wb or add virtual sticky notes. They will have 5 minutes for this task.
3. Then, ask each group to share their list with the rest of the class.
Rachel’s tip: Why not do this on Google Jamboard?
Free Templates from Twinkle Resources !
Many thanks to Twinkl Resources for generously sharing 4 great templates! Exclusively for readers of The TEFL Zone!
Download the templates here:
If you have any questions about how to use them, you can contact Miranda Crowhurst here: https://www.twinkl.es/contact-us.
4 blogs with great GTKY ideas:
Looking for an original find someone who, full of useful lexical chunks? Leo Selivan has shared a great one on his blog along with 3 more back-to-school activities.
I hope you find something you can use. Feel free to add your ideas in the comments!
